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new light has been thrown on the subject by a modern constitutional lawyer. Mr. Toulmin Smith has shown that "every parish was required to furnish one foot soldier, equipped, and armed for sixty days." Now, it is remarkable that the writs, on the authority of which Mr. Toulmin Smith has shown this, apply to the same point of time, and manifestly to the same occasion as the writ for menat-arms referred to by Blackstone. The authorities cited by Mr. Smith are Rolls of Parliament, temp. Edw. II., Appendix No. 1, and Id., Appendix No. 25;" and the occasion was the preparation for that memorable "voyage royal into Scotland to subdue the Scots," which had its result in the battle of Bannockburn. Since the writ regarding the foot soldier from the parish was for sixty days, we may conclude that the writ regarding the man-at-arms or knight, in the absence of any specific mention of forty days in that writ, would be for the same length of time, namely, sixty days also.

Besides the advantage to the kingdom of its having by this means, without any expense, an army of upwards of sixty thousand effective men always ready, another mode in which this ancient constitutional machinery for the defence of the kingdom exercised a most beneficial influence, was by checking expensive wars; not only the great barons, but the

* The Parish; its Obligations and Powers, &c., by Toulmin Smith, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, p. 18, 2nd ed.

knights, and esquires, and freeholders refusing to follow the king into what they considered needless and expensive foreign wars. It was on such an occasion that Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, made that reply to King Edward I. which showed the high spirit and independence of the Anglo-Norman barons, so different from the titled courtiers of the Tudors and the Stuarts. "By the everlasting God, sir earl, you shall go or hang!" exclaimed the king. "By the everlasting God, sir king, I will neither go nor hang!" replied the baron.

The occasion here referred to was a requisition of the king to some of his barons and others to follow him in arms to Normandy, or contribute or contribute money aids thereto: "which the constable and marshal, and many of the nobility, and of the knights and esquires, and all the freeholders vehemently denied, unless it were so ordained and determined by common consent of parliament."* And, as they constituted a majority of the parliament, they would take care that it should not be so ordained. Very different indeed was the conduct of the parliaments of the eighteenth century, after the fatal change in the constitution. But for the powerful and salutary checks imposed by the ancient English constitution, Edward the First, with his love of war and rage for conquest, and, perhaps, still more, Edward the Third, would have ground down the nation with taxes and loaded it with debt.

*Coke, 2nd Inst., 532.

But this force of sixty thousand men-at-arms did not constitute the whole of the military defence of the kingdom. The Normans had owed their victory at Hastings, by which they obtained their footing in England, as much to the superiority of their archers as to the valour of their men-at-arms. From policy it might have been two or three generations before the Anglo-Norman government encouraged the use of the long-bow among the Saxons. It is evident, however, that in the time of Henry III. they had attained great proficiency in it. And by the time of the first and second Edwards, it formed, perhaps, the most effective part of an English or AngloNorman army. It appears that at the same time that the knight-service writs were issued, every parish in England was required to furnish at least one foot soldier equipped and armed for sixty days.* These foot soldiers formed those formidable archers beneath the shower of whose terrible cloth-yard shafts nothing could live.

The excellence attained by the English in the use of the long-bow, was the effect of great and incessant practice. They commenced this education when they were children of six † years of age. They were first made to practise with a small bow

*The reference to these writs will be found in Mr. Toulmin Smith's Parish, p. 18, 2nd ed.

The words of the statute 3 Henry VIII. c. 3, which refers back to the statute of Winchester (A. D. 1285), are-"every manchild from six years old."

knights, and esquires, and freeholders refusing to follow the king into what they considered needless and expensive foreign wars. It was on such an occasion that Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, made that reply to King Edward I. which showed the high spirit and independence of the Anglo-Norman barons, so different from the titled courtiers of the Tudors and the Stuarts. "By the everlasting God sir earl, you shall go or hang!" exclaimed the king "By the everlasting God, sir king, I will neither है nor hang!" replied the baron.

The occasion here referred to was a requisition the king to some of his barons and others to foll him in arms to Normandy, or contribute money ai thereto: "which the constable and marshal, and ma of the nobility, and of the knights and esquires, a all the freeholders vehemently denied, unless it w so ordained and determined by common consent parliament."* And, as they constituted a majorit the parliament, they would take care that it sho not be so ordained. Very different indeed was conduct of the parliaments of the eighteenth cent after the fatal change in the constitution. But the powerful and salutary checks imposed by ancient English constitution, Edward the First, v his love of war and rage for conquest, and, perl still more, Edward the Third, would h

down the nation with taxes and loade

* Coke, 2nd Inst., 532

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