branches of the feudal subordination, thus continued DE LOLME. to flow through successive homogeneous channels; it forced a passage into the remotest ramifications; and the principle of primeval equality became every where diffused and established: a sacred principle, which neither injustice nor ambition can erase; which exists in every breast, and to exert itself, requires only to be awakened among the numerous and oppressed classes of mankind!

caused the union

of the lord and

the vassal.

But when the barons, whom their personal conse- Oppression quence had, at first, caused to be treated with caution and regard by the sovereign, began to be no longer so, -when the tyrannical laws of the Conqueror became still more tyrannically executed',-the confederacy, for which the general oppression had paved the way, instantly took place. The lord, the vassal, the inferior vassal, all united. They even implored the assistance of the peasants and cottagers; and the haughty aversion with which on the Continent the nobility repaid the industrious hands that fed them, was, in England, compelled to yield to the pressing necessity of setting bounds to the royal authority.

The people, on the other hand, knew that the cause they were called upon to defend, was a cause common to all; and they were sensible, besides, that they were the necessary supporters of it. Instructed by the example of their leaders, they spoke and stipulated conditions for themselves: they insisted that, for the future, every individual should be entitled to the protection of the law; and thus did those rights, with which the lords had strengthened themselves, in order to oppose the tyranny of the crown, become a bulwark which was in time to restrain their own.

The people stipu for themselves.

lated conditions

VOL. II.

7 Vide ante, 26-29.

2

DE LOLME.

The reign of Henry I.

Rigour of the

feudal laws mitigated.

Advances of liberty under Henry II.

CHAPTER II.

A second Advantage England had over France :-it formed one undivided State.

IT was in the reign of Henry I., about forty years after the conquest, that we see the above causes begin to operate. This prince, having ascended the throne to the exclusion of his elder brother, was sensible that he had no other means to maintain his power, than by gaining the affection of his subjects; but, at the same time, he perceived that it must be the affection of the whole nation: he, therefore, not only mitigated the rigour of the feudal laws in favour of the lords, but also annexed, as a condition to the charter he granted, that the lords should allow the same freedom to their respective vassals. Care was even taken to abolish those laws of the Conqueror which lay heaviest on the lower classes of the people* '.

Under Henry II., liberty took a farther stride; and the ancient trial by jury, a mode of procedure which is at present one of the most valuable parts of the English law, made again, though imperfectly, its appearance*.

Amongst others, the law of the Curfeu.-It might be matter of curious discussion, to inquire what the Anglo-Saxon government would in process of time have become, and, of course, the government of England be at the present time, if the event of the conquest had never taken place; which, by conferring an immense as well as unusual power on the head of the feudal system, compelled the nobility to contract a lasting and sincere union with the people. It is very probable that the English government would at this day be the same as that which long prevailed in Scotland (where the king and nobles engrossed, jointly or by turns, the whole power of the state); the same as in Sweden, the same as in Denmark,countries whence the Anglo-Saxons came.

ment of John.

But these causes, which had worked but silently and DE LOLME. slowly under the two Henries, who were princes in some degree just, and of great capacity, manifested themselves at once under the despotic reign of King Despotic governJohn. The royal prerogative, and the forest laws, having been exerted by this prince to a degree of excessive severity, he soon beheld a general confederacy formed against him:-and here we must observe another circumstance, highly advantageous, as well as peculiar, to England.

England was not, like France, an aggregation of a number of different sovereignties: it formed but one state, and acknowledged but one master, one general title. The same laws, the same kind of dependance, consequently the same notions, the same interests, prevailed throughout the whole. The extremities of the kingdom could, at all times, unite to give a check to the exertions of an unjust power. From the river Tweed to Portsmouth, from Yarmouth to the Land's End, all was in motion: the agitation increased from the distance, like the rolling waves of an extensive sea; and the monarch, left to himself, and destitute of resources, saw himself attacked on all sides by an universal combination of his subjects.

England acone master; gation of sove

knowledged but

France an aggre

reignties.

John compelled self to the dis

to submit him

posal of his sub

No sooner was the standard set up against John, than his very courtiers forsook him. In this situation, finding no part of his kingdom less irritated against jects. him than another, having no detached province which he could engage in his defence by promises of pardon or of peculiar concessions, the trivial, though neverfailing resources of government, he was compelled, with seven of his attendants, all that remained with him, to submit himself to the disposal of his subjects,

3 Vide ante, 50.

DE LOLME. and he signed at Runimede* the charter of the Forest; together with that famous charter, which, from its superior and extensive importance, is denominated Magna Charta*.

Magna Charta.

Provisions embodied in Magna Charta.

By the former, the most tyrannical parts of the forest laws were abolished; and, by the latter, the rigour of the feudal laws was greatly mitigated in favour of the lords. But this charter did not stop there; conditions were also stipulated in favour of the numerous body of the people who had concurred to obtain it, and who claimed, with sword in hand, a share in that security it was meant to establish. It was hence instituted by the Great Charter, that the same services which were remitted in favour of the barons should be, in like manner, remitted in favour of their vassals. This charter moreover established an equality of weights and measures throughout England; it exempted the merchants from arbitrary imposts, and gave them liberty to enter and depart the kingdom at pleasure: it even extended to the lowest orders of the state, since it enacted, that the villain, or bondman, should not be subject to the forfeiture of his No subject to be implements of tillage. Lastly, by the thirty-ninth article of the same charter, it was enacted, that no subject by the judgment should be exiled, or in any shape whatever molested, either in his person or effects, otherwise than by judgment of his peers, and according to the law of the land; an article so important, that it may be said to

molested, either

in person or

effects, unless

of his peers, and the law of the

land.

Anno 1215.

+ "Nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, vel dissesiatur de libero tenemento suo, vel libertatibus, vel liberis consuetudinibus suis; aut utlagetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur; nec super eum ibimus, nec super eum mittemus, nisi per legale judicium parium suorum, vel per legem terræ. Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus, justitiam vel rectum."-Magna Chart. cap. xxxix.

4 Vide ante, 50-54.

comprehend the whole end and design of political DE LOLMe. societies-and from that moment the English would have been a free people, if there were not an immense distance between the making of laws and the observing of them.

Magna Charta, wards the estabishment of

an advance to

public liberty.

But, though this charter wanted most of those supports which were necessary to ensure respect to it, though it did not secure to the poor and friendless any certain and legal methods of obtaining the execution of it (provisions which numberless transgressions alone could, in process of time, point out);—yet it was a prodigious advance towards the establishment of public liberty. Instead of the general maxims respecting the rights of the people and the duties of the prince (maxims against which ambition perpetually contends, and which it sometimes even openly and absolutely denies), here was substituted a written law; that is, a truth admitted by all parties, which no longer required the support of argument. The rights and privileges of the individual, as well in his person as in his property, became settled axioms. The Great confirmations Charter, at first enacted, with so much solemnity, and afterwards confirmed, at the beginning of every succeeding reign, became, like a general banner, perpetually set up for the union of all classes of the people; and the foundation was laid on which those equitable laws were to rise, which offer the same assistance to the poor and weak, as to the rich and powerful*.

The reader, to be more fully convinced of the reality of the causes to which the liberty of England has been here ascribed, as well of the truth of the observations made at the same time on the situation of the people of France, needs only to compare the Great Charter, so extensive in its provisions, and in which the barons stipulated in favour even of the bondmen, with the treaty concluded at St. Maur, October 29, 1465, between

5 Vide ante, 54-58.

of the Great Charter.