If the Anglo-Saxons, as a nation, had reason to think themselves happy in their deliberative and legislative, they were no less so in their juridical capacity. Justice was universally the care of the great body of the people: and a regular chain of appeal was established from the tithing or decennary, consisting of ten families, up to the Wittenagemot, which was a supreme court of law, as well as a national council or assembly. But the grand security of justice, and even of liberty and property, was the court called the Shiremote, held twice a year in every county, at a stated time and place; where, along with the alderman or earl of the shire, and the bishop of the diocese, all the clergy and landholders of the country were obliged to be present, and determined, by the majority of voices, all causes brought before them, in whatever stage of their progress; beginning with the causes of the church, taking next under cognizance the pleas of the crown, and lastly the disputes of private persons39.

As the duke of Normandy, by taking the usual oath administered to the Anglo-Saxon kings at their coronation, had solemnly engaged to maintain the constitution, and to administer justice according to the laws, the English nation had reason to believe they had merely changed their native sovereign for one of foreign extraction: a matter to them of small concern, as I have had occasion to observe, especially as the line of succession had been already broken by the usurpation or election of Harold. But although William affected moderation for a while, and even adopted some of the laws of Edward the Confessor, in order to quiet the apprehensions of his new subjects, to these laws he paid little regard; and no sooner did he find himself firmly established on the throne, than he utterly subverted the form of government, and the manner of administering justice throughout the whole kingdom. The government which he substituted was a rigid feudal monarchy, or military aristocracy, in which a regular chain

39. Spelman. Reliquiæ, Hickesi, Dissertat. Epist.

of subordination and service was established, from the sovereign or commander in chief, to the serf or villain; and which, like all feudal governments, was attended with a grievous depression of the body of the people, who were daily exposed to the insults, violences, and exactions of the nobles, whose vassals they all were, and from whose oppressive jurisdiction it was difficult and dangerous for them to appeal.

This depression, as might be expected, was more complete and humiliating in England, under the first Anglo-Norman princes, than in any other feudal government. William I. by his artful and tyrannical policy, by attainders and confiscations, had become, in the course of his reign, proprietor of almost all the lands in the kingdom. These lands, however, he could not retain, had he been even willing, in his own hands: he was under the necessity of bestowing the greater part of them on his Norman captains or nobles, the companions of his conquest and the instruments of his tyranny, who had led their own vassals to battle". But those grants he clogged with heavy feudal services, and payments or prestations, which no one dared to refuse. He was the general of a victorious army, which was still obliged to continue in a military posture, in order to secure the possessions it had seized. And the Anglo-Norman barons, and tenants in capite, by knight's-service, who only held immediately of the crown, and with the dignified clergy formed the national assembly, imposed obligations yet more severe on their vassals, the inferior landholders, consisting chiefly of unhappy English gentlemen, as

40. Nothing can more strongly indicate that necessity, than the following ancedote. Earl Warren, when questioned, in a subsequent reign, con. cerning his righ: to the lands he possessed, boldly drew his sword. "This," said he, " is my title!-William the Bastard did not conquer Eng. "land himself: the Norman Barons, and my ancestors, among the rest, "were joint adventurers in the enterprize." Dugdale, Baronage, vol. i.

well

well as on the body of the people, for whom they seemed to have no bowels of compassion41.

41. The state of England, at the death of William the conqueror, is thus described by one of our ancient historians, who was almost cotemporary with that prince. "The Normans, had now fully executed the "wrath of heaven upon the English. There was hardly one of that nation "who possessed any power; they were all involved in servitude and "sorrow; insomuch, that to be called an Englishman was considered as "a reproach. In those miserable times many oppressive taxes and tyranni. "cal customs were introduced. The king himself, when he had let his "lands at their full value, if another tenant came and offered more, and

44

afterwards a third, and offered still more, violated all his former pac "tions, and gave them to him who offered most; and the great men were inflamed with such a rage for money that they cared not by what means "it was acquired. The more they talked of justice, the more injuriously they acted. Those who were called justiciaries," alluding most likely to the barons in their courts," were the fountains of all iniquity. Sher"iffs and judges, whose peculiar duty it was to pronounce righteous "judgments,were the most cruel of all tyrants, and greater plunderers than "common thieves and robbers." (Hen. Hunting. lib. viii.) And the author of the Saxon Chronicle, in speaking of the miseries of a subsequent reign, says, that the great barons " grievously oppressed the poor people with building castles; and when they were built, they filled them with wick"ed men, or rather devils, who seized both men and women supposed to be possessed of any money; threw them into prison and put them to more "cruel tortures than the martyrs ever endured.” (Chron. Sax. p. 238.) The truth of this melancholy description is corroborated by the testimony of William of Malmsbury. Hist. lib. ii.

The great power and success of the Normans made them licentious as well as tyrannical. This licentiousness was so great, that the princess Matilda, daughter of Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland, who had re ceived her education in England, and was afterwards married to Henry I. thought it necessary to wear the religious habit, in order to preserve her person from violation. Before a great council of the Anglo-Norman clergy, she herself declared, That she had been induced by no other motive to put on the veil. And the council admitted her plea, in the following memorable words: "when the great king William conquered this land, many of his followers, elated with their extraordinary success, and thinking that all things ought to be subservient to their will and pleasure, not only seiz"ed the possessions of the vanquished, but invaded the bonour of their mas trons and virgins. Hence many young ladies, who dreaded such violences, "were induced to seek shelter in convents, and even to take the veil as a further security to their virtue." Eadmer. Hist. lib. iti.

"

But

But the rigour of the Anglo-Norman government, and the tyrannical and licentious spirit of the nobles, proved ultimately favourable to general liberty. The oppressed people looked up to the king for protection: and circumstances enabled them to obtain it. The defect in the title of William II. and of Henry I. induced them to listen to the complaints of their English subjects, and to redress many of their grievances. The people, in some measure satisfied with the relief afforded them, became sensible of their consequence, and of their obligations to the crown: while the barons, finding themselves in quiet possession of their English estates, and apprehending no future disturbance from the natives, bore with impatience the burdens imposed upon them by William I. and to which they had readily submitted, in the hour of conquest and of danger. They saw the necessity of being more indulgent to their vassals, in order to obtain a sufficient force to enable them to retrench the prerogatives of the sovereign, and of connecting their cause with that of the people. And the people, always formidable by their numbers, courted by both parties, and sometimes siding with one, sometimes with the other, in the bloody contest between the king and the barons, recovered by various progressive steps, which I shall have occasion to trace in the course of my narration, their ancient and natural right to a place in the parliament or national assembly.

Thus restored to a share in the legislature, the English commonalty felt more fully their own importance; and by a long and vigorous struggle, maintained with unexampled perseverance, they wrested from both the king and the nobles, all the other rights of a free people, of which their Anglo-Saxon ancestors had been robbed by the violent invasion, and cruel policy of William the Norman. To those rights they were entitled as men, by the great law of nature and reason, which declares the welfare of the whole community to be the end of all civil government; and as Englishmen, by inheritance.

In whatever light, therefore, we view the privileges of the commons, they are RESUMPTIONS, not USURPATIONS.

In order to establish this important political truth, some of our popular writers have endeavoured to prove, that the people of England were by no means robbed of their liberty or property by William I. and that the commons had a share in the legislature under all the AngloNorman princes. But as this position cannot be maintained without violating historical testimony, the advocates for prerogatives have had greatly the advantage in that contentious dispute42. I have therefore made the usurpations of William, in violation of his coronation oath, the basis of my argument. Usurpation can create no right, nor the exercise of illegal authority any prerogative.

LETTER XXIV.

FRANCE, UNDER PHILIP I. AND LEWIS VI. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST CRUSADE.

PHILIP I. as I have already observed', had been perfectly well educated. Nor was he by any means deficient in point of capacity; but his mind had acquired

42. Mr. Hume, in particular, has triumphed over every adversary. His collected arguments, supported by facts, to prove" that the com. "mons originally formed no part of the Anglo-Norman parliament," are strong and satisfactory. But the following clause in the great charter is of itself sufficient to determine the dispute. "We will cause to be "summoned," says the king, "as a COMMON COUNCIL of the KINGDOM, "the archbishops, bishops, earls, and great barons, personally, by our letters; "and besides, we will cause to be summoned, in general, by our sheriffs "and bailiffs, all others who HOLD of us IN CHIEF." (Mag. Chart. c. xiv.) This indubitable testimony, so full and conclusive, when duly weighed, must preclude all future controversy on the subject.

1. Letter XVIII.

a wrong