(13) The Parliament of Paris, though it had its use as some small check

on the mere despotism of the Crown, can hardly come under the head of

free institutions. France, as France, under the old state of things,

cannot be said to have kept any free institutions at all; the only

traces of freedom were to be found in the local Estates which still met

in several of the provinces. See De Tocqueville, Ancien Régime, 347.

(14) The thirteenth century was the time when most of the existing

states and nations of Europe took something like their present form and

constitution. The great powers which had hitherto, in name at least,

divided the Christian and Mahometan world, the Eastern and Western

Empires and the Eastern and Western Caliphates, may now be looked on

as practically coming to an end. England, France, and Spain began to

take something like their present shape, and to show the beginnings of

the characteristic position and policy of each. The chief languages of

Western Europe grew into something like their modern form. In short,

the character of this age as a time of beginnings and endings might be

traced out in detail through the most part of Europe and Asia.

(15) Dr. Pauli does not scruple to give him this title in his admirable

monograph, “_Simon von Montfort Graf von Leicester, der Schöpfer des

Hauses der Gemeinen_.” The career of the Earl should be studied in this

work, and in Mr. Blaauw’s “Barons’ War.”

(16) “Numquam libertas gratior exstat

Quam sub rege pio.”—Claudian, ii. Cons. Stil. 114.

(17) Macaulay, i. 15. “England owes her escape from such calamities

to an event which her historians have generally represented as

disastrous. Her interest was so directly opposed to the interest of her

rulers that she had no hope but in their errors and misfortunes. The

talents and even the virtues of her six first French Kings were a curse

to her. The follies and vices of the seventh were her salvation....

England, which, since the battle of Hastings, had been ruled generally

by wise statesmen, always by brave soldiers, fell under the dominion

of a trifler and a coward. From that moment her prospects brightened.

John was driven from Normandy. The Norman nobles were compelled to make

their election between the island and the continent. Shut up by the sea

with the people whom they had hitherto oppressed and despised, they

gradually came to regard England as their country, and the English as

their countrymen. The two races so long hostile, soon found that they

had common interests and common enemies. Both were alike aggrieved by

the tyranny of a bad King. Both were alike indignant at the favour

shown by the court to the natives of Poitou and Aquitaine. The great

grandsons of those who had fought under William and the great grandsons

of those who had fought under Harold began to draw near to each other

in friendship; and the first pledge of their reconciliation was the

Great Charter, won by their united exertions, and framed for their

common benefit.”

(18) I have tried to work out the gradual character of the transfer of

lands and offices under William in various parts of the fourth volume

of my History of the Norman Conquest; see especially p. 22, et seqq.

The popular notion of a general scramble for everything gives a most

false view of William’s whole character and position.

(19) See Norman Conquest, i. 176.

(20) This is distinctly asserted in the Dialogus de Scaccario (i. 10),

under Henry the Second: “Jam cohabitantibus Anglicis et Normannis,

et alterutrum uxores ducentibus vel nubentibus, sic permixtæ sunt

nationes, ut vix discerni possit hodie, de liberis loquor, quis

Anglicus quis Normannus sit genere; exceptis duntaxat ascriptitiis qui

villani dicuntur, quibus non est liberum obstantibus dominis suis a sui

statûs conditione discedere.”

(21) The Angevin family are commonly known as the Plantagenets; but

that name was never used as a surname till the fifteenth century.

The name is sometimes convenient, but it is not a really correct

description, like Tudor and Stewart, both of which were real surnames,

borne by the two families before they came to the Crown. In the

almanacks the Angevins are called “The Saxon line restored,” a name

which gives a false idea, though there can be no doubt that Henry the

Second was fully aware of the advantages to be drawn from his remote

female descent from the Old-English Kings. The point to be borne in

mind is that the accession of Henry is the beginning of a distinct

dynasty which could not be called either Norman or English in any but

the most indirect way.

(22) I do not remember anything in any of the writers of Henry the

Second’s time to justify the popular notions about “Normans and

Saxons” as two distinct and hostile bodies. Nor do we as yet hear many

complaints of favour being shown to absolute foreigners in preference

to either, though it is certain that many high preferments, especially

in the Church, were held by men who were not English in either sense.

The peculiar position of Henry the Second was something like that of

the Emperor Charles the Fifth, that of a prince ruling over a great

number of distinct states without being nationally identified with any

of them. Henry ruled over England, Normandy, and Aquitaine, but he was

neither English, Norman, nor Gascon.

(23) That is the greater, the continental, part of the Duchy. The

insular part of Normandy, the Channel Islands, was not lost, and it

still remains attached to the English Crown, not as part of the United

Kingdom, but as a separate dependency. See Norman Conquest, i. 187.

(24) See Norman Conquest, i. 310, 367; and on the appointment of

Bishops and Abbots, i. 503, ii. 66, 571.

(25) See the Ordinance in Norman Conquest, iv. 392. Stubbs, Select

Charters, 81.

(26) See Norman Conquest, iii. 317.

(27) It should be remembered that the clerical immunities which were

claimed in this age were by no means confined to those whom we should

now call clergymen, but that they also took in that large class of

persons who held smaller ecclesiastical offices without being what we

should call in holy orders. The Church also claimed jurisdiction in

the causes of widows and orphans, and in various cases where questions

of perjury, breach of faith, and the like were concerned. Thus John

Bishop of Poitiers writes to Archbishop Thomas (Giles, Sanctus Thomas,

vi. 238) complaining that the King’s officers had forbidden him to hear

the causes of widows and orphans, and also to hear causes in matters

of usury: “prohibentes ne ad querelas viduarum vel orphanorum vel

clericorum aliquem parochianorum meorum in causam trahere præsumerem

super quacumque possessione immobili, donec ministeriales regis, vel

dominorum ad quorum feudum res controversiæ pertineret, in facienda

justitia eis defecissent. Deinde ne super accusatione fœnoris

quemquam audirem.” This gives a special force to the acclamations

with which Thomas was greeted on his return as “the father of the

orphans and the judge of the widows:” “Videres mox pauperum turbam

quæ convenerat in occursum, hos succinctos ut prævenirent et patrem

suum applicantem exciperent, et benedictionem præriperent, alios vero

humi se humiliter prosternentes, ejulantes hos, plorantes illos præ

gaudio, et omnes conclamantes, Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini,

pater orphanorum et judex viduarum! et pauperes quidem sic.” Herbert

of Bosham, Giles, Sanctus Thomas, vii. 315, cf. 148. See more in

Historical Essays, 99.

(28) On the cruel punishments inflicted in the King’s courts Herbert

of Bosham is very emphatic in more than one passage. He pleads (vii.

101) as a merit of the Bishops’ courts that in them no mutilations

were inflicted. Men were punished there “absque omni mutilatione

vel deformatione membrorum.” But he by no means claims freedom from

mutilation as a mere clerical privilege; he distinctly condemns it in

any case. “Adeo etiam quod ordinis privilegium excludat cauterium: quam

tamen pœnam communiter inter homines etiam jus forense damnat: ne

videlicet in homine Dei imago deformetur.” (vii. 105.) A most curious

story illustrative of the barbarous jurisprudence of the time will be

found in Benedict’s Miracula Sancti Thomæ, 184.

(29) One of the Constitutions of Clarendon forbade villains to be

ordained without the consent of their lords. “Filii rusticorum non

debent ordinari absque assensu domini de cujus terra nati dignoscuntur”

(Stubbs, Select Charters, 134). On the principles of feudal law nothing

can be said against this, as the lord had a property in his villain

which he would lose by the villain’s ordination. The prohibition

is noticed in some remarkable lines of the earliest biographer of

Thomas, Garnier of Pont-Sainte-Maxence (La Vie de Saint Thomas le

Martyr, Paris, 1859, p. 89), where he strongly asserts the equality of

gentleman and villain before God:—

“Fils à vilains ne fust en nul liu ordenez

Sanz l’otrei sun seigneur de cui terre il fu nez.

Et deus à sun servise nus a tuz apelez!

Mielz valt filz à vilain qui est preux e senez,

Que ne feit gentilz hum failliz et debutez.”

Thomas himself was not the son of a villain, but his birth was such

that the King could sneer at him as “plebeius quidam clericus.”

(30) We are not inclined to find fault with such an appointment as

that of Stephen Langton; still his forced election at the bidding

of Innocent was a distinct breach of the rights of the King, of the

Convent of Christ Church, and of the English nation generally. See the

account of his election in Roger of Wendover, iii. 212; Lingard, ii.

314; Hook’s Archbishops, ii. 668.

(31) See the Bulls and Letters by which Innocent professed to annul the

Great Charter in Roger of Wendover, iii. 323, 327; the excommunication

of the Barons in iii. 336; and the suspension of the Archbishop in iii.

340.

(32) There is a separate treatise on the Miracles of Simon of Montfort,

printed along with Rishanger’s Chronicle by the Camden Society, 1840.

(33) I think I may safely say that the only royalist chronicler of the

reign of Henry the Third is Thomas Wykes, the Austin Canon of Osney.

There is also one poem on the royalist side, to balance many on the

side of the Barons, among the Political Songs published by the Camden

Society, 1839, page 128.

Letters to Earl Simon and his Countess Eleanor form a considerable part

of the letters of Robert Grosseteste, published by Mr. Luard for the

Master of the Rolls. Matthew Paris also (879, Wats) speaks of him as

“episcopus Lincolniensis Robertus, cui comes tamquam patri confessori

exstitit familiarissimus.” This however was in the earlier part of

Simon’s career, before the war had broken out. The share of Bishop

Walter of Cantilupe, who was present at Evesham and absolved the Earl

and his followers, will be found in most of the Chronicles of the time.

It comes out well in the riming Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester (ii.

558):—

“Þe bissop Water of Wurcetre asoiled hom alle pere

And prechede hom, þat hii adde of deþ þe lasse fere.”

This writer says of the battle of Evesham:—

“Suich was þe morþre of Eivesham (vor bataile non it was).”

(34) This letter, addressed in 1247 to Pope Innocent the Fourth, will

be found in Matthew Paris (721, Wats). It is written in the name of

“universitas cleri et populi per provinciam Cantuariensem constituti,”

and it ends, “quia communitas nostra sigillum non habet, præsentes

literas signo communitatis civitatis Londinensis vestræ sanctitati

mittimus consignatas.” Another letter in the same form follows to the

Cardinals. There are two earlier letters in 1245 and 1246 (Matthew

Paris, 666, 700), the former from the “magnates et universitas regni

Angliæ,” the other in the name of Richard Earl of Cornwall (afterwards

King of the Romans), Simon Earl of Leicester, and other Earls, “et alii

totius regni Angliæ Barones, proceres, et magnates, et nobiles portuum

maris habitatores, necnon et clerus et populus universus.” The distinct

mention of the Cinque Ports, whose representatives in Parliament are

still called Barons—the “nobiles” of the letter—should be noticed.

(35) The writer of the Gesta Stephani(3) distinctly attributes the

election of Stephen to the citizens of London: “Majores igitur natu,

consultuque quique provectiores, concilium coegere, deque regni

statu, pro arbitrio suo, utilia in commune providentes, ad regem

eligendum unanimiter conspiravere.” He then goes on with the details

of the election. He is borne out by the Chronicle 1135: “Stephne de

Blais com to Lundene and te Lundenisce folc him underfeng;” and by

William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, i. 11: “A Londoniensibus et

Wintoniensibus in Regem exceptus est.” So again when the Legate, Henry

Bishop of Winchester, holds a council for the election of the Empress

Matilda, the citizens of London were summoned, and it is distinctly

said that they held the rank of nobles or barons: “Londonienses

(qui sunt quasi optimates, pro magnitudine civitatis, in Anglia).”

“Londonienses, qui præcipui habebantur in Anglia, sicut proceres”

(Historia Novella, iii. 45, 46). All this is exactly like the earlier

elections of Kings before the Conquest.

(36) The words of the Charter 12-14 (Stubbs, 290) are: “Nullum

scutagium vel auxilium ponatur in regno nostro, nisi per commune

consilium regni nostri, nisi ad corpus nostrum redimendum, etc.....

Et ad habendum commune consilium regni, de auxilio assidendo aliter

quam in tribus casibus prædictis, vel de scutagio assidendo, summoneri

faciemus archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates, comites, et majores

barones, sigillatim per litteras nostras; et præterea faciemus

summoneri in generali, per vicecomites et ballivos nostros, omnes

illos qui de nobis tenent in capite.” This is exactly like the entry

in the Chronicle (1123), describing the summoning of a Witenagemót by

Henry the First: “Da sone Þæræfter sende se kyng hise write ofer eal

Englalande, and bed hise biscopes and hise abbates and hise Þeignes

ealle Þet hi scolden cumen to his gewitenemot on Candelmesse deig to

Gleawceastre him togeanes; and hi swa diden.”

(37) These first glimmerings of parliamentary representation were

carefully traced out by Hallam (Middle Ages, ii. 146-152). They can

now be more fully studied in the work of Professor Stubbs. On the

summons in 1213 of four men for each shire besides “milites et barones”

(“quatuor discretos homines de comitatu tuo illuc venire facias”),

the Professor remarks (278): “It is the first writ in which the ‘four

discreet men’ of the county appear as representatives; the first

instance of the summoning of the folkmoot to a general assembly by the

machinery already used for judicial purposes.”

(38) On this subject the eighth chapter of Sir Francis Palgrave’s

English Commonwealth should be studied.

(39) For the whole career of Simon I must again refer generally to

Pauli and Blaauw. The great writ itself, dated at Worcester, December

14th, 1264, will be found in Rymer’s Fœdera, i. 449. It has often

been noticed how small is the number of Earls and other lay Barons, and

how unusually large the number of churchmen, who are summoned to this

Parliament. The whole list will be found in Rymer. The parts of the

writ which concern us stand thus:

“Item mandatum est singulis vicecomitibus per Angliam; quod venire

faciant duos milites de legalioribus, probioribus et discretioribus

militibus singulorum comitatuum, ad Regem London’ in octab’ prædictis,

in formâ supradictâ.

“Item in formâ prædictâ scribitur civibus Ebor’, civibus Lincoln’,

et cæteris burgis Angliæ; quod mittant in formâ prædictâ duos de

discretioribus, legalioribus, et probioribus, tam civibus, quam

burgensibus suis.

“Item in formâ prædictâ mandatum est baronibus, et probis hominibus

Quinque Portuum.”

“This is often regarded as the origin of popular representation; but it

is not in any sense entitled to that praise. The novelty was simply the

assembling the representatives of the towns in conjunction with those

of the counties; this was now done for the first time for the purpose

of the national council.” Stubbs, 401.

(40) The account of this most remarkable trial, held on June 11th,

1252, is given in a letter from Simon’s intimate friend the famous

Franciscan Adam Marsh (de Marisco) to Bishop Robert Grosseteste. The

Latin text is printed in Mr. Brewer’s Monumenta Franciscana, p. 122,

and there is an English translation in the Appendix to Mrs. Green’s

Life of Countess Eleanor, English Princesses, ii. 447. Simon’s

witnesses, knights and citizens, come “muniti litteris patentibus

communitatis Burdegalensis, in quâ quasi totum robur Vasconiæ ad

distringendum hostiles et fideles protegendum consistere dignoscitur,”

setting forth how good Simon’s government was in every way, and how

those who brought charges against him did it only because his strict

justice had put a check on their misdoings. We may compare the words of

the great poetical manifesto (Political Songs, 76).

“Seductorem nominant S. atque fallacem,

Facta sed examinant probantque veracem.”

(41) For the Londoners at Lewes let us take the account of an enemy.

Thomas Wykes (148) tells us how the Earl set out, “glorians in virtute

sua congregata baronum multitudine copiosa, Londoniensium innumerabili

agmine circumcinctus, quia legitur stultorum infinitus est numerus.”

Presently we read how the “Londoniensium innumera multitudo, bellorum

ignara,” were put to flight by the Lord Edward very much after the

manner of Prince Rupert.

(42) On the religious reverence paid to Earl Waltheof, see Norman

Conquest, ii. 602. I have there referred to the office of Thomas of

Lancaster, which will be found in Political Songs, 268. Some of the

pieces are what we should think most daring parodies of parts of the

Church Service, but we may be sure that what was intended was reverence

and not irreverence. There is another parody of the same kind in honour

of Earl Thomas, a little earlier back in the volume, p. 258. It was a

matter of course that Thomas of Lancaster should be likened to Thomas

of Canterbury.

“Gaude, Thoma, ducum decus, lucerna Lancastriæ,

Qui per necem imitaris Thomam Cantuariæ;

Cujus caput conculcatur pacem ob ecclesiæ,

Atque tuum detruncatur causa pacis Angliæ.

(43) Let us take a Latin, a French, and an English specimen of the

poems in which Simon’s death was lamented and his intercession implored.

“Salve, Symon Montis Fortis,

Totius flos militiæ,

Durus pœnas passus mortis,

Protector gentis Angliæ.

Sunt de sanctis inaudita

Cunctis passis in hac vita,

Quemquam passum talia;

Manus, pedes, amputari,

Caput, corpus, vulnerari,

Abscidi virilia.

Sis pro nobis intercessor

Apud Deum, qui defensor

In terris exstiteras.”—(Political Songs, 124.)

The French poem which follows directly in the collection is too long to

copy in full. This is perhaps the most remarkable stanza, in which we

again find the comparison with Thomas of Canterbury:—

“Mès par sa mort, le cuens Mountfort conquist la victorie,

Come ly martyr de Caunterbyr, finist sa vie;

Ne voleit pas li bon Thomas qe perist seinte Eglise,

Le cuens auxi se combati, e morust sauntz feyntise.

Ore est ocys la flur de pris, qe taunt savoit de guerre,

Ly quens Montfort, sa dure mort molt emplorra la terre.”

In this poem there is not, as in the Latin one, any direct prayer to

the martyred Earl, but in the last stanza we read:—

“Sire Simoun ly prodhom, e sa compagnie,

En joie vont en ciel amount, en pardurable vie.”

The only English piece on these wars belongs to an earlier date,

namely, the satirical poem against King Richard, how the one English

Augustus

“Makede him a castel of a mulne post;”

but we get verses on Simon’s death in the Chronicle of Robert of

Gloucester (ii. 559):—

“& sir Simond was aslawe, & is folk al to grounde,

More murÞre are nas in so lute stounde.

Vor Þere was werst Simond de Mountfort aslawe, alas!

& sir Henri is sone, Þat so gentil knizt was.

* * * * *

& among alle oÞere mest reuÞe it was ido,

Þat sir Simon Þe olde man demembred was so.”

He then goes on with the details of the dismemberment, of which a

picture may be seen opposite p. 254 of Mr. Blaauw’s book, and then goes

on with the lines which I have before quoted:—

“Suich was Þe morÞre of Eivesham (vor bataile non it was),

And Þer wiÞ Jesu Crist wel vuele ipaied was,

As he ssewede bitokninge grisliche and gode,

As it vel of him sulue, Þo he deide on Þe rode,

Þat Þoru al Þe middelerd derk hede Þer was inou.”

(44) On the occasional and irregular summoning of the borough members

between 1265 and 1295 see Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 160, 165, and

more fully in Stubbs, Select Charters, 420, 427, where the gradual

developement of parliamentary representation is treated as it has

never been treated before, with a full citation of the authorities.

The language in which the chroniclers speak of the constitution of the

early Parliaments of Edward is as vague as that in which our ancient

Gemóts are described. Sometimes they speak only of “proceres” and the

like; sometimes they distinctly mention the popular element. Curiously

enough, the official language is sometimes more popular than that of

the annalists. Thus the Winchester Annals, recording the Statute of

Westminster in 1273, call the Assembly which passed it a “communis

convocatio omnium magnatum regni,” though it incidentally implies the

presence of other persons, “quamplures de regno qui aliqua feoda de

corona regia tenuerunt.” But the preamble of the Statute itself records

the “assentement des erceveskes, eveskes, abbes, priurs, contes,

barons, et _la communaute de la tere_ ileokes somons.” So in the later

Parliament of the same year the Annals speak only of the “communis

consensus archiepiscoporum, comitum, et baronum,” while the official

description is “prælati, comites, barones, et alii de regno nostro.”

But in an earlier Assembly, that held in 1273, before Edward had come

back to England, the same Winchester Annals tell us how “convenerunt

archiepiscopi et episcopi, comites et barones, et _de quolibet comitatu

quatuor milites et de qualibet civitate quatuor_.” This and the

summons to the Parliament of 1285, which sat in judgement on David

of Wales (Stubbs, 453, 457), seem the most distinct cases of borough

representation earlier than 1295, since which time the summoning of the

borough members has gone on regularly. See Stubbs, 473. Mr. Stubbs’

remarks on the Assemblies of “the transitionary period” in pp. 465, 469

should be specially studied.

(45) The history of the resistance of these two Earls to King Edward,

which led to the great Confirmation of the Charters in 1297, will be

found in all the histories of the time, old and new. See also Stubbs,

431, 479. I feel no difficulty in reconciling respect for Edward with

respect for the men who withstood him. The case is well put by Stubbs,

34, 35.

(46) The exact value of the document commonly known as the statute “De

Tallagio non concedendo” is discussed by Professor Stubbs, p. 487. It

is perhaps safest to look on it, like many of the earlier collections

of laws, not indeed as an actual statute, but as good evidence of a

principle which, from the time of the Confirmation of the Charters, has

been universally received. The words are—

“Nullum tallagium vel auxilium per nos vel hæredes nostros de cetero in

regno nostro imponatur seu levetur, sine voluntate et assensu communi

archiepiscoporum, episcoporum et aliorum prælatorum, comitum, baronum,

militum, burgensium, et aliorum liberorum hominum in regno nostro.”

This, it will be seen, is the same provision which I have already

quoted (see above, Note 36) from the Great Charter of John, but which

was left out in the Charter in the form in which it was confirmed by

Henry the Third. See Stubbs, 330, 332, 336.

(47) I have said this before in Historical Essays, p. 41. On the

strongly marked legal character of Edward’s age, and especially of

Edward’s own mind, see Stubbs, 417.

(48) The great statute of treason of 25 Edward the Third (see the

Revised Edition of the Statutes, i. 185) secures the life of the King,

his wife, and his eldest son, and the chastity of his wife, his eldest

daughter, and his eldest son’s wife. But the personal privilege goes no

further. As the Law of England knows no classes of men except peers and

commoners, it follows that the younger children of the King—the eldest

is born Duke of Cornwall—are, in strictness of speech, commoners,

unless they are personally raised to the peerage. I am not aware that

either case has ever arisen, but I conceive that there is nothing to

hinder a King’s son, not being a peer, from voting at an election, or

from being chosen to the House of Commons, and I conceive that, if

he committed a crime, he would be tried by a jury. Mere precedence

and titles have nothing to do with the matter, though probably a good

deal of confusion arises from the very modern fashion—one might almost

say the modern vulgarism—of calling all the children of the King or

Queen “Princes” and “Princesses.” As late as the time of George the

Second uncourtly Englishmen were still found who eschewed the foreign

innovation, and who spoke of the Lady Caroline and the Lady Emily, as

their fathers had done before them.

Another modern vulgarism is that of using the word “royal”—“royal

visit,” “royal marriage,” and so forth—when there is no royalty in the

case, the person spoken of being a subject, perhaps a commoner.

(49) On the parliamentary position of the clergy see Hallam, Middle

Ages, ii. 263. And as far as the reign of Edward the First is

concerned, see the series of summonses in Stubbs, 442.

(50) On this important constitutional change, which was made in

1664, without any Act of Parliament, but by a mere verbal agreement

between Archbishop Sheldon and Lord Chancellor Clarendon, see Hallam,

Constitutional History, ii. 405.

(51) This is true on the whole, especially at the beginning of the

institution of the States General, though there were also _roturiers_

who were the immediate burgesses of the King. See Thierry, History

of the Tiers Etat, i. 56 (Eng. trans.). It is in that work that the

history of that branch of the States General should be studied.

(52) The question of one or two Chambers in an ordinary monarchy or

commonwealth is altogether different from the same question under a

Federal system. In England or France the question between one or two

Chambers in the Legislature is simply a question in which of the two

ways the Legislature is likely to do its work best. But in a Federal

constitution, like that of Switzerland or the United States, the two

Chambers are absolutely necessary. The double sovereignty, that of

the whole nation and that of the independent and equal States which

have joined together to form it, can be rightly represented only

by having two Chambers, one of them, the _Nationalrath_ or House

of Representatives, directly representing the nation as such, and

the other, the _Ständerath_ or Senate, representing the separate

sovereignty of the Cantons. In the debates early in 1872 as to the

revision of the Swiss Federal Constitution, a proposal made in the

_Nationalrath_ for the abolition of the _Ständerath_ was thrown out by

a large majority.

(53) On the old Constitution of Sweden, see Laing’s Tour in Sweden.

(54) This common mistake and its cause are fully explained by Hallam,

Middle Ages, ii. 237.

(55) “The two Houses had contended violently in 1675, concerning the

appellate jurisdiction of the Lords; they had contended, with not less

violence, in 1704, upon the jurisdiction of the Commons in matters of

election; they had quarrelled rudely, in 1770, while insisting upon

the exclusion of strangers. But upon general measures of public policy

their differences had been rare and unimportant.” May’s Constitutional

History, i. 307. The writer goes on to show why differences between the

two Houses on important points have become more common in very recent

times.

(56) The share of the Witan in early times in the appointment of

Bishops, Ealdormen, and other great officers, need hardly be dwelled

upon. For a debate in a Witenagemót of Eadward the Confessor on a

question of peace or war, see Norman Conquest, ii. 90. For the like

under Henry the Third, see the account in Matthew Paris, in the year

1242 which will be found in Stubbs, 359. The state of the case under

Edward the Third is discussed by Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 184. See

also May, ii. 86. But the most remarkable passage of all is one in the

great poetical manifesto which I have several times quoted: it is there

(Political Songs, 96) made one of the charges against Henry the Third

that he wished to keep the appointment of the great officers of state

in his own hands. The passage is long, but it is well worth quoting at

length.

“Rex cum suis voluit ita liber esse;

Et sic esse debuit, fuitque necesse

Aut esse desineret rex, privatus jure

Regis, nisi faceret quidquid vellet; curæ

Non esse magnatibus regni quos præferret

Suis comitatibus, vel quibus conferret

Castrorum custodiam, vel quem exhibere

Populo justitiam vellet, et habere

Regni cancellarium thesaurariumque.

Suum ad arbitrium voluit quemcumque,

Et consiliarios de quacumque gente,

Et ministros varios se præcipiente,

Non intromittentibus se de factis regis

Angliæ baronibus, vim habente legis

Principis imperio, et quod imperaret

Suomet arbitrio singulos ligaret.”

(57) Take for example the Act passed after Edward the Fourth’s success

at Towton. Rot Parl. v. 466. Among other things, poor Henry the Sixth

is not only branded as an usurper, but is charged with personally

stirring up the movement in the North, which led to the battle of

Wakefield and the death of Richard Duke of York. “The seid Henry

Usurpour, late called Kyng Henry the Sixt, contynuyng in his olde

rancour & malice, usyng the fraude & malicious disceit & dissimulacion

ayenst trouth & conscience, that accorde not with the honoure of eny

Cristen Prynce, ... with all subtill ymaginacions & disceitfull weyes

& meanes to hym possible, intended & covertely laboured, excited &

procured the fynal destruction, murdre & deth of the seid Richard Duc,

and of his Sonnes, that is to sey, of oure seid nowe Soverayne Lord

Kyng Edward the fourth, then Erle of Marche, & of the noble Lord Edmund

Erle of Ruthlande; & for th’ execution of his dampnable & malicious

purpose, by writing & other messages, mowed, excited, & stured therunto

the Duks of Excestr’ & Somerset, & other lordes beyng then in the North

parties of this Reame.”

(58) This statute was passed in 8 Henry VI. A.D. 1420. The complaint

which it makes is well worth notice, and shows the reactionary

tendencies of the time. The county elections had been made by “very

great, outrageous, and excessive number of people dwelling within the

same counties, of which most part was people of small substance, and

of no value, whereof every of them pretended a voice equivalent, as to

such elections to be made, with the most worthy knights and esquires

dwelling within the same counties.” To hinder “the manslaughters,

riots, batteries, and divisions,” which were likely to take place—it is

not said that they had taken place—no one is to be allowed to vote who

has not “free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the

year at the least above all charges.” It is also provided that both the

electors and the elected are to be actually resident in the county. The

original French is worth quoting.

“Item come lez eleccions dez Chivalers des Countees esluz a venir as

parlements du Roi en plusours Countees Dengleterre, ore tarde ount

este faitz par trop graunde & excessive nombre dez gents demurrantz

deinz mesmes les Countes, dount la greindre partie estoit par gentz

sinon de petit avoir ou de null valu, dount chescun pretende davoir

voice equivalent quant a tielx eleccions faire ove les plius valantz

chivalers ou esquiers demurrantz deins mesmes les Countes; dount

homicides riotes bateries & devisions entre les gentiles & autres

gentz de mesmes les Countees verisemblablement sourdront & seront, si

covenable remedie ne soit purveu en celle partie: Notre seigneur le

Roy considerant les premisses ad pourveu & ordene par auctorite de cest

parlement que les Chivalers des Countes deins le Roialme Dengleterre,

a esliers a venir a les parlementz en apres atenirs, soient esluz

en chescun Counte par gentz demurrantz & receantz en icelles dount

chescun ait frank tenement a le valu de xl s. par an al meins outre les

reprises; & que ceux qui seront ensy esluz soient demurrantz & receantz

deins mesmes les Countes.” Revised Statutes, i. 306.

The necessity of residence in the case of either electors or

representatives was repealed by 14 Geo. III. c. 58.

The statute goes on to give the Sheriff power to examine the electors

on oath as to the amount of their property. It also gives the Judges of

Assize a power foreshadowing that of our present Election Judges, that

of inquiring into false returns made by the Sheriff.

Another statute of the same kind was passed later in the same reign,

23 Henry VI. A.D. 1444-5, from which it appears that the knights of

the shire were ceasing to be in all cases knights in the strict sense,

and that it was beginning to be found needful to fence them about with

oligarchic restrictions.

“Issint que lez Chivalers dez Counteez pour le parlement en après a

esliers so ent notablez Chivalers dez mesmez lez Counteez pour lez

queux ils serront issint esluz, ou autrement tielx notablez Esquiers

gentils homez del Nativite dez mesmez lez Counteez comme soient ablez

destre Chivalers; et null home destre tiel Chivaler que estoise en la

degree de vadlet et desouth.” Revised Statutes, i. 346.

Every enactment of this kind bears witness to the growth of the power

of the Commons, and to the endeavours of the people to make their

representation really popular.

(59) Take for instance the account given by the chronicler Hall (p.

253) of the election of Edward the Fourth.

“After the lordes had considered and weyghed his title and declaracion,

they determined by authoritie of the sayd counsaill, for as much as

kyng Henry, contrary to his othe, honor and agreement, had violated

and infringed, the order taken and enacted in the last Parliament,

and also, because he was insufficient to rule the Realme, & inutile

to the common wealth, & publique profite of the pore people, he was

therefore by the aforesayed authoritie, depriued & deiected of all

kyngly honor, & regall souereigntie. And incontinent, Edward erle of

Marche, sonne and heyre to Richard duke of Yorke, was by the lordes in

the sayd counsaill assembled, named, elected, & admitted, for kyng &

gouernour of the realme; on which day, the people of the erles parte,

beyng in their muster in sainct Ihons felde, & a great number of the

substanciall citezens there assembled, to behold their order: sodaynly

the lord Fawconbridge, which toke the musters, wisely declared to

the multitude, the offences & breaches of the late agremente done &

perpetrated by kyng Henry the vi. & demaunded of the people, whether

they woulde haue the sayd kyng Henry to rule & reigne any lenger ouer

them: To whome they with a whole voyce, aunswered, nay, nay. Then

he asked them, if they would serue, loue, & obey the erle of March

as their earthly prince & souereign lord. To which question they

aunswered, yea, yea, crieng, king Edward, with many great showtes and

clappyng of handes.... The erle, ... as kyng, rode to the church of

sainct Paule, and there offered. And after _Te deum_ song, with great

solempnitie, he was conueyed to Westmynster, and there set in the

hawle, with the scepter royall in his hand, where to all the people

which there in a great number were assembled, his title and clayme

to the croune of England, was declared by, ii. maner of ways: the

firste, as sonne and heyre to duke Richard his father, right enheritor

to the same; the second, by aucthoritie of Parliament and forfeiture

committed by, kyng Henry. Wherupon it was agayne demaunded of the

commons, if they would admitte, and take the sayd erle as their prince

and souereigne lord, which al with one voice cried, yea, yea.... On

the morow he was proclaymed kyng by the name of kyng Edward the iiij.

throughout the citie.”

This was in Lent 1461, before the battle of Towton. Edward was crowned

June 29th in the same year. The same chronicler describes the election

or acknowledgement of Richard the Third, p. 372.

(60) One special sign of the advance of the power of Parliament in the

fifteenth century was the practice of bringing in bills in the form

of Statutes ready made. Hitherto the Acts of the Commons had taken

the form of petitions, and it was sometimes found that, after the

Parliament had broken up, the petitions had been fraudulently modified.

They now brought in bills, which the King accepted or rejected as they

stood. See Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. 222.

(61) Macaulay, i. 38. “The knight of the shire was the connecting link

between the baron and the shopkeeper. On the same benches on which

sate the goldsmiths, drapers, and grocers who had been returned to

Parliament by the commercial towns, sate also members who, in any other

country, would have been called noblemen, hereditary lords of manors,

entitled to hold courts and to bear coat armour, and able to trace

back an honourable descent through many generations. Some of them were

younger sons and brothers of great lords. Others could boast even of

royal blood. At length the eldest son of an Earl of Bedford, called

in courtesy by the second title of his father, offered himself as a

candidate for a seat in the House of Commons, and his example was

followed by others. Seated in that house, the heirs of the grandees of

the realm naturally became as zealous for its privileges as any of the

humble burgesses with whom they were mingled.”

Hallam remarks (ii. 250) that it is in the reign of Edward the Fourth

that we first find borough members bearing the title of Esquire, and

he goes on to refer to the Paston Letters as showing how important

a seat in Parliament was then held, and as showing also the undue

influences which were already brought to bear upon the electors. Since

Hallam’s time, the authenticity of the Paston Letters has been called

in question, but it has, I think, been fully established. Some of the

entries are very curious indeed. In one (i. 96), without any date of

the year, the Duchess of Norfolk writes to John Paston, Esquire, to

use his influence at a county election on behalf of some creatures of

the Duke’s: “It is thought right necessarie for divers causes þͭ my

Lord have at this tyme in the p’lement suche p’sones as longe unto him

and be of his menyall S’vaunts wherin we conceyve yoͬ good will and

diligence shal be right expedient.” The persons to be thus chosen for

the convenience of the Duke are described as “our right wel-belovid

Cossin and S’vaunts John Howard and Syr Roger Chambirlayn.” This is

followed by a letter from the Earl of Oxford in 1455, much to the same

effect. In ii. 98, we have a letter addressed to the Bailiff of Maldon,

recommending the election of Sir John Paston on behalf of a certain

great lady not named. The letter is worth giving in full.

“Ryght trusty frend I comand me to yow preyĩg yow to call to yoʳ

mynd that lyek as ye and I comonyd of it were necessary for my Lady

and you all hyr Serũnts and teñnts to have thys p’lement as for

õn of the Burgeys of the towne of Maldon syche a man of worchep

and of wytt as wer towardys my seyd Lady and also syche on as is in

favor of the Kyng and of the Lords of hys consayll nyghe abought hys

p’sone. Sertyfyĩg yow that my seid Lady for her parte and syche as

be of hyr consayll be most agreeabyll that bothe ye and all syche as

be hyr fermors and teñntys and wellwyllers shold geve your voyse to a

worchepfull knyght and on’ of my Ladys consayll Sʳ John Paston whyche

standys gretly in favore wͭ my Lord Chamberleyn and what my seyd Lord

Chamberleyn may do wͭ the Kyng and wͭ all the Lordys of Inglond I

trowe it be not unknowyn to you most of eny on man alyve. Wherefor by

the meenys of the seyd Sʳ John Paston to my seyd Lord Chamberleyn

bothe my Lady and ye of the towne kowd not have a meeter man to be for

yow in the perlement to have yoʳ needys sped at all seasons. Wherefor

I prey yow labor all syche as be my Ladys serũntts tennts and

wellwyllers to geve ther voyseys to the seyd Sʳ John Paston and that

ye fayle not to sped my Ladys intent in thys mater as ye entend to do

hyr as gret a plesur as if ye gave hyr an Cˡͥ [100_l._] And God have

yow in hys kepĩg. Wretyn at Fysheley the xx day of Septebyr.—J.

ARBLASTER.”

(62) On the effects of the reign of Charles the Fifth in Spain and

his overthrow of the liberties of Castile, see the general view in

Robertson, iii. 434, though in his narrative (ii. 186) he glorifies

the King’s clemency. See also the first chapter of the sixth book

of Prescott’s Philip the Second, and on the suppression of the

constitution of Aragon by Philip, Watson, Philip the Second, iii. 223.

The last meeting of the French States-General before the final meeting

in 1789 was that in 1614, during the minority of Lewis the Thirteenth.

See Sismondi, xiii. 342.

(63) The legal character of William’s despotism I have tried to set

forth almost throughout the whole of my fourth volume. See especially

pp. 8, 617; but it is plain to everyone who has the slightest knowledge

of Domesday. Nothing can show more utter ignorance of the real

character of the man and his times than the idea of William being a

mere “rude man of war,” as I have seen him called.

(64) On the true aspect of the reign of Henry the Eighth I have said

something in the Fortnightly Review, September 1871.

(65) Both these forms of undue influence on the part of the Crown

are set forth by Hallam, Constitutional History, i. 45, ii. 203.

“It will not be pretended,” he says, “that the wretched villages,

which corruption and perjury still hardly keep from famine [this was

written before the Reform Bill, in 1827], were seats of commerce and

industry in the sixteenth century. But the county of Cornwall was more

immediately subject to a coercive influence, through the indefinite and

oppressive jurisdiction of the stannary court. Similar motives, if we

could discover the secrets of those governments, doubtless operated in

most other cases.”

In the same page the historian, speaking of the different boroughs and

counties which received the franchise in the sixteenth century, says,

“It might be possible to trace the reason, why the county of Durham was

passed over.” And he suggests, “The attachment of those northern parts

to popery seems as likely as any other.” The reason for the omission

of Durham was doubtless that the Bishoprick had not wholly lost the

character of a separate principality. It was under Charles the Second

that Durham city and county, as well as Newark, first sent members to

Parliament. Durham was enfranchised by Act of Parliament, as Chester

city and county—hitherto kept distinct as being a Palatinate—were by

34 & 35 Hen. VIII. c. 13. (Revised Statutes, i. 522.) Newark was

enfranchised by a Royal Charter, the last case of that kind of exercise

of the prerogative. Hallam, ii. 204.

(66) I do not know what was the exact state of Old Sarum in 1265 or

in 1295, but earlier in the thirteenth century it was still the chief

dwelling-place both of the Earl and of the Bishop. But in the reign

of Edward the Third it had so greatly decayed that the stones of the

Cathedral were used for the completion of the new one which had arisen

in the plain.

(67) On the relations between Queen Elizabeth and her Parliaments,

and especially for the bold bearing of the two Wentworths, Peter and

Paul, see the fifth chapter of Hallam’s Constitutional History, largely

grounded on the Journals of Sir Simonds D’Ewes. The frontispiece to

D’Ewes’ book (London, 1682) gives a lively picture of a Parliament of

those days.

(68) On the relations between the Crown and the House of Commons under

James the First, see the sixth chapter of Hallam’s Constitutional

History, and the fifth chapter of Gardner’s History of England from

1603 to 1616.

CHAPTER III.

(1) This was the famous motion made by Sir Robert Peel against the

Ministry of Lord Melbourne, and carried by a majority of one, June 4,

1841. See May’s Constitutional History, i. 158. Irving’s Annals of our

Times, 86.

(2) This of course leaves to the Ministry the power of appealing to the

country by a dissolution of Parliament; but, if the new Parliament also

declares against them, it is plain that they have nothing to do but to

resign office. In the case of 1841 Lord Melbourne dissolved Parliament,

and, on the meeting of the new Parliament, an amendment to the address

was carried by a majority of ninety-one, August 28, 1841. The Ministry

therefore resigned.

(3) This is well set forth by Sir John Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum

Angliæ, cap. 36: “Neque Rex ibidem, per se aut ministros suos,

tallegia, subsidia, aut quævis onera alia, imponit legiis suis, aut

leges eorum mutat, vel novas condit, sine concessione vel assensu

totius regni sui in parliamento suo expresso.”

(4) How very recent the establishment of these principles is will be

seen by anyone who studies the history of the reign of George the Third

in the work of Sir T. E. May. Mr. Pitt, as is well known, kept office

in defiance of repeated votes of the House of Commons, and at last, by

a dissolution at a well-chosen moment, showed that the country was on

his side. Such conduct would not be deemed constitutional now, but the

wide difference between the constitution of the House of Commons then

and now should be borne in mind.

(5) Though the command of the Sovereign would be no excuse for any

illegal act, and though the advisers of any illegal act are themselves

responsible for it, yet there would seem to be no way provided for

punishing an illegal act done by the Sovereign in his own person. The

Sovereign may therefore be said to be personally irresponsible.

(6) See Macaulay, iv. 435. It should not be forgotten that writers like

Blackstone and De Lolme say nothing about the Cabinet. Serjeant Stephen

supplies the omission, ii. 447.

(7) The lowly outward position of the really ruling assembly comes out

in some degree at the opening of every session of Parliament. But it is

far more marked in the grotesque, and probably antiquated, ceremonies

of a Conference of the two Houses. This comes out most curiously of all

in the Conference between the two Houses of the Convention in 1688. See

Macaulay, ii. 660.

(8) See Note 56, Chapter ii.

(9) See Macaulay, iv. 437.

(10) “Ministers” or “Ministry” were the words always used at the

time of the Reform Bill in 1831-1832. It would be curious to trace

at what time the present mode of speech came into vogue, either in

parliamentary debates or in common speech.

Another still later change marks a step toward the recognition of the

Cabinet. It has long been held that a Secretary of State must always

accompany the Sovereign everywhere. It is now beginning to be held that

any member of the Cabinet will do as well as a Secretary of State. But

if any member of the Cabinet, why not any Privy Councillor?

(11) In February 1854 Mr. Cayley moved for a “Select Committee to

consider the duties of the Member leading the Government business in

this House, and the expediency of attaching office and salary thereto.”

The motion was withdrawn, after being opposed by Sir Charles Wood

(now Viscount Halifax), Mr. Walpole, and Lord John Russell (now Earl

Russell). Sir Charles Wood described the post of Leader of the House

as “an office that does not exist, and the duties of which cannot be

defined.” Mr. Walpole spoke of it as a “position totally unknown to the

constitution of the country.” Yet I presume that everybody practically

knew that Lord John Russell was Leader of the House, though nobody

could give a legal definition of his position. A discussion then

followed between Mr. Walpole and Lord John Russell on the nature of

ministerial responsibility. Mr. Walpole said that “members were apt to

talk gravely of ministerial responsibility; but responsibility there is

none, except by virtue of the office that a Minister holds, or possibly

by the fact of his being a Privy Councillor. A Minister is responsible

for the acts done by him; a Privy Councillor for advice given by him in

that capacity. Until the reign of Charles the Second, Privy Councillors

always signed the advice they gave; and to this day the Cabinet is not

a body recognised by law. As a Privy Councillor, a person is under

little or no responsibility for the acts advised by him, on account of

the difficulty of proof.” Lord John Russell “asked the House to pause

before it gave assent to the constitutional doctrines laid down by Mr.

Walpole. He unduly restricted the responsibility of Ministers.” ... “I

hold,” continued Lord John, “that it is not really for the business the

Minister transacts in performing the particular duties of his office,

but it is for any advice which he has given, and which he may be

proved, before a Committee of this House, or at the bar of the House of

Lords, to have given, that he is responsible, and for which he suffers

the penalties that may ensue from impeachment.”

It is plain that both Mr. Walpole and Lord Russell were here speaking

of real legal responsibility, such responsibility as might be enforced

by impeachment or other legal process, not of the vaguer kind of

responsibility which is commonly meant when we speak of Ministers being

“responsible to the House of Commons.” This last is enforced, not by

legal process, but by such motions as that of Sir Robert Peel in 1841,

or that of the Marquess of Hartington in June 1859.

I have made my extracts from the Spectator newspaper of February 11,

1854.

(12) We read (Anglia Sacra, i. 335) of Æthelric, Bishop of the

South-Saxons at the time of the Conquest, as “vir antiquissimus et

legum terræ sapientissimus.” So Adelelm, the first Norman Abbot of

Abingdon, found much benefit from the legal knowledge of certain of his

English monks (Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ii. 2), “quibus tanta

secularium facundia et præteritorum memoria eventorum inerat, ut cæteri

circumquaque facile eorum sententiam ratam fuisse, quam edicerent,

approbarent.” The writer adds, “Sed et alii plures de Anglis causidici

per id tempus in abbatia ista habebantur quorum collationi nemo sapiens

refragabatur.” But knowledge of the law was not an exclusively clerical

accomplishment; for among the grounds for the election of King Harold

himself, we find (de Inventione Sanctæ Crucis Walthamensis, p. 25,

Stubbs) that one was “quia non erat eo prudentior in terra, armis

strenuus magis, legum terræ sagacior.” See Norman Conquest, ii. 538,

iv. 366, 478.

(13) On the growth of the lawyers’ theory of the royal prerogative, and

its utter lack of historical standing-ground, I must refer once for all

to Allen’s Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in

England.

(14) See Norman Conquest, ii. 330.

(15) The history of this memorable revolution will be found in

Lingard, iii. 392-405, and the legal points are brought out by Hallam,

Middle Ages, ii. 214. He remarks that “In this revolution of 1399

there was as remarkable an attention shown to the formalities of the

constitution, allowance made for the men and the times, as in that

of 1688;” and, speaking of the device by which the same Parliament

was brought together again, he adds, “In this contrivance, more than

in all the rest, we may trace the hand of lawyers.” The official

version entered on the rolls of Parliament by command of Henry will

be found in Walsingham, ii. 234-238. Some care seems to be used to

avoid using the name of Parliament in the account of the actual

proceedings. It is said just before, “Rex perductus est Londonias,

conservandus in Turri usque ad Parliamentum proximo celebrandum.”

And the writs are said to have been sent “ad personas regni qui de

jure debeant interesse Parliamento.” But when they have come together

(“quibus convenientibus”) care seems to be taken to give the Assembly

no particular name, till, in the Act of Richard’s deposition, the

actors are described as “pares et proceres regni Angliæ spirituales

et temporales, et ejus regni communitates, omnes status ejusdem regni

repræsentantes;” and in the Act of Henry’s election they are described

as “domini tam spirituales quam temporales, et omnes regni status.” In

the Act of deposition Richard’s resignation of the Crown is recorded,

as well as his particular crimes and his general unfitness to wear it,

all which are classed together as reasons for his deposition. The

actual formula of deposition runs thus:—“propter præmissa, et eorum

prætextu, ab omni dignitate et honore regiis, _si quid dignitatis et

honoris hujusmodi in eo remanserit_, merito deponendum pronunciamus,

decernimus, et declaramus; et etiam simili cautela deponimus.” They

then declare the throne to be vacant (“ut constabat de præmissis,

et eorum occasione, regnum Angliæ, cum pertinentiis suis, vacare”).

Henry then makes his challenge, setting forth that strange mixture of

titles which is commented on in most narratives of the event, and the

Estates, without saying which of Henry’s arguments they accept, grant

the kingdom to him (“concesserunt unanimiter ut Dux præfatus super eos

regnaret”). A more distinct case of deposition and election can hardly

be found; only in the words which I have put in italics there seems a

sort of anxiety to complete, by the act of deposition, any possible

defect in Richard’s doubtless unwilling abdication.

The French narrative by a partisan of Richard (Lystoire de la Traison

et Mort du Roy Richart Dengleterre, p. 68) gives, in some respects, a

different account. The Assembly is called a Parliament, and the Duke

of Lancaster is made to seat himself on the throne at once. Then Sir

Thomas Percy “cria ‘Veez Henry de Lencastre Roy Dengleterre.’ Adonc

crierent tous les seigneurs prelaz et _le commun de Londres_, Ouy Ouy

nous voulons que Henry duc de Lencastre soit nostre Roy et nul autre.”

For “le commun de Londres” there are other readings, “le commun,” “le

commun Dangleterre et de Londres,” and “tout le commun et conseil de

Londres.”

(16) It should be remembered that Charles the First was not deposed,

but was executed being King. He was called King both in the indictment

at his trial and in the warrant of his beheading.

(17) Monk raised this point in 1660. See Lingard, viii. 607.

(18) Lingard (viii. 612) remarks that at this particular moment “there

was no court to influence, no interference of the military to control

the elections.” The Convention may therefore be supposed to have been

more freely elected than most Parliaments.

(19) The Long Parliament had dissolved itself, and had decreed the

election of its successor. By the Act 13 Charles II. (Revised Statutes,

i. 733) the Long Parliament is “declared and adjudged to be fully

dissolved and determined;” but it is not said when it was dissolved and

determined. See also Lingard, ix. 5; Hallam’s Constitutional History,

ii. 21, where the whole matter is discussed, and it is remarked that

“the next Parliament never gave their predecessors any other name in

the Journals than ‘the late assembly.’”

(20) See Norman Conquest, i. 365, 366.

(21) See the discussion on the famous vote of the Convention Parliament

in Hallam, Constitutional History, ii. 260-263. Macaulay, ii. 623.

Hallam remarks that “the word ‘forfeiture’ might better have answered

this purpose than ‘abdication’ or ‘desertion,’” and he adds, “they

proceeded not by the stated rules of the English government, but by

the general rights of mankind. They looked not so much to Magna Charta

as the original compact of society, and rejected Coke and Hale for

Hooker and Harrington.” My position is that there is no need to go to

what Hallam calls “higher constitutional laws” for the justification

of the doings of the Convention, but that they were fully justified

by the precedents of English History from the eighth century to the

fourteenth.

The Scottish Estates, it should be remembered, did not shrink from

using the word “forfeited.” Macaulay, iii. 285.

(22) See the Act 1 William and Mary “for removing and preventing all

Questions and Disputes concerning the Assembling and Sitting of this

Present Parliament” (Revised Statutes, ii. 1). It decrees “That the

Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons convened at Westminster the

two and twentieth day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand

six hundred eighty-eight, and there sitting on the thirteenth day of

February following, are the two Houses of Parliament, and so shall be

and are hereby declared enacted and adjudged to be to all intents,

constructions, and purposes whatsoever, notwithstanding any fault of

writ or writs of summons, or any defect of form or default whatsoever,

as if they had been summoned according to the usual form.” The whole

history of the question is given in Macaulay, iii. 27-31. The whole

matter is summed up in the words (iii. 27), “It was answered that the

royal writ was mere matter of form, and that to expose the substance

of our laws and liberties to serious hazard for the sake of a form

would be the most senseless superstition. Wherever the Sovereign, the

Peers spiritual and temporal, and the Representatives freely chosen by

the constituent bodies of the realm were met together, there was the

essence of a Parliament.” In earlier times it might perhaps have been

held that there might be the essence of a Parliament even without the

Sovereign.

(23) Macaulay, iv. 535. “A paper had been circulated, in which the

logic of a small sharp pettifogger was employed to prove that writs,

issued in the joint names of William and Mary, ceased to be of force

as soon as William reigned alone. But this paltry cavil had completely

failed. It had not even been mentioned in the Lower House, and had been

mentioned in the Upper only to be contemptuously overruled.” From my

point of view the cavil is certainly paltry, but it is hard to see that

it is more paltry than the others.

(24) This is by the Acts 7 and 8 Will. III. c. 15; 6 Anne, c. 7; and

39 Geo. III. c. 127. See Stephen’s Commentaries, ii. 380. Blackstone’s

reasoning runs thus: “This dissolution formerly happened immediately

upon the death of the reigning sovereign; for he being considered in

law as the head of the parliament (caput principium, et finis), that

failing, the whole body was held to be extinct. But the calling a new

parliament immediately on the inauguration of the successor being found

inconvenient, and dangers being apprehended from having no parliament

in being, in case of a disputed succession, it was enacted,” etc. By

the Reform Act of 1867 the whole tradition of the lawyers was swept

away.

(25) I have said something on this head in Norman Conquest, i. 94,

but the whole thing should be studied in Allen’s great section on the

Tenure of Landed Property; Royal Prerogative, 125-155. It is to Allen

that the honour belongs of showing what _bookland_ and _folkland_

really were.

(26) I have given a few examples in Norman Conquest, i. 589. Endless

examples will be found in Kemble’s Codex Diplomaticus.

(27) See the complaints on this head as late as the time of William

the Third, in Macaulay, iv. 646. On the Acts by which the power of the

Crown in this matter is restrained, see Stephen’s Commentaries, ii.

520. See also May’s Constitutional History, i. 229.

(28) See May, i. 234—248.

(29) This is discussed in full by Allen, Royal Prerogative, 143-145.

The great example is the will of King Ælfred. See Codex Diplomaticus,

ii. 112, v. 127.

(30) See May, i. 249; Allen, 154-155, who remarks: “By a singular

revolution of policy there was a recurrence in the late reign to the

ancient policy of the Anglo-Saxons. The crown lands were virtually

restored to the public, while the King obtained the right of acquiring

landed property by purchase, and of bequeathing it by will like a

private person.”

(31) Edward the First was the earliest King whose reign is dated from

a time earlier than his coronation. He was out of the kingdom at his

father’s death, and his right was acknowledged without opposition. But

even in this case there was an interregnum. The regnal years of Edward

the First are not reckoned from the day of his father’s death, but

from the day of his funeral, when Edward was acknowledged King, and

when the prelates and nobles swore allegiance to him. See the account

in the Worcester Annals, Annales Monastici, iv. 462, and the documents

in Rymer, i. part ii. 497. See also the remarks of Allen, 46, 47. The

doctrine that there can be no interregnum seems to have been put into

shape to please James the First, and it was of course altogether upset

by the great vote of 1688. Now of course there is no interregnum; not

indeed from any mysterious prerogative of the Crown, but simply because

the Act of Settlement has entailed the Crown in a particular way.

(32) On this see Norman Conquest, i. 107, 263, 625. See the same

question discussed in quite another part of the world in Herodotus,

vii. 3.

(33) The helpless way in which Blackstone himself wrote was perhaps

pardonable in the dark times in which he lived. But it is really too

bad when lawyer after lawyer, in successive editions, gives again to

the world the astounding rubbish which in Blackstone’s day passed

for early constitutional history. In Kerr’s edition of Blackstone,

published in 1857, vol. i. p. 180, I find repeated, without alteration

or comment, the monstrous assertion of Blackstone: “I believe there

is no instance wherein the Crown of England has ever been asserted to

be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous and unparalleled

trial of King Charles I.” And in Serjeant Stephen’s Commentaries

(1853), which are not a mere edition of Blackstone, but “New

Commentaries partly founded on Blackstone,” the same words are found

in vol. ii. p. 403, only leaving out the epithet “unparalleled,” which

might with truth have been allowed to stay. In another place (iv.

481-2) we read how “after the Saxon government was firmly established

in this island” came “the subdivision of the kingdom into a heptarchy,

consisting of seven independent kingdoms, peopled and governed by

different clans and colonies.” It seems then that in 1857 there

were learned gentlemen who believed in a kingdom subdivided into a

heptarchy. But when, in the next page, Blackstone tells us how Ælfred

set about “to new-model the constitution, to rebuild it on a plan that

should endure for ages,” and goes on in the usual style to attribute

everything whatever to Ælfred personally, this seems to have been too

much, and the editor gives an extract from Kemble by way of correction.

One wonders that, if he had read Kemble at all, he had not learned a

little more from him. It is amusing again when Blackstone tells us (i.

186, Kerr), “From Egbert to the death of Edmund Ironside, a period

of above two hundred years, the Crown descended regularly through a

succession of fifteen princes, without any deviation or interruption:

save only”—all the cases where it did not descend regularly, according

to Blackstone’s notions of regularity: But it is almost more amusing

when Serjeant Stephen (ii. 410) throws Blackstone’s exceptions, which

are at least historical facts, into a note, and gives us instead as

his own exceptions, the statement, very doubtful and, if true, utterly

irrelevant, that Æthelstan and Eadmund Ironside were illegitimate (see

Norman Conquest, i. 669-673). We of course get the usual talk about the

usurpations of Harold, Stephen, John, and Henry the Fourth, and about

the rights of Eadgar and Arthur of Britanny. For the former we get a

quotation from Matthew Paris, to whom it would have been more to the

purpose to go for the great speech of Archbishop Hubert. The comments

on the succession of John (i. 189, Kerr) are singularly amusing, but

too long to quote.

One point however must be mentioned. To prove the strictly hereditary

nature of the succession, Blackstone (i. 189, Kerr) quotes the Statute

of 25 Edward III. “that the law of the Crown of England is, and always

hath been, that the children of the King of England, whether born in

England or elsewhere, ought to bear the inheritance after the death of

their ancestors.” We are bound to suppose that these learned lawyers

had read through the statute which they quoted; but it is wonderful

that they did not see that it had nothing whatever to do with fixing

the hereditary succession of the Crown. The original text (Revised

Statutes, i. 176) runs thus:—

“La lei de la Corone Dengleterre est, et ad este touz jours tiele,

que les enfantz des Rois Dengleterre, _queu part qils soient neez en

Engleterre ou aillors_, sont ables et deivent porter heritage, apres la

mort lour auncestors.”

The object of the statute is something quite different from what any

one would think from Blackstone’s way of quoting it. The emphatic words

are those which are put in italics. The object of the statute is to

make the King’s children and others born of English parents beyond sea

capable of inheriting in England. As far as the succession to the Crown

is concerned, its effect is simply to put a child of the King born out

of the realm on a level with his brother born in the realm; that is,

in the view of our older Law, to give both alike the preference due to

an Ætheling.

(34) It is as well to explain this, because most people seem to think

that a man becomes a Bishop by virtue of receiving a private letter

from the First Lord of the Treasury. We constantly see a man spoken of

as Bishop of such a see, and his works advertised as such, before a

single ecclesiastical or legal step has been taken to make him so.

(35) See Norman Conquest, iii. 44, 623.

(36) The succession of a grandson, which first took place in England in

the case of Richard the Second, marks a distinct stage in the growth

of the doctrine of hereditary right. It involves the doctrine of

representation, which is a very subtle and technical one, and is not

nearly so obvious or so likely to occur in an early state of society

as the doctrine of nearness of kin. No opposition was made to the

accession of Richard the Second, but there seems to have been a strong

notion in men’s minds that John of Gaunt sought to displace his nephew.

In earlier times, as the eldest and most eminent of the surviving sons

of Edward the Third, John would probably have been elected without any

thought of the claims of young Richard.

(37) In Yorkist official language the three Lancastrian Kings were

usurpers, and Duke Richard was _de jure_, though not _de facto_, King.

Henry the Sixth is, in the Act of 1461, “Henry Usurpour, late called

Kyng Henry the sixt.” The claim of the House of York was through an

intricate female descent from Lionel Duke of Clarence, a son of Edward

the Third older than John of Gaunt. A claim so purely technical had

never been set forth before; but we may be quite sure that it would not

have been thought to have much weight, if Duke Richard had not been, by

another branch, descended from Edward the Third in the male line, and

if he had not moreover been the ablest and most popular nobleman in the

country.

(38) A prospective election before the vacancy of course hindered

any interregnum. In this case the formula “Le Roi est mort; vive le

Roi,” was perfectly true. The new King was already chosen and crowned,

and he had nothing to do but to go on reigning singly instead of in

partnership with his father, just as William went on reigning alone

after the death of Mary. In Germany this took place whenever a King

of the Romans was chosen in the lifetime of the reigning Emperor. In

France, under the early Kings of the Parisian dynasty, the practice

was specially common, and the fact that there seldom or never was an

interregnum doubtless helped much to make the French Crown become, as

it did, the most strictly hereditary crown in Christendom. In England,

the only distinct case of a coronation of a son during the lifetime of

his father was that of Henry, the son of Henry the Second, known as the

younger King, and sometimes as Henry the Third. In earlier times we get

something like it in the settlement of the Crown by Æthelwulf, with the

consent of his Witan (see Old-English History, 105, 106), but it does

not seem clear whether there was in this case any actual coronation

during the father’s lifetime. If there was not, this would be the case

most like that of Duke Richard. The compromise placed the Duke in the

same position as if he had been Prince of Wales, or rather in a better

position, for it might be held to shut out the need of even a formal

election on the King’s death.

(39) See note 59 on Chapter II.

(40) See Norman Conquest, iii. 623.

(41) See Hallam’s Constitutional History, i. 8. It is to be noticed

that the settlement enacts that “the inheritance of the Crown, &c.,

should remain in Henry the Seventh and the heirs of his body for ever,

and in none other.” This would seem to bar a great number of contingent

claims in various descendants of earlier Kings. As it happens, this Act

has been literally carried out, for every later Sovereign of England

has been a descendant of the body of Henry the Seventh.

(42) The will of Henry the Eighth is fully discussed by Hallam, i. 34,

288, 294; Lingard, vi. 213. There are two Acts of Henry’s reign bearing

on the matter. In the earlier one, 28 Henry VIII. c. 7, the Crown is

entailed on the King’s sons by Jane Seymour or any other wife; then

on the King’s legitimate daughters, no names being mentioned; the Act

then goes on to say, “your Highnes shall have full and plenar power

and auctorite to geve despose appoynte assigne declare and lymytt by

your letters patentes under your great seale or ells by your laste Will

made in wrytynge and signed with your moste gracious hande, at your

onely pleasure from tyme to tyme herafter, the imperiall Crowne of this

Realme and all other the premisses thereunto belongyng, to be remayne

succede and come after your decease and for lack of lawfull heires of

your body to be procreated and begoten as is afore lymytted by this

Acte, to such person or persones in possession and remaynder as shall

please your Highnes and according to such estate and after such maner

forme facion ordre and condicion as shalbe expressed declared named and

lymytted in your said letters patentes or by your said laste will.”

The later Act, 35 Henry VIII. c. 1, puts Henry’s two daughters, Mary

and Elizabeth, into the entail, but in a very remarkable way. The Acts

declaring their illegitimacy are not repealed, nor is the legitimacy of

either of them in any way asserted; in fact it is rather denied when

the preamble rehearses that “The king’s Majesty hath only issue of his

body lawfully begotten betwixt his Highness and his said late wife

Queen Jane the noble and excellent Prince Edward.” The Act then goes

on to enact that, although the King had been enabled to “dispose” the

Crown “to any person or persons of such estate therein as should please

his Highness to limit and appoint,” yet that, in failure of heirs of

the body of either the King or his son, “the said imperial Crown and

all other the premises shall be to the Lady Mary the King’s Highness

daughter, and to the heirs of the body of the same Lady Mary lawfully

begotten, with such conditions as by his Highness shall be limited by

his letters patents under his great seal, or by his Majesty’s last will

in writing signed with his gracious hand.” Failing Mary and her issue,

the same conditional entail is extended to Elizabeth and her issue. The

power of creating a remainder after the issue of Elizabeth of course

remained with Henry, and he exercised it in favour of the issue of his

younger sister Mary. Mary and Elizabeth therefore really reigned, not

by virtue of any royal descent, but by virtue of a particular entail by

which the Crown was settled on the King’s illegitimate daughters, as it

might have been settled on a perfect stranger. It was an attempt on the

part of Edward the Sixth to do without parliamentary authority what his

father had done by parliamentary authority which led to the momentary

occupation of the throne by Lady Jane Grey. Mary, on her accession,

raked up the whole story of her mother’s marriage and divorce, and the

Act of the first year of her reign recognized her as inheriting by

legitimate succession. The Act passed on the accession of Elizabeth,

1 Eliz. c. 3, is much vaguer. It enacts “that your majestie our sayd

Sovereigne Ladye ys and in verye dede and of most meere right ought

to bee by the Lawes of God and the Lawes and Statutes of this Realme

our most rightfull and lawfull Sovereigne liege Ladie and Quene; and

that your Highness ys rightlye lynyallye and lawfully discended and

come of the bloodd royall of this Realme of Englande in and to whose

princely person and theires of your bodye lawfully to bee begotten

after youe without all doubte ambiguitee scruple or question the

imperiall and Royall estate place crowne and dignitie of this Reallme

withe all honnours stiles titles dignities Regalities Jurisdiccons and

preheminences to the same nowe belonging & apperteyning arre & shalbee

most fully rightfully really & entierly invested & incorporated united

& annexed as rightfully & lawfully to all intentes construccons &

purposes as the same were in the said late Henrye theight or in the

late King Edwarde the Syxte your Highnes Brother, or in the late Quen

Marye your Highnes syster at anye tyme since thacte of parliament made

in the xxxvth yere of the reigne of your said most noble father king

Henrye theight.”

It should be remembered that Sir Thomas More, though he refused to

swear to the preamble of the oath prescribed by the Act of Supremacy,

was ready to swear to the order of succession which entailed the Crown

on the issue of Anne Boleyn. On his principles the issue of Anne Boleyn

would be illegitimate; but he also held that Parliament could settle

the Crown upon anybody, on an illegitimate child of the King or on an

utter stranger; to the succession therefore he had no objection to

swear.

For a parallel to the extraordinary power thus granted to Henry we have

to go back to the days of Æthelwulf.

(43) The position of the daughters of Henry the Eighth was of course

practically affected by the fact that each was the child of a mother

who was acknowledged as a lawful wife at the time of her daughter’s

birth. There was manifest harshness in ranking children so born with

ordinary illegitimate children; but, in strictness of Law, as Henry

married Anne Boleyn while Katharine of Aragon was alive, the daughter

of Katharine and the daughter of Anne could not both be legitimate.

The question was, which marriage was lawful. It should also be

remembered that the marriage of Anne Boleyn was declared void, and her

daughter declared illegitimate, on grounds—whatever they were—which had

nothing to do with the earlier question of the marriage and divorce of

Katharine.

(44) See Hallam, i. 129; Lingard, vi. 239, 243. The Act 13 Elizabeth,

c. 1, declares it to be treason “yf any person shall in any wyse holde

and affyrme or mayntayne that the Common Lawes of this Realme not

altred by Parlyament, ought not to dyrecte the Ryght of the crowne

of England, or that our said sovrayne Ladye Elizabeth the Quenes

Majestie that nowe is, with and by the aucthoritye of the Parlyament

of Englande is not able to make Lawes and Statutes of suffycyent force

and valyditie to lymit and bynd the Crowne of this Realme, and the

Descent Lymitacion Inheritaunce and Government thereof.” The like is

the crime of “whosoever shall hereafter duryng the Lyef of our said

Soveraigne Ladye, by any Booke or Worke prynted or written, dyrectly

and expresly declare and affyrme at any tyme before the same be by Acte

of Parlyament of this Realme established and affyrmed, that any one

particular person whosover it be, is or ought to be the ryght Heire

and Successor to the Queenes Majestie that nowe is (whome God longe

preserve) except the same be the naturall yssue of her Majesties bodye.”

This statute may possibly be taken as setting aside the claims of the

House of Suffolk; but, if so, it sets aside the claims of the House of

Stewart along with them.

(45) James’s right was acknowledged by his own first Parliament, just

as the claims of other Kings who entered in an irregular way had

been. It should be marked however that he was crowned before he was

acknowledged. The Act 1 Jac. I. c. 1, declares that “immediatelie upon

the Dissolution and Decease of Elizabeth late Queene of England, the

Imperiall Crowne of the Realme of England, and of all the Kingdomes

Dominions and Rights belonging to the same, did by inherent Birthright

and lawfull undoubted Succession, descend and come to your moste

excellent Majestie, as beinge lineallie justly and lawfullie next and

sole Heire of the Blood Royall of this Realme as is aforesaid.” It is

worth noticing that in this Act we get the following definition of

Parliament; “this high Court of Parliament, where all the whole Body of

the Realm and every particular member thereof, either in Person or by

Representation (upon their own free elections), are by the Laws of this

Realm deemed to be personally present.”

(46) The fact that James the First, a King who came in with no title

whatever but what was given him by an Act of Parliament passed after

his coronation, was acknowledged without the faintest opposition is

one of the most remarkable things in our history. Hallam (i. 294)

remarks that “there is much reason to believe that the consciousness of

this defect in his parliamentary title put James on magnifying, still

more than from his natural temper he was prone to do, the inherent

rights of primogenitory succession, as something indefeasible by the

legislature; a doctrine which, however it might suit the schools of

divinity, was in diametrical opposition to our statutes.” Certainly no

opposition can be more strongly marked than that between the language

of James’s own Parliament and the words quoted above from 13 Eliz. c.

1. But see the remarks of Hallam a few pages before (i. 288) on the

kind of tacit election by which it might be said that James reigned.

“What renders it absurd to call him and his children usurpers? He had

that which the flatterers of his family most affected to disdain—the

will of the people; not certainly expressed in regular suffrage or

declared election, but unanimously and voluntarily ratifying that which

in itself could surely give no right, the determination of the late

Queen’s Council to proclaim his accession to the throne.”

(47) Whitelocke’s Memorials, 367. “The heads of the charge against the

King were published by leave, in this form: That Charles Stuart, being

admitted King of England, & therein trusted with a limited power, to

govern by, & according to the Laws of the Land, & not otherwise, &

by his trust being obliged, as also by his Oath, & office to use the

power committed to him, for the good & benefit of the people, & for the

preservation of their Rights and Privileges,” etc.

At an earlier stage (365) the President had told the King that the

Court “sat here by the Authority of the Commons of England: & all your

predecessours, & you are responsible to them.” The King answered “I

deny that, shew me one Precedent.” The President, instead of quoting

the precedents which were at least plausible, told the prisoner that

he was not to interrupt the Court. Earlier still the King had objected

to the authority of the Court that “he saw no Lords there which should

make a Parliament, including the King, & urged that the Kingdom

of England was hereditary, & not successive.” The strong point of

Charles’s argument undoubtedly was the want of concurrence on the part

of the Lords. Both Houses of Parliament had agreed in the proceedings

against Edward the Second and Richard the Second.

It is a small point, but it is well to notice that the description of

the King as Charles Stewart was perfectly accurate. Charles, the son

of James, the son of Henry Stewart Lord Darnley, really had a surname,

though it might not be according to Court etiquette to call him by

it. The helpless French imitators in 1793 summoned their King by the

name of “Louis Capet,” as if Charles had been summoned by the name of

“Unready,” “Bastard,” “Lackland,” “Longshanks,” or any other nickname

of an earlier King and forefather.

I believe that many people fancy that Guelph or Welf is a surname of

the present, or rather late, royal family.

(48) The Act 1 William and Mary (Revised Statutes, ii. 11) entailed the

Crown “after their deceases,” “to the heires of the body of the said

princesse & for default of such issue to the Princesse Anne of Denmarke

& the heires of her body & for default of such issue to the heires of

the body of the said Prince of Orange.” It was only after the death of

“the most hopeful Prince William Duke of Gloucester” that the Crown

was settled (12 and 13 Will. III. c. 2; Revised Statutes, ii. 94) on

“the most excellent Princess Sophia Electress and Dutchess Dowager of

Hannover, daughter of the most excellent Princess Elizabeth, late Queen

of Bohemia, daughter of our late sovereign lord King James the First of

happy memory,” “and the heirs of her body being protestants.”

(49) We hardly need assurance of the fact, but if it were needed,

something like an assurance to that effect was given by an official

member of the House during the session of 1872. At all events we

read in Sir T. E. May (ii. 83); “The increased power of the House

of Commons, under an improved representation, has been patent and

indisputable. Responsible to the people, it has, at the same time,

wielded the people’s strength. No longer subservient to the crown, the

ministers, and the peerage, it has become the predominant authority

in the state.” But the following strange remark follows: “But it is

characteristic of the British constitution, and _a proof of its

freedom from the spirit of democracy_, that the more dominant the power

of the House of Commons,—the greater has been its respect for the law,

and the more carefully have its acts been restrained within the proper

limits of its own jurisdiction.”

ὦ δημοκρατία, ταῦτα δῆτ' ἀνασχετά;

Has Mr. Grote lived and written so utterly in vain that a writer widely

indeed removed from the vulgar herd of oligarchic babblers looks on

“the spirit of democracy” as something inconsistent with “respect for

the law”?

(50) The story is told (Plutarch, Lycurgus, 7), that King Theopompos,

having submitted to the lessening of the kingly power by that of the

Ephors, was rebuked by his wife, because the power which he handed on

to those who came after him would be less than what he had received

from those who went before him. ὃν καί φασιν ὑπὸ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ γυναικὸς

ὀνειδιζόμενον ὡς ἐλάττω παραδώσοντα τοῖς παισὶ τὴν βασιλείαν, ἢ

παρέλαβε, μείζω μὲν οὖν, εἰπεῖν, ὅσῳ χρονιωτέραν· τῷ γὰρ ὄντι τὸ

ἄγαν ἀποβαλοῦσα μετὰ τοῦ φθόνου διέφυγε τὸν κίνδυνον. Aristotle also

(Pol. v. 11) tells the story to the same effect, bringing it in with

the comment, ὅσῳ γὰρ ἂν ἐλαττόνων ὦσι κύριοι, πλείω χρόνον ἀναγκαῖον

μένειν πᾶσαν τὴν ἀρχήν· αὐτοί τε γὰρ ἧττον γίνονται δεσποτικοὶ καὶ

τοῖς ἤθεσιν ἴσοι μᾶλλον, καὶ ὑπὸ τῶν ἀρχομένων φθονοῦνται ἧττον.

διὰ γὰρ τοῦτο καὶ ἡ περὶ Μολοττοὺς πολὺν χρόνον βασιλεία διέμεινεν,

καὶ ἡ Λακεδαιμονίων διὰ τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς τε εἰς δύο μέρη διαιρεθῆναι τὴν

ἀρχήν, καὶ πάλιν Θεοπόμπου μετριάσαντος τοῖς τε ἄλλοις καὶ τὴν τῶν

ἐφόρων ἀρχὴν ἐπικαταστήσαντος· τῆς γὰρ δυνάμεως ἀφελὼν ηὔξησε τῷ χρόνῳ

τὴν βασιλείαν, ὥστε τρόπον τινὰ ἐποίησεν οὐκ ἐλάττονα ἀλλὰ μείζονα

αὐτήν. The kingdom of the Molossians, referred to in the extract from

Aristotle, is one of those states of antiquity of which we should

be well pleased to hear more. Like the Macedonian kingdom, it was an

instance of the heroic kingship surviving into the historical ages of

Greece. But the Molossian kingship seems to have been more regular and

popular than that of Macedonia, and to have better deserved the name

of a constitutional monarchy. The Molossian people and the Molossian

King exchanged oaths not unlike those of the Landesgemeinde and the

Landammann of Appenzell-Ausserrhoden, the King swearing to rule

according to the laws, and the people swearing to maintain the kingdom

according to the laws. In the end the kingdom changed into a Federal

Republic. See History of Federal Government, i. 151.

(51) It is simply frivolous in the present state of England to discuss

the comparative merits of commonwealths and constitutional monarchies

with any practical object. Constitutional monarchy is not only firmly

fixed in the hearts of the people, but it has some distinct advantages

over republican forms of government, just as republican forms of

government have some advantages over it. It may be doubted whether

the people have not a more real control over the Executive, when the

House of Commons, or, in the last resort, the people itself in the

polling-booths (as in 1868), can displace a Government at any moment,

than they have in constitutions in which an Executive, however much

it may have disappointed the hopes of those who chose it, cannot be

removed before the end of its term of office, except on the legal

proof of some definite crime. But in itself, there really seems no

reason why the form of the Executive Government should not be held

to be as lawful a subject for discussion as the House of Lords, the

Established Church, the standing army, or anything else. It shows

simple ignorance, if it does not show something worse, when the word

“republican” is used as synonymous with cut-throat or pickpocket. I do

not find that in republican countries this kind of language is applied

to the admirers of monarchy; but the people who talk in this way are

just those who have no knowledge of republics either in past history or

in present times. They may very likely have climbed a Swiss mountain,

but they have taken care not to ask what was the constitution of the

country at its foot. They may even have learned to write Greek iambics

and to discuss Greek particles; but they have learned nothing from

the treasures of wisdom taught by Grecian history from Herodotus to

Polybios.

I have discussed the three chief forms of executive government, the

constitutional King and his Ministry, the President, and the Executive

Council, in the last of my first series of Historical Essays.

(52) Iliad, i. 250:—

τῷ δ' ἤδη δύο μὲν γενεαὶ μερόπων ἀνθρώπων

ἐφθίαθ', οἵ οἱ πρόσθεν ἅμα τράφεν ἠδ' ἐγένοντο

ἐν Πύλῳ ἠγαθέῃ, μετὰ δὲ τριτάτοισιν ἄνασσεν.

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