priest at his ordination, to the officiating prelates and attendants. In some dioceses it was exacted from even the inferior clergy, in the court of Rome, at every promotion obtained by papal provisions, and the amount at last arose to two, and even three years' income. These claims became from time to time the subject of parliamentary investigation; various statutes were enacted, which in the end entirely put a stop to them.

About the year 1375, John Wycliffe first began to broach his new doctrines. He had received his education at Oxford, and was a man of considerable learning, but of much greater pride and ambition. He had been disappointed in not getting the bishopric of Worcester, to which he aspired. His pride was hurt, and his temper soured; he therefore commenced reformer, and promulgated his novelties, some of which were, that in the Blessed Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains after consecration; that a bishop in mortal sin cannot ordain; that the pope, if wicked, has no authority over the faithful; that auricular confessions are unnecessary; that the clergy ought to have no temporal possessions. These doctrines soon attracted the notice of the bishops: they assembled in synod, and cited him before them. In his answer, he acknowledged that his expressions were incorrect, and pretended that they must be understood in an orthodox sense. He promised in future not to disturb the public peace, and being strongly countenanced by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the mortal enemy of the clergy, he was suffered to depart without further censure; but ceased not to disseminate his heresy, till a paralytic attack suddenly hurried him out of life. His followers were called Lollards.

CHAPTER III.

LAWS, GOVERNMENT, COMMERCE.

During the reign of Henry II. several wise laws were enacted. The kingdom was divided into six circuits, and to each circuit were appointed three itinerant judges, who were sworn to administer justice. These

circuits were nearly the same as at the present day. In the reign of his son and successor, Richard I., the city of London received many important privileges, and was first divided into companies and corporations. Under the government of Henry III., the difference which arose between the king and the nobles made England a scene of confusion. The people, however, obtained a confirmation of the great charter, with the addition of new privileges. But the liberty of the subject made the greatest progress during the reign of Edward I., a prince who, on account of his numerous and prudent laws, has been called the English Justinian. What renders this era particularly interesting, is the admission of the deputies of boroughs into parliament. In order to raise subsidies to support the wars in which Edward was engaged, he found himself obliged to resort to new resources, and endeavoured to obtain by the consent of the people what his predecessors had exacted by their own power. The sheriffs were ordered to invite the towns and boroughs of the different counties to send deputies to parliament, and from this period we may date the origin of the House of Commons. The great charter was confirmed by King Edward eleven times in the course of his reign; and, at length, he converted into an established law, a privilege, which the nation had hitherto only precariously enjoyed, by decreeing that no tax should be laid on, or impost levied, without the joint consent of Lords and Commons. This most important statute, in conjunction with Magna Charta, forms the basis of the English constitution.

The statute of mortmain was also enacted in this reign, for the purpose of prescribing some bounds to the zeal of our ancestors in alienating their lands to! pious uses. It had been found that this custom was liable to several abuses, and that many worthy families had been wholly impoverished in consequence. It was, therefore, enacted, that for the future, no lands should be settled upon any community without the express license of the king and parliament. This statute was not very agreeable to the see of Rome, and was even disapproved of by many learned and pious doctors of the church, though by many others equally

eminent for their zeal, piety, and learning, it was looked upon as a wise and prudent provision.

Under Edward II. the Commons began to annex petitions to the bills in which they granted subsidies. This was the dawn of their legislative authority. In the reign of Edward III., they declared they would not in future acknowledge any law to which they had not expressly consented. Soon after they asserted a privilege, which forms at this time one of the greatest balances of the constitution. They impeached, and procured to be condemned, some of the chief ministers of the state.

The principal manufacture of England, in the era of which we now treat, was that of wool. This she owed to the fostering hand of Edward III., who gave great encouragement to foreign weavers, and enacted a law which prohibited every one from wearing cloth but of English fabric. The manufactures of leather and lead

were also considerable.

The greater part of our domestic trade was still transacted at fairs, of which some were of long duration. That of St. Giles, near Winchester, continued sixteen days, during which all trade was prohibited within seven miles of the fair, which very much resembled a great city. In the beginning of the reign of Richard II., the parliament complained of the decay of foreign commerce during the preceding reign, and asserted, that one seaport formerly contained more vessels than were then to be found in the whole kingdom. This calamity they ascribed to the arbitrary seizure of ships by Edward, for the service of his frequent expeditions.

With regard to coin, the third Edward, in 1344, struck florins of gold, which were ordered to pass for 6s., and the halves and quarters in proportion. Finding, however, that he had rated these pieces too highly, he coined the gold noble of 6s. 8d., and recalled the florins.

The police of the kingdom was certainly much improved during this period, particularly in the third. Edward's reign; yet were there several defects in the constitution, the bad consequences of which not all the power and vigilance of the king could prevent. The barons, by their confederacies with those of their own order, and by supporting their retainers in all

their iniquity, were the chief abettors of robbers and ruffians of all kinds, and no law could reach them. The Commons made frequent complaints of these robberies, murders, and disorders, in every part of the kingdom, which they always ascribed to the protection the criminals received from the barons. The King or Cyprus, who paid a visit to England in the reign of Edward III., was robbed and stripped on the highway, with the whole of his retinue. The king himself contributed to this dissolution of the laws, by the facility with which he granted pardons to felons at the solicitation of his courtiers.

ARTS, &c.

In the period we are now examining, if we except the possessions of the clergy, very little progress was made in agriculture. The country was almost always involved in wars, which diverted the attention of the people, and particularly of the nobility, from the improvement of their lands. The wretched tenure also by which the inferior farmers held their lands, was an effectual bar to every amendment of the soil. Gardening, under the immediate protection of the great, had better success; every large castle, and every monastery, had its garden, orchard, and frequently its vineyard; so that the English had a considerable quantity of wine of their own growth, not much inferior to foreign wine.

With regard to architecture, many of the most admired cathedrals in England, viz. those of York, Salisbury, and Winchester, owe their existence to this period, which is generally allowed to have produced the truest and fairest models of what is called the lighter Gothic. The steeples with spires and pinnacles, the pillars formed of an assemblage of columns, the lofty windows divided into several lights by stone mullions, and always filled with glass stained with lively colours, stamp the sacred edifices of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This rapid progress in architectural elegance was greatly assisted by a band or ingenious workmen from various countries, who, forming themselves into societies under the title of "freemasons," offered their services to opulent princes.

So great and general was the taste for paintings at

this period, that not only churches, chapels, and the apartments of the great, but also those of private persons, were ornamented with historical pictures. Of sculpture, although it no doubt kept pace with the sister art, we have but few models, owing to the party zeal of the civil wars and the Gothic barbarity of the first-styled reformers.

Though the poets of this age were as much admired by their contemporaries as those who flourished in later times, their works are generally neglected; which is perhaps owing as much to the antiquated style in which they wrote as to the mediocrity of their talents.

MANNERS.

Of the age we are now delineating, one of the prominent features was unlimited hospitality. The courts of some of our kings were magnificent and numerous to a degree hardly credible. Stowe thus describes that of Richard II. :-"His royalty was such, that wheresoever he lay, his person was guarded by 200 Cheshire men; he had about him thirteen bishops, besides barons, knights, esquires, and others; insomuch, that 10,000 people came to the household for meat every day, as appeared by the messes told out to 200 servitors." Some idea may be formed of the hospitality of the opulent barons, from an account of the household expenses of the Earl of Lancaster in 1213, from which it appears that this nobleman expended in housekeeping during that year no less a sum than £7,300, equal to £100,000 of our present money. The nobility in general spent almost the whole of their revenues in this manner, at their castles in the country, which were constantly open to strangers of condition, as well as to their own vassals and followers. This prodigality began to decline a little towards the end of this period; some barons, instead of dining in their great hall with their numerous retainers according to ancient custom, chose to dine in private parlours with their families and friends; though this innovation was very unpopular, and subjected them who adopted it to much ill-will and reproach.

The revival of chivalry by the Edwards, contributed not a little to promote valour and munificence among