communities or corporations of cities which we have mentioned as a consequence of the crusades, began, under Philip the Fair of France, to be admitted among the states-general, and by degrees, acquired weight and importance in the nation. Till then, there had been but two orders in the state, the nobility and the clergy. Philip the Fair summoned the third estate to the general assemblies, and established a standing court of judicature, by the name of Parliament; and his successor, Philip the Long, excluded the clergy from assisting in those assemblies, in which, at their first institution they presided. At this time, and long after, the parliament of Paris was nothing else than a supreme court of justice.

It were an object of some importance if we could ascertain what was the precise nature or constitution of the parliament of England at the period of which we now treat; but this is a subject involved in considerable doubt and obscurity.

It is certain that we may regard the Saxon Wittenagemot as the rude model of a parliament; but it is absurd to carry this notion so far as to find in that ancient assembly any thing approaching to the present constitution of England in its three distinct branches of King, Lords, and Commons. We have no good reasons for believing that the commons had in those days a share in the government of any of the European nations, nor till long after that age. If such ideas had existed before the feudal times, that system put an entire stop to them. According to the early feudal ideas, the commons were considered in a very abject and despicable light. Under the first princes of the Norman line, the supreme legislative power of England was lodged in the king and the great council, which was composed of the higher clergy and the barons. The prelates sat both as clergy by ancient usage in all the feudal kingdoms, and likewise by their right of baronage, as holding lands from the king, by the military tenure of furnishing men for his wars. The barons were the immediate vassals of the crown, and the most honorable members of the state. They owed their attendance in the court of their lord as a service, for which they held their possessions; and they were subjected to penalties in case of refusal. The crown had likewise other military vassals, the tenants in capite, by knight's service. These were likewise of a very honorable rank, though inferior in power and property to the barons. But though admitted to the general councils, they were not, it is probable, obliged to attendance by any penalty.

So far, there is no doubt as to the members of this general council. The only question is with regard to the commons, or the representatives of counties and boroughs; and this has been keenly agitated by the political parties even of modern times. It is surely enough that we enjoy a high measure of civil liberty at present let us be grateful for it, and respect that constitution which bestows it on us. Yet there are those who seem to think 23

VOL. II.

it an impeachment of their present liberty that their progenitors, eight hundred years ago, could not boast of the same freedom. But history must always shock violent prejudices; and the best informed historians have agreed that the commons were no part of the great council till a long period after the Conquest, and that the military tenants alone of the crown composed that supreme and legislative assembly. All the ancient English historians, when they mention the great council of the nation, call it an assembly of the baronage, nobility, or great men; and none of their expressions can, without the utmost violence, admit of a meaning which will favor the supposition of the commons making any part of that body. But the most certain proof of all arises from the Magna Charta, which enumerates the prelates and immediate tenants of the crown as entitled to a seat in the general council, without the smallest mention of any others; and we have already remarked, in mentioning the particulars contained in the Magna Charta, that most of the stipulations were calculated to enlarge and serve the privileges of the higher orders, with very little regard to the great body of the people. In those times, men were little solicitous to obtain a place in legislative assemblies, and rather regarded their attendance as a burden than a privilege. Besides, by what rule was the people to be assembled? There was no idea of a delegated power in those days, or of the nature of representation: it was a notion too refined for the age. The truth is, and we shall be convinced of it upon reflection, that high sentiments of liberty cannot arise in the minds of a barbarous people, but are the cultivated and fostered fruits of refinement and civilization.

Besides this great council of the clergy and barons, the AngloNorman kings had their privy council, who were chosen by the king himself among his nobles, to assist him with their advice. It is asserted by Spelman as an undoubted truth, that during the reigns of the first Norman princes, every edict of the king, with the consent of his privy council, had the full force of law. But it is not probable that the barons were so passive as to entrust a power entirely arbitrary and despotic into the hands of the sovereign. All that we may conclude is, that the constitution had not fixed any precise boundaries to the regal authority, and that the prince frequently asserted such powers of prerogative as might be in the main repugnant to strict right, and what his barons might have compelled him to observe. The arbitrary exertions of John are surely no rule for judging of what was then the constitution; for even the reformation by the Magna Charta can be less considered as the conferring of new rights on the barons, than the reestablishment and security of their ancient ones.

The spirit of the popedom, ever arrogant and extending its prerogatives, continued during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries much the same as we have seen it in the time preceding. Boniface VIII., elected pope in the year 1294, was one of the

most assuming prelates that ever filled the pontifical chair; yet he found in Philip the Fair of France, a man determined to humble his pride and arrogance. Philip resolved to make the clergy of his kingdom bear their proportion in furnishing the public supplies, as well as the other orders of the state. The pope resented this as an extreme indignity offered to the church, and issued his pontifical bull commanding all the bishops of France to repair immediately to Rome. Philip ordered the bull to be thrown into the fire, and strictly prohibited any of his bishops from stirring out of the kingdom. He repaired, however, himself to Rome, and threw the pope into prison; but being soon after obliged to quit Italy, Boniface regained his liberty.

The conduct of Philip in another affair which happened soon after, is not so justifiable as his behavior to the pope.

The Knights Templars, who had their rise in the holy wars, had acquired very great fortunes in those enterprises, and while they lived in splendor and in the most unlimited indulgence of their pleasures, their arrogance and their vices excited a general detestation of their order. The chief cause, however, of the resentment of Philip against this order of knights was probably their being concerned in a sedition, which arose on account of the debasement of the coin of the kingdom. The ostensible grounds of their accusation, and for which they were tried, were certain charges of impiety and idolatry, joined to some indecent practices in the admission of novices into their order. Clement V., who paid Philip implicit deference, issued his bulls to all the princes of Europe, to excite them to extirpate all the knights templars in their dominions, and they were complied with in Spain and in Sicily. They were rejected, indeed, by the English, who sent back the most ample testimony of the piety and good morals of this military order. The consequence, however, was, that in the continental kingdoms, these unfortunate men were put to the most cruel tortures, and finally committed to the flames. This abominable transaction has branded the memory of Philip the Fair with the character of a cruel and detestable tyrant, whatever may have been his wisdom, his spirit, and his political abilities.

Another remarkable event happened at this time, which does more honor to human nature, and is more agreeable to the pen of history to record. This was the revolution of Switzerland, and the rise of the Helvetic republic; the glorious and successful struggle for liberty and independence against tyranny and despotism. It has been mentioned, that Rodolph of Hapsburg, the founder of the house of Austria, possessed, by inheritance, some territories in Switzerland, and that several of the cantons had,

*Boniface, in his bull, styling himself, "Dominus totius mundi, tam in temporalibus quam in spiritualibus," Philip thus answered him, "Sciat tua maxima fatuitas, nos in temporalibus alicui non subesse."

from their high opinion of his military and political talents, placed themselves under his protection. The three cantons of Unterwald, Sweitz, and Uri, however, do not seem at any time to have acknowledged a dependence on the house of Austria. Albert, the son and successor of Rodolph, was desirous of subjugating the whole cantons, and erecting them into a principality for one of his children. In this view, he endeavored at first to persuade them to submit voluntarily to his dominion, but finding them tenacious of their liberties, he, with a very injudicious policy, attempted to force them to submission by sending among them viceroys, who exercísed every species of the most insolent and tyrannical oppression. They were plundered, taxed, fined, imprisoned, and even put to death without form of law; and in a word, they groaned under all the miseries flowing from despotic power and barbarity. In this miserable situation they had no prospect of relief but in their own courage, and they began secretly to concert measures for delivering them from the tyranny of the Austrian government. Three country gentlemen, whose names were Stauffach, Furst, and Meletald, are said to have been the chiefs of the conspiracy, and to have brought the three cantons of Sweitz, Uri, and Unterwald, to a determined purpose of shaking off the yoke of their oppressors. The story of William Tell has much the air of romance: it is, however, pretty well authenticated. The governor of Uri, a detestable tyrant, is said to have fixed his hat upon a pole in the market-place, with a strict injunction that all who passed should render obeisance to this symbol of dignity. Tell, who refused to pay this homage to the hat, was condeinned to be hanged, but received his pardon, on condition of his hitting with an arrow an apple which was placed upon his son's head. The father, fortunately, struck off the apple; but had reserved a second arrow for the governor, in case he had killed his son. This inhuman act of tyranny is said to have been the first alarm to a general revolt of the people, who immediately flew to arms and demolished all the fortresses in the province. Leopold, arch-duke of Austria, marched against the insurgents with 20,000 men. The Swiss fought to the greatest advantage, by keeping to the rocky and inaccessible parts of the country. A small body, of 400 or 500 men, defeated the greatest part of this immense army in the pass of Morgarten: a defile which is said very much to resemble that at Thermopyla, where the Lacedæmonians fought with less good fortune against the Persians. The rest of the cantons, encouraged by this success, joined the confederacy by degrees. The victory of Morgarten was gained in the year 1315. Bern, which is considered as the principal of the united cantons, did not enter into the alliance till 1352; and it was not till near two centuries after, that the last of the cantons joined the rest, which completed the number thirteen. The Swiss fought with great perseverance,

and won their liberty extremely dear. They had no less than sixty pitched battles with the Austrians, and they have retained to this day that independence which they have so well merited.

The thirteen towns, or cantons, which properly constitute the Swiss or Helvetic republic were united by a reciprocal convention, of which the chief article relates to the mutual succors and assistance to be furnished to any of the confederated states as should suffer from foreign attack or violence. The proportion of these succors was minutely stipulated. was minutely stipulated. Another article of the convention stipulated the procedure in accommodating all domestic differences between the several cantons. Each of the cantons was, in all matters that regard not the national confederacy, an independent state. The form of government in the several states was very various. It was in some monarchical, in others aristocratical, and in others again democratical. In the monarchical states, some of the princes of the Germanic body were the sovereigns, as the bishop of Basle, and the abbot of St. Gall. Thus each state had its own form of government, and was regulated by its own particular laws, which it had an unlimited power of framing and of altering, and of modelling its own constitution. All affairs relating to the united confederacy were transacted either by letters or congresses. Letters from foreign powers to the whole confederacy were sent to the town of Zürich, and any proposal or notification from a town or canton, intended for general deliberation, was likewise transinitted thither, from whence it was officially circulated to all the other cantons, who either returned their opinion by letter, or if the matter was doubtful or of great importance, appointed a conference to be held by two deputies from each of the states,- -on which occasions a deputy of Zürich sat as president of the assembly.

Thus the whole Helvetic body consisted properly of thirteen distinct, independent, and free republics, united by convention for their mutual security and protection. The Helvetic body, for more than six centuries, supported itself in à respectable state of independence; made war, concluded treaties, modelled its own constitution, enacted laws and ordinances, both in affairs civil and ecclesiastical, and exercised all the various powers of sovereignty. Under the freedom of these republican constitutions, the country of Switzerland came to be wonderfully improved. Where the lands are naturally fertile, and happily situated, they have been cultivated with the utmost skill and success; where nature has denied its advantages, art has amply supplied them. The produce of the country consists in corn, wine, oil, silk, and flax; and of the two last commodities, vast quantities are purchased from other neighboring quarters, which the Swiss employ themselves in manufacturing. The situation of Switzerland, bounded as it is by Germany, Italy, and France, affords great convenience for the sale and dispersion of these manufactures; and there is a