and by which he bound himself to support the pretensions of

William.

After the defeat and death of Harold at the battle of Hastings Edgar Atheling, with all the chief nobility, repaired to William's camp, and requested him to accept the crown, which they then considered as vacant; and he was crowned in all due form in Westminster Abbey. He took the oath administered to the Anglo-Saxon Kings, "to preserve inviolate the constitution, and govern according to the laws."

It is said that he hesitated whether he should accept the crown from the nobility and clergy, or owe it solely to his own sword, and thus avoid taking the oath; but that he was advised to moderate his ambition, sensible that the people, when they saw they had to contend for their free constitution, and not merely for the person who should administer their government, would fight with double fury when they found that their dearest interests, their liberty, and their property, were at stake. (Gul. Pictav.).

Thus he possessed the throne by a pretended will of King Edward, and an irregular election of the people, abetted by force of arms.EDITOR.

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 24 after the Conquest, that we see the above causes beginning 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 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 25 laws of the Conqueror which lay heaviest on the lower classes of the people (a).

Under Henry II. liberty took a farther stride; and

(a) Amongst others, the law of the Curfew. 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 an 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.

C

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 (1).

Henry II. also, in consequence of the usurpations of the clergy upon the liberties of the people, instituted the Constitutions of Clarendon, to determine at once the controversies which had daily multiplied between the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions.

These Constitutions were passed in a national and civil assembly, and fully established the superiority of the legislature over all papal decrees and spiritual canons (2). He also undertook the conquest of Ireland, and annexed that kingdom to the English crown; and after he had been victorious in all quarters, and become absolute master of his English dominions, he set about improving the laws, and providing for the happiness and security of his subjects. Among many salutary laws which he passed, was an equitable one, that the goods of a vassal should not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal was surety for the debt; and that, in cases of insolvency, the rents of vassals should be paid to the creditors of the lord, and not to the lord himself. He also divided England into four divisions; and ap

(1) The trial per pais, or by the country, is supposed to have been in use long before the time of Alfred. This mode of trial appears to have been first instituted in England by William the Conqueror, and is commonly dated from the period of the Conquest. It had been established among the Danes by a law of Regnerus, surnamed Lodbrog, since the year A. D. 820, and was carried by Rollo the Dane, when he took possession of Normandy, into that Duchy. This opinion is, however, contrary to that of Blackstone, who, speaking of the trial by jury at the time of the Norman invasion, says-" the general constitution of this admirable criterion of truth, and most important guardian both of public and private liberty, we owe to our Saxon ancestors."

(2) M. Paris, Hist. Quad.-EDITOR.

pointed itinerant judges to go the circuit in each division, and to decide the causes in the counties, after the example of the commissaries of Louis VI. and the missi of Charlemagne, which had a direct tendency to curb the oppressions of the barons, and to protect the inferior gentry and common people in their property. He also demolished the new-erected castles of the nobility, and published a decree, called an Assize of Arms, by which all his subjects were obliged to put themselves in a situation to defend themselves and the realm.

But these causes, which had worked but silently and 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 John. The royal prerogative, and the forest laws, having been exerted by this prince to a degree of excessive 26 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 dependence, 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.

No sooner was the standard up against John, than his very courtiers forsook him. In this situation, finding no part of his kingdom less irritated against him than another, having no detached province which he could engage in his defence, by promises of pardon or 27 of peculiar concessions, the trivial though never failing 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: and he signed at Runemede (b) the Charter of the Forest, together with that famous charter which, from its superior and extensive importance, is denominated 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 which 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 established, moreover, an equality of weights and measures throughout England; it exempted the mer28 chants 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 implements of tillage. Lastly, by the thirty-ninth article of the same charter, it was