afforded a guarantee for the rights and liberties of the subject, and for the due administration of justice.

History informs us that the Norman Conquest produced a complete change and revolution in the affairs of this kingdom. We are told that the ancient fabric of Saxon legislation was almost wholly overthrown by the Conqueror. His government at the outset was mild, but he soon found pretexts for seizing the conquered territory by degrees into his own hands, and distributed the greater portion of it amongst his Norman followers, as the reward of their past services, and as a means of permanently securing their future support for himself and his successors. He also arrogated to himself legislative as well as judicial power, and trampled under foot those laws and customs which he found in existence, and which at the outset policy had taught him to respect. The vanquished AngloSaxons of every rank became the mere passive objects of the Conqueror's caprice: subject to the influence of a military despotism, they had no rights but such as their absolute ruler chose to accord them. Taxes, too, were arbitrarily imposed, and were levied by corrupt judges, who not uncommonly made traffic of the justice which they should have dealt impartially to all; so that between judicial cupidity and arbitrary power the rights and liberties of the people were systematically crushed, if they did not become utterly extinguished. Accordingly we cannot wonder that the people, prostrate and paralysed under the influence of the Conqueror's régime, lost all power of active or effectual resistance. Their attempts to throw off the victor's yoke had been attended with such signal defeat and with retribution so severe and unrelenting, that their spirits at length were broken, and their energies exhausted. The old Saxon English found themselves strangers in their own land, their homes plundered, their lands confiscated and given over as booty to their new master and his adherents; themselves stripped of their honours, offices, and dignities; their customs

proscribed, their laws abolished, and the high places which they once held in the State now filled by their victorious enemies. The Normans became lords of the soil, while the Saxons were almost reduced to the condition of serfs. We are told that such of the English as held offices of trust or honour were deprived of them without form or ceremony; that Bishops and Abbots of English birth were successively deposed; and that for a hundred years after the Conquest none of the English of Saxon race were raised to any dignity in the Church or State. The English nobles, too, were forced to seek refuge in foreign lands, until the name of an Englishman at length became a byword, and the English language a mark of inferiority for those who used it as their mother tongue.

But the tide of affairs was eventually destined to turn. It was not the native English alone who suffered oppression at the hands of the Conqueror and his successors; the haughty Barons themselves, who had won for William of Normandy his crown, were in their turn made to feel the weight of that power which they had created, and which their former leader now wielded with absolute sway. The King established a court called the "Aula Regis," which was held in his own palace, and over which he presided in person. This court followed the King from place to place; it heard and gave final judgment upon all appeals from the courts of the Barons, and the Barons themselves were liable to be cited before this tribunal, as well to answer any charge which the King might bring against them as to compose any feuds that might arise amongst themselves.

It was but a natural result of the constitution of this court -which for the most part was composed of the creatures and favourites of the King-that the Barons were held in a certain degree of awe and submission. Their haughty minds, however, could ill brook the restraints thus imposed upon them, and accordingly a spirit of opposition and of active resistance to the iron

rule of the Conqueror was the eventual result. The Great Barons who were the immediate tenants of the Crown possessed then, as well as in subsequent times, considerable power in the State. Their number exceeded six hundred. Within their several spheres they exercised the authority of petty sovereigns; the King they regarded more as a chief than as master; and as many, if not all of them, held seats in the Great Council, they possessed considerable influence in the direction of public affairs. In many respects, indeed, they were as independent as the King himself: like him they owed their fortunes to their own swords, and, although they were bound in time of war to render military service for their lands, yet this service offered a field for personal distinction in the career of arms most grateful to the warlike spirit of the age. The isolated position of the Barons, however, their personal feuds and rivalries, and the want of frequent intercourse amongst themselves, enabled the King to oppress them individually, from time to time, with impunity. Such were the relationships in which the King and the Barons stood towards each other about the end of the Conqueror's reign, and, indeed, during the century that followed.

Previously to the establishment of the House of Commons, the Great Council of the kingdom-which was sometimes called "Curia de More," "Curia Regis," "Commune Concilium," or "Commune Concilium Regni "-was composed of Lords Spiritual and Temporal, namely, of Barons, who were summoned by virtue of their tenure, as holding in capite of the King, and of Bishops and Heads of Religious Houses, whose tenure was in chief of the Crown; but it is probable that ecclesiastical dignitaries were called to this Council as well on account of their clerical character as by reason of their tenure.

Considerable difference of opinion has at all times existed among jurists and antiquaries as to the peculiar nature and

extent of the privileges conferred by particular modes of tenure, and as to the right by which Barons were summoned to the Great Council of the nation. We are probably justified, however, in assuming that before the time of Edward I. the chief Barons were convoked by writs issued immediately by the Crown, and that the lesser Barons were called by general notice from the sheriffs. When assembled, they all sat in one common hall or chamber, but it is by no means easy to determine what their respective functions were, or whether they debated and voted together on terms of perfect equality. Some high authorities maintain that this assembly formed as real and complete a Parliament as has ever been held in England, while others consider it to have been merely a Privy Council, entirely dependent on the King, by whom it was called together two or three times a year to deliberate upon the affairs of the kingdom.

The King, conjointly with this assembly, or rather perhaps with the advice and assistance of this body as his counsellors, exercised the legislative function; but to what extent he had the right of independent action, or how far his prerogatives were carried, are points which do not appear to have been accurately determined. Neither do we know with certainty whether the Great Council had or had not the right of initiating measures or of framing laws, subject, as in modern times, to the sanction and approval of the King. Indeed Guizot tells us that "it is in vain to seek the limits of these assemblies, for at that time (by which he means the period antecedent to Edward I.) "no power was fixed or determined." It seems to be certain, however, that the Great Council deliberated upon all questions whatever of a public nature: upon ecclesiastical matters; upon questions of peace and war; upon extraordinary taxes; upon the succession to the Crown; upon the administration of justice and the domestic affairs of the King; in a word, upon the interests of the kingdom at large,

both in its internal and external relationships. But it is equally certain that the King arbitrarily imposed taxes and aids, levied import and export duties on merchandise, and inflicted penalties and exacted fines, without in any way consulting his Great Council. It is evident too, from the Patent Rolls, that in various transactions of this kind the King was in the constant habit of making corrupt bargains with his subjects, and of converting his "favours," and even "justice" itself, into marketable commodities. Virtually therefore the King, in early times, exercised a species of absolute and irresponsible power; although we can scarcely suppose that when he assembled his Council for the consideration of public affairs he acted in direct opposition to its resolutions. Sometimes, indeed, the Great Council seemed to exercise the chief power not only in the legislature, but even in the general administration; yet, on the other hand, we find the royal prerogatives exercised in a manner as absolute and arbitrary as if no assembly existed, and as if these prerogatives knew neither limit nor control.

Accordingly the Barons, after having been exposed for more than a century to the vexatious oppressions of the Conqueror and his successors, at length resolved to unite in their own defence and take active measures for resisting the arbitrary encroachments of the King, and for obtaining from him certain specific acknowledgments which should define their own rights and privileges and those of the people at large, and which should at the same time set a limit to the royal prerogatives. Hence it is to the Barons-with whom are included the Bishops and Abbots-that we are indebted for the establishment of those great fundamental principles on which the superstructure of our constitutional rights and privileges was afterwards raised.

The struggles between the King and his Barons had been revived from time to time with increasing fierceness, until they