Edward the First-a prince who, from his numerous and prudent laws, has been denominated the English Justinian.

Possessed of great natural talents, and succeeding a prince whose weakness and injustice had rendered his reign unhappy, Edward was sensible that nothing but a strict administration of justice could, on the one side, curb a nobility whom the troubles of the preceding reign had rendered turbulent, and, on the other, appease and conciliate the people, by securing the property of individuals. To this end, he made jurisprudence the principal object of his attention; and so much did it improve under his care, that the mode of process became fixed and settled; Judge Hale going even so far as to affirm, that the English laws arrived at once, et quasi per saltum, at perfection, and that there was more improvement made in them during the first thirteen years of the reign of Edward, than in all the ages since his time.

But what renders this æra particularly interesting, is, that it affords the first instance of the admission of the deputies of towns and boroughs into parliament.*

Edward, continually engaged in wars, either against Scotland or on the continent, seeing moreover his demesnes considerably diminished, was frequently reduced to the most pressing necessities. But though, in consequence of the spirit of the times, he frequently indulged himself in particular

• I mean their legal origin; for the earl of Leicester, who had usurped the power during part of the preceding reign, had called such deputies up to parliament before.

acts of injustice, yet he perceived that it was impossible to extend a general oppression over a body of nobles and a people who so well knew how to unite in a common cause. In order to raise subsidies, therefore, he was obliged to employ a new method, and to endeavour to obtain, through the consent of the people, what his predecessors had hitherto expected from their own power. The sheriffs were ordered to invite the towns and boroughs of the different counties to send deputies to parliament; and it is from this æra that we are to date the origin of the house of commons.

It must be confessed, however, that these deputies of the people were not, at first, possessed of any considerable authority. They were far from enjoying those extensive privileges which, in these days, constitute the house of commons a collateral part of the government: they were in those times called up only to provide for the wants of the king, and approve the resolutions taken by him and the assembly of the lords.+ But it was nevertheless a great point gained, to have obtained the right of

• Anno 1295.

The end mentioned in the summons sent to the lords, was "de arduis negotiis regni tractatur et consilium impensuri:" the requisition sent to the commons was, ad faciendum et consentiendum." The power enjoyed by the latter was even inferior to what they might have expected from the summons sent to them. "In most of the ancient statutes they are not so much as named; and in several, even when they are mentioned, they are distinguished as petitioners merely, the assent of the lords being expressed in contradistinction to the request of the commons."-See on this subject the preface to the Collection of the Statutes at Large, by Ruffhead, and the authorities quoted therein.

uttering their complaints, assembled in a body and in a legal way—to have acquired, instead of a dangerous resource of insurrections, a lawful and regular mean of influencing the motions of the government, and thenceforth to have become a part of it. Whatever disadvantage might attend the station at first allotted to the representatives of the people, it was soon to be compensated by the preponderance the people necessarily acquire, when they are enabled to act and move with method, and especially with concert.*

And indeed this privilege of naming representatives, insignificant as it might then appear, presently manifested itself by the most considerable effects. In spite of his reluctance, and after many evasions unworthy of so great a king, Edward was obliged to confirm the Great Charter; he even confirmed it eleven times in the course of his reign. It was moreover enacted, that whatever should be done contrary to it, should be null and void; that it should be read twice a year in all cathedrals; and that the penalty of excommunication should be de

• France had indeed also her assemblies of the general estates of the kingdom, in the same manner as England had her parliament; but then it was only the deputies of the towns within the particular domain of the crown, that is, for a very small part of the nation, who, under the name of the "third estate," were admitted in those estates; and it is easy to conceive that they acquired no great influence in an assembly of sovereigns who gave the law to their lord paramount. Hence, when these disappeared, the maxim became immediately established, "The will of the king is the will of the law :"-in old French-" Que veut le roy, ce veut la loy.'

nounced against any one who should presume to violate it.*

At length he converted into an established law a privilege of which the English had hitherto had only a precarious enjoyment; and, in the statute de tallagio non concedendo, he decreed, that no tax should be laid, nor impost levied, without the joint consent of the lords and commons. A most important statute this, which, in conjunction with Magna Charta, forms the basis of the English constitution. If from the latter the English are to date the origin of their liberty, from the former they are to date the establishment of it: and as the Great Charter was the bulwark that protected the freedom of individuals, so was the statute in question the engine which protected the charter itself, and by the help of which the people were thenceforth to make legal conquests over the authority of the crown.

This is the period at which we must stop, in order to take a distant view, and contemplate the different prospect which the rest of Europe then presented.

The efficient causes of slavery were daily operating, and gaining strength. The independence of the nobles on the one hand, the ignorance and weakness of the people on the other, continued to be ex

* Confirmationes Chartarum, cap. 2, 3, 4.

† Nullum tallagium vel auxilium, per nos, vel hæredes nostros, in regno nostro ponatur seu levetur, sine voluntate et assensu archiepiscoporum, episcoporum, comitum, baronum, militum, burgensium, et aliorum liberorum hominum de regno nostro.-Stat. an. 24 Ed. I.

treme: the feudal government still continued to diffuse oppression and misery; and such was the confusion of it, that it even took away all hopes of amendment.

France, still bleeding from the extravagance of a nobility incessantly engaged in groundless wars, either with each other or with the king, was again desolated by the tyranny of that same nobility, haughtily jealous of their liberty, or rather of their anarchy.* The people, oppressed by those who ought to have guided and protected them, loaded with insults by those who existed by their labour, revolted on all sides. But their tumultuous insurrections had scarcely any other object than that of giving vent to the anguish with which their hearts were filled. They had no thoughts of entering into a general combination; still less of changing the form of the government, and laying a regular plan of public liberty.

Having never extended their views beyond the fields they cultivated, they had no conception of those different ranks and orders of men, of those distinct and opposite privileges and prerogatives, which are all necessary ingredients of a free constitution. Hitherto confined to the same round of

Not contented with oppression, they added insult. "When the gentry," says Mezeray, "pillaged and committed exactions on the peasantry, they called the poor sufferer, in derision, Jaques bonhomme (goodman James). This gave rise to a furious sedition, which was called the Jaquerie. It began at Beauvais in the year 1357, extending itself into most of the provinces of France, and was not appeased but by the destruction of part of those unhappy victims, thousands of whom were slaughtered.".