quated privilege as regarded a certain portion of law concerning landed property and some public rights, constituted in England the one grand soul of the entire civil and penal codes, the remains of which, still lingering near their old quarters, may be distinctly traced in the terms and forms which are at present still used in the proceedings of judicature. Oppressive laws with regard to private forests and chase, the purveyance of all kinds of natural productions for the use of the royal camp, at a certain arbitrarily fixed low price-the exaction of services from even tradespeople, such as goldsmiths, painters, &c.-the wardship of individuals of minor age, which yielded considerable revenues-in fact, all the ancient and arbitrary power of the landholder, appear to have been concentred in the crown, and the prerogative of the kings of England, even in modern times, were based and consolidated thereon. Thus secured in the double armour of absolute supremacy, the English monarchs, whether in the palace, in the camp, or in the midst of the people, revelled as they willed, perfectly at home, as if in the circle of their own retinue.

Bondage, which constituted the true spirit of the feudal system, as Froissart (lib. ii., c. 74) observes, prevailed in the fourteenth century, in England, on a more extensive scale than in any other part of Europe, with this difference, that in other countries the feudal scheme was divided, broken, and local, and partook of the variegated and changeable character of the different landholders, who exercised their rights according to their peculiar humour and disposition; while in England feudalism bore one unvaried impress of universal submission and obedience to the supreme liege lord of the realm. The kings of England, like those of France, considered themselves, and with some reason, the first and only lords of the kingdom-a circumstance which perhaps may explain the reluctance of the Scots to wed their young queen to Edward VI.; for doubtless they apprehended, and with justice, that their national right, customs, and liberty, would be absorbed by the limitless prerogative enjoyed by the crown of England, which even surpassed that of France, as testified by the conversation of Charles V. with the English ministers, as late as 1549.*

At a later period, when the judges and other functionaries were strenuously endeavouring, in other parts of Europe, to create a new species of power for royalty from the fragments of early customs based upon foreign rights, the kings of England, who, in times of

* Burnett, vol. ii., p. 132–133.

peace, scarcely ever met with any resistance from among their subjects, while they never scrupled in time of war to break through the weak fences of the yct weaker law, had, after the termination of the civil war of the houses of York and Lancaster, attained the very zenith of power. Henry VII. governed more absolutely and despotically than any of his predecessors, at least, of those who held the crown since the proclamation of Magna Charta. His successor, Henry VIII, revelled in the plenitude of absolute power, and exhibited to his subjects, in glaring characters, the will and ability to wield that power which his father merely amassed and centralized. When the Duke of Somerset was created protector, during the reign of Edward the VI., he was invested with an extensive and boundless power, which ran even in the teeth of the very law; and yet, in the bill of accusation which was brought against him by his enemies (who, by the way, did not neglect the least circumstance which might be turned against him, or construed into an act of culpability), not a word did they say on the well-known fact of his arbitrary and despotic management of the public affairs, and which was in open violation of established law. This circumstance at once proves that the unbounded regal power conferred on the protector was in perfect harmony with the spirit of the age. The bloody actions of Queen Mary might, perhaps, be attributed to her fanatical notions of her peculiar religion; but the self-willed and arbitrary despotism of her sister Elizabeth, which she maintained throughout her brilliant reign, without encountering the smallest opposition, can only be accounted for on the ground of the ancient custom, which the people universally respected, and which, while it gave to the royal will the most unrestrained and complete license, obtained from all ranks the most unqualified submission; and thus it was clearly argued and demonstrated in the sitting of parliament in the year 1601.*

Thus it stood until the period of the Stuarts. Those princes, more lavish and thoughtless than the Tudors, and at the same time being more straightened as to the means of maintaining their enormous expenses, were obliged to have recourse to severe exactions; and so heavily did they weigh upon the hitherto uncomplaining people, that the whole nation became at once exasperated, and a violent moral revulsion was the consequence. A new mode of thought now took possession of the nation; and instead of devising means for the restraining and defining bounds to the royal power, serious thoughts were expressed of abolishing it altogether. All the

* Hume, chap. 44.

prerogatives which were connected with certain revenues were still considered as the private property of the kings, and, as such, they were at times purchased from them for a certain sum of money; just as the peasants used to purchase exemption from soccage-service from their lords. Thus a negotiation was already commenced, between James I. and the parliament, for the purchase of the regal privileges of wardships and purveyance, for an annual sum of £.200,000, which, however, could not be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. The continual want of money under which Charles II. laboured, reduced many of the difficulties of those bargains between the monarch and the people, who, in fact, were willing to pay any price to the crown for its promise not to offend the constitution. The only political principle of import which henceforth was adopted and resolved to be acted upon, was, to place the law above any power, the monarch not excepted; yet even this measure, although it certainly tended to annihilate arbitrary power, did nothing directly for the law itself-it merely rendered the prerogative of the crown more supportable, but not more beneficial.

Hallam, in mentioning the arguments which have been brought forward by some to prove that prerogatives were originally granted to the crown for the benefit of the nation, observes that he is at a loss to comprehend them. A royal prerogative implies, in its original and true sense, an advantage in favour of the crown in certain cases, when its interests clash with those of the nation. Such prerogatives were wrested from the vanquished nation, by the Norman conqueror, against its will and consent; and, however modified or regulated such prerogatives become by the hand of time, no one who is acquainted with the laws and proceedings prevalent in our courts (continues Hallam), will fail of being startled at the rigour and injustice of a number of those prerogatives which are still in practice.

The boasted utility of such prerogatives may be on a par with that said to be derived from certain taxes: it may be difficult, perhaps, to say which of the two is the most beneficial to the country. For our own parts, we venture to affirm, or rather to submit as an opinion, that prerogatives, like taxes, are of doubtful utility or benefit to a nation, and that the less a people are visited by these things the better. Nor can we feel justified in supposing that those prerogatives of which we have spoken were originally planned for the specific service or benefit of the nation. If plan there was in their formation or introduction among the English, it must have been the solitary one of the Norman conqueror-the giant offspring

of his anxiety to secure to himself, and make the most of, his conquest.

That the increase of the royal power in England has been instrumental in increasing and consolidating the social ties of the nation; that the intervenient petty power of the middle classes of the landholders, which in other countries were looked upon as a bulwark between the throne and the people, but in England constituted merely another class of subjects, and has done its work also toward the perfection of the noble structure of English civilization and liberty; that the severe and extensive feudal system, which compelled every individual throughout the whole population to perform military service according to his station in society, and thus preserved England from the dire calamity of standing armies, which existed to a fearful extent in the other parts of Europe; that a combination of these principal circumstances have not contributed largely to the advancement of true liberty and national independence, who shall say? Yet the effects of these happy circumstances will be looked upon, by the philosopher, as far outstripping the designs and plans of human speculation; and he will be prone, and we think justly so, to ascribe them to the all-powerful and farseeing wisdom of that Supreme Being who leads his sentient creatures on through an eternity of ever-changing circumstances, and among imperceptible labyrinths of causes and effects, immeasurably beyond the range of mortal intellect.

The same course of events which marks the movement of the development of the civil laws and the royal power, manifests itself not less clearly in the origin and consequences resulting from those principles which stand in immediate connexion with the political liberty of England, as well as in the history of the great charter, the supposed first guarantee of that liberty, and in the annals of parliament and its progressive power.

The charter of liberty which the barons extorted from King John in the year 1215, and distinguished by the appellation great, was by no means the first of its kind. Henry I. had already granted to the nation a similar charter, in order to render himself more popular, and counterbalance the just odium which he had incurred, by usurping the throne which was the undoubted right of his elder brother Robert. Stephen, who had also to defend himself against a more legitimate claim, renewed that charter, which was afterwards confirmed by Henry II. All these documents, however, were but as a dead letter in the eyes of the princes, who, if their interests did not lie that way, neither acted up to the conditions and

promises contained therein, nor did they believe themselves bound to do so. The Magna Charta shared, at first, the same fate; at which we need not be surprised, since it did not differ in substance from the former documents, which were constructed, like all legisla tive attempts of inexperienced people, merely to meet the direct and palpable wants of the moment, rather than enforce into practice the provisions of its various clauses. The Magna Charta neither abolished the old authorities and courts of justice, nor established new ones; it did not provide for a better distribution of the social power, nor did it alter any thing in the existing principle of public right; it only met and as far only as fair words could do-certain abuses and acts of violence, which were too glaring and frequent upon the surface of society to remain unnoticed. Nor did Henry III. scruple, scarcely a year after the proclamation of the charter, to violate one of its most important provisions-namely, that no taxes were to be levied without the consent of parliament. The same Henry recommended, it is true, to the sheriffs, in 1222, the observance of the Magna Charta, but in the true spirit of the arbitrary quibbler: this recommendation went no further than to those who were to pay the new taxes which he had ordered to be levied. Lastly, it may be casily inferred, from the thirty solemn confirmations which the succeeding parliaments exacted from various monarchs at different times, how frail that liberty must have been which required such frequent props and repairs, and how dependent her very existence must have been on the arbitrary will of the crown.

Probably there is not a single petty province in Europe that was not once in possession of a Magna Charta; or when the princes, in times when the system of loans and paper money was not yet fully developed, did not scruple, when they stood in need of money, to sell liberty and its appendant privileges to the people, for ready cash, and ratify the bargain with as many solemn oaths and written documents as might be required of them. But the force and validity of these oaths and documents ceased with their cause, and were soon forgotten by the princes when they had obtained their object; and, indeed, if any of these promissory notes happened to share a better fate, and stand the test of time, the cause must be sought in any circumstances, rather than in the force of the provisions contained in the documents themselves.

That the English charter has been preserved inviolate through so many ages, while other similar European instruments have died away into oblivion, may, perhaps, be chiefly ascribed to the very ample and copious expositions of numerous cases and provisions of