CHAPTER I.

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THE WORKS

OF

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

EDMUND BURKE

IN TWELVE VOLUMES

VOLUME THE SEVENTH

[Illustration: Burke Coat of Arms.]

LONDON

JOHN C. NIMMO

14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.

MDCCCLXXXVII

CONTENTS OF VOL. VII

FRAGMENTS AND NOTES OF SPEECHES IN PARLIAMENT.

SPEECH ON THE ACTS OF UNIFORMITY, February 6, 1772 3

SPEECH ON A BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF PROTESTANT DISSENTERS,

March 7, 1773 21

SPEECH ON A MOTION FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN A BILL TO REPEAL AND

ALTER CERTAIN ACTS RESPECTING RELIGIOUS OPINIONS, UPON THE

OCCASION OF A PETITION OF THE UNITARIAN SOCIETY, May 11, 1792 39

SPEECH RELATIVE TO THE MIDDLESEX ELECTION, February 7, 1771 59

SPEECH ON A BILL FOR SHORTENING THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS,

May 8, 1780 69

SPEECH ON A MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF

THE REPRESENTATION OF THE COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT, May 7, 1782 89

SPEECH ON A MOTION FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN A BILL FOR EXPLAINING

THE POWERS OF JURIES IN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS, March 7, 1771.

TOGETHER WITH A LETTER IN VINDICATION OF THAT MEASURE, AND A

COPY OF THE PROPOSED BILL 105

SPEECH ON A BILL FOR THE REPEAL OF THE MARRIAGE ACT,

June 15, 1781 129

SPEECH ON A MOTION FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN A BILL TO QUIET THE

POSSESSIONS OF THE SUBJECT AGAINST DORMANT CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH,

February 17, 1772 137

HINTS FOR AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA 143

AN ESSAY TOWARDS AN ABRIDGMENT OF THE ENGLISH HISTORY. IN THREE BOOKS.

BOOK I.

CHAP. I. Causes of the Connection between the Romans and

Britons.--Cæsar's two Invasions of Britain 159

II. Some Account of the Ancient Inhabitants of Britain 170

III. The Reduction of Britain by the Romans 189

IV. The Fall of the Roman Power in Britain 214

BOOK II.

CHAP. I. The Entry and Settlement of the Saxons, and their

Conversion to Christianity 227

II. Establishment of Christianity--of Monastic Institutions

--and of their Effects 240

III. Series of Anglo-Saxon Kings from Ethelbert to Alfred:

with the Invasion of the Danes 255

IV. Reign of King Alfred 261

V. Succession of Kings from Alfred to Harold 269

VI. Harold II.--Invasion of the Normans.--Account of that

People, and of the State of England at the Time of the

Invasion 280

VII. Of the Laws and Institutions of the Saxons 291

BOOK III.

CHAP. I. View of the State of Europe at the Time of the Norman

Invasion 327

II. Reign of William the Conqueror 335

III. Reign of William the Second, surnamed Rufus 364

IV. Reign of Henry I 375

V. Reign of Stephen 386

VI. Reign of Henry II 394

VII. Reign of Richard I 425

VIII. Reign of John 437

IX. Fragment.--An Essay towards an History of the Laws of

England 475

FRAGMENTS AND NOTES

OF

SPEECHES.

During the period of Mr. Burke's Parliamentary labors, some alterations

in the Acts of Uniformity, and the repeal of the Test and Corporation

Acts, were agitated at various times in the House of Commons. It appears

from the state of his manuscript papers, that he had designed to publish

some of the Speeches which he delivered in those discussions, and with

that view had preserved the following Fragments and detached Notes,

which are now given to the public with as much order and connection as

their imperfect condition renders them capable of receiving. The

Speeches on the Middlesex Election, on shortening the Duration of

Parliaments, on the Reform of the Representation in Parliament, on the

Bill for explaining the Power of Juries in Prosecutions for libels, and

on the Repeal of the Marriage Act, were found in the same imperfect

state.

SPEECH

ON

THE ACTS OF UNIFORMITY

FEBRUARY 6, 1772.

NOTE.

The following Speech was occasioned by a petition to the House of

Commons from certain clergymen of the Church of England, and certain of

the two professions of Civil Law and Physic, and others, praying to be

relieved from subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles, as required by

the Acts of Uniformity. The persona associated for this purpose were

distinguished at the time by the name of "The Feathers Tavern

Association," from the place where their meetings were usually held.

Their petition was presented on the 6th of February, 1772; and on a

motion that it should be brought up, the same was negatived on a

division, in which Mr. Burke voted in the majority, by 217 against 71.

SPEECH.

Mr. Speaker,--I should not trouble the House upon this question, if I

could at all acquiesce in many of the arguments, or justify the vote I

shall give upon several of the reasons which have been urged in favor of

it. I should, indeed, be very much concerned, if I were thought to be

influenced to that vote by those arguments.

In particular, I do most exceedingly condemn all such arguments as

involve any kind of reflection on the personal character of the

gentlemen who have brought in a petition so decent in the style of it,

and so constitutional in the mode. Besides the unimpeachable integrity

and piety of many of the promoters of this petition, which render those

aspersions as idle as they are unjust, such a way of treating the

subject can have no other effect than to turn the attention of the House

from the merits of the petition, the only thing properly before us, and

which we are sufficiently competent to decide upon, to the motives of

the petitioners, which belong exclusively to the Great Searcher of

Hearts.

We all know that those who loll at their ease in high dignities, whether

of the Church or of the State, are commonly averse to all reformation.

It is hard to persuade them that there can be anything amiss in

establishments which by feeling experience they find to be so very

comfortable. It is as true, that, from the same selfish motives, those

who are struggling upwards are apt to find everything wrong and out of

order. These are truths upon one side and on the other; and neither on

the one side or the other in argument are they worth a single farthing.

I wish, therefore, so much had not been said upon these ill-chosen, and

worse than ill-chosen, these very invidious topics.

I wish still more that the dissensions and animosities which had slept

for a century had not been just now most unseasonably revived. But if we

must be driven, whether we will or not, to recollect these unhappy

transactions, let our memory be complete and equitable, let us recollect

the whole of them together. If the Dissenters, as an honorable gentleman

has described them, have formerly risen from a "whining, canting,

snivelling generation," to be a body dreadful and ruinous to all our

establishments, let him call to mind the follies, the violences, the

outrages, and persecutions, that conjured up, very blamably, but very

naturally, that same spirit of retaliation. Let him recollect, along

with the injuries, the services which Dissenters have done to our Church

and to our State. If they have once destroyed, more than once they have

saved them. This is but common justice, which they and all mankind have

a right to.

There are, Mr. Speaker, besides these prejudices and animosities, which

I would have wholly removed from the debate, things more regularly and

argumentatively urged against the petition, which, however, do not at

all appear to me conclusive.

First, two honorable gentlemen, one near me, the other, I think, on the

other side of the House, assert, that, if you alter her symbols, you

destroy the being of the Church of England. This, for the sake of the

liberty of that Church, I must absolutely deny. The Church, like every

body corporate, may alter her laws without changing her identity. As an

independent church, professing fallibility, she has claimed a right of

acting without the consent of any other; as a church, she claims, and

has always exercised, a right of reforming whatever appeared amiss in

her doctrine, her discipline, or her rites. She did so, when she shook

off the Papal supremacy in the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was an

act of the body of the English Church, as well as of the State (I don't

inquire how obtained). She did so, when she twice changed the Liturgy in

the reign of King Edward, when she then established Articles, which were

themselves a variation from former professions. She did so, when she cut

off three articles from her original forty-two, and reduced them to the

present thirty-nine; and she certainly would not lose her corporate

identity, nor subvert her fundamental principles, though she were to

leave ten of the thirty-nine which remain out of any future confession

of her faith. She would limit her corporate powers, on the contrary, and

she would oppose her fundamental principles, if she were to deny herself

the prudential exercise of such capacity of reformation. This,

therefore, can be no objection to your receiving the petition.

In the next place, Sir, I am clear, that the Act of Union, reciting and

ratifying one Scotch and one English act of Parliament, has not rendered

any change whatsoever in our Church impossible, but by a dissolution of

the union between the two kingdoms.

The honorable gentleman who has last touched upon that point has not

gone quite so far as the gentlemen who first insisted upon it. However,

as none of them wholly abandon that post, it will not be safe to leave

it behind me unattacked. I believe no one will wish their interpretation

of that act to be considered as authentic. What shall we think of the

wisdom (to say nothing of the competence) of that legislature which

should ordain to itself such a fundamental law, at its outset, as to

disable itself from executing its own functions,--which should prevent

it from making any further laws, however wanted, and that, too, on the

most interesting subject that belongs to human society, and where she

most frequently wants its interposition,--which should fix those

fundamental laws that are forever to prevent it from adapting itself to

its opinions, however clear, or to its own necessities, however urgent?

Such an act, Mr. Speaker, would forever put the Church out of its own

power; it certainly would put it far above the State, and erect it into

that species of independency which it has been the great principle of

our policy to prevent.

The act never meant, I am sure, any such unnatural restraint on the

joint legislature it was then forming. History shows us what it meant,

and all that it could mean with any degree of common sense.

In the reign of Charles the First a violent and ill-considered attempt

was made unjustly to establish the platform of the government and the

rites of the Church of England in Scotland, contrary to the genius and

desires of far the majority of that nation. This usurpation excited a

most mutinous spirit in that country. It produced that shocking

fanatical Covenant (I mean the Covenant of '36) for forcing their ideas

of religion on England, and indeed on all mankind. This became the

occasion, at length, of other covenants, and of a Scotch army marching

into England to fulfil them; and the Parliament of England (for its own

purposes) adopted their scheme, took their last covenant, and destroyed

the Church of England. The Parliament, in their ordinance of 1648,

expressly assign their desire of conforming to the Church of Scotland as

a motive for their alteration.

To prevent such violent enterprises on the one side or on the other,

since each Church was going to be disarmed of a legislature wholly and

peculiarly affected to it, and lest this new uniformity in the State

should be urged as a reason and ground of ecclesiastical uniformity, the

Act of Union provided that presbytery should continue the Scotch, as

episcopacy the English establishment, and that this separate and

mutually independent Church-government was to be considered as a part of

the Union, without aiming at putting the regulation within each Church

out of its own power, without putting both Churches out of the power of

the State. It could not mean to forbid us to set anything ecclesiastical

in order, but at the expense of tearing up all foundations, and

forfeiting the inestimable benefits (for inestimable they are) which we

derive from the happy union of the two kingdoms. To suppose otherwise is

to suppose that the act intended we could not meddle at all with the

Church, but we must as a preliminary destroy the State.

Well, then, Sir, this is, I hope, satisfactory. The Act of Union does

not stand in our way. But, Sir, gentlemen think we are not competent to

the reformation desired, chiefly from our want of theological learning.

If we were the legal assembly....

If ever there was anything to which, from reason, nature, habit, and

principle, I am totally averse, it is persecution for conscientious

difference in opinion. If these gentlemen complained justly of any

compulsion upon them on that article, I would hardly wait for their

petitions; as soon as I knew the evil, I would haste to the cure; I

would even run before their complaints.

I will not enter into the abstract merits of our Articles and Liturgy.

Perhaps there are some things in them which one would wish had not been

there. They are not without the marks and characters of human frailty.

But it is not human frailty and imperfection, and even a considerable

degree of them, that becomes a ground for your alteration; for by no

alteration will you get rid of those errors, however you may delight

yourselves in varying to infinity the fashion of them. But the ground

for a legislative alteration of a legal establishment is this, and this

only,--that you find the inclinations of the majority of the people,

concurring with your own sense of the intolerable nature of the abuse,

are in favor of a change.

If this be the case in the present instance, certainly you ought to make

the alteration that is proposed, to satisfy your own consciences, and to

give content to your people. But if you have no evidence of this nature,

it ill becomes your gravity, on the petition of a few gentlemen, to

listen to anything that tends to shake one of the capital pillars of the

state, and alarm the body of your people upon that one ground, in which

every hope and fear, every interest, passion, prejudice, everything

which can affect the human breast, are all involved together. If you

make this a season for religious alterations, depend upon it, you will

soon find it a season of religious tumults and religious wars.

These gentlemen complain of hardship. No considerable number shows

discontent; but, in order to give satisfaction to any number of

respectable men, who come in so decent and constitutional a mode before

us, let us examine a little what that hardship is. They want to be

preferred clergymen in the Church of England as by law established; but

their consciences will not suffer them to conform to the doctrines and

practices of that Church: that is, they want to be teachers in a church

to which they do not belong; and it is an odd sort of hardship. They

want to receive the emoluments appropriated for teaching one set of

doctrines, whilst they are teaching another. A church, in any legal

sense, is only a certain system of religious doctrines and practices

fixed and ascertained by some law,--by the difference of which laws

different churches (as different commonwealths) are made in various

parts of the world; and the establishment is a tax laid by the same

sovereign authority for payment of those who so teach and so practise:

for no legislature was ever so absurd as to tax its people to support

men for teaching and acting as they please, but by some prescribed rule.

The hardship amounts to this,--that the people of England are not taxed

two shillings in the pound to pay them for teaching, as divine truths,

their own particular fancies. For the state has so taxed the people; and

by way of relieving these gentlemen, it would be a cruel hardship on the

people to be compelled to pay, from the sweat of their brow, the most

heavy of all taxes to men, to condemn as heretical the doctrines which

they repute to be orthodox, and to reprobate as superstitious the

practices which they use as pious and holy. If a man leaves by will an

establishment for preaching, such as Boyle's Lectures, or for charity

sermons, or funeral sermons, shall any one complain of an hardship,

because he has an excellent sermon upon matrimony, or on the martyrdom

of King Charles, or on the Restoration, which I, the trustee of the

establishment, will not pay him for preaching?--S. Jenyns, Origin of

Evil.--Such is the hardship which they complain of under the present

Church establishment, that they have not the power of taxing the people

of England for the maintenance of their private opinions.

The laws of toleration provide for every real grievance that these

gentlemen can rationally complain of Are they hindered from professing

their belief of what they think to be truth? If they do not like the

Establishment, there are an hundred different modes of Dissent in which

they may teach. But even if they are so unfortunately circumstanced that

of all that variety none will please them, they have free liberty to

assemble a congregation of their own; and if any persons think their

fancies (they may be brilliant imaginations) worth paying for, they are

at liberty to maintain them as their clergy: nothing hinders it. But if

they cannot get an hundred people together who will pay for their

reading a liturgy after their form, with what face can they insist upon

the nation's conforming to their ideas, for no other visible purpose

than the enabling them to receive with a good conscience the tenth part

of the produce of your lands?

Therefore, beforehand, the Constitution has thought proper to take a

security that the tax raised on the people shall be applied only to

those who profess such doctrines and follow such a mode of worship as

the legislature, representing the people, has thought most agreeable to

their general sense,--binding, as usual, the minority, not to an assent

to the doctrines, but to a payment of the tax.

But how do you ease and relieve? How do you know, that, in making a new

door into the Church for these gentlemen, you do not drive ten times

their number out of it? Supposing the contents and not-contents strictly

equal in numbers and consequence, the possession, to avoid disturbance,

ought to carry it. You displease all the clergy of England now actually

in office, for the chance of obliging a score or two, perhaps, of

gentlemen, who are, or want to be, beneficed clergymen: and do you

oblige? Alter your Liturgy,--will it please all even, of those who wish,

an alteration? will they agree in what ought to be altered? And after it

is altered to the mind of every one, you are no further advanced than if

you had not taken a single step; because a large body of men will then

say you ought to have no liturgy at all: and then these men, who now

complain so bitterly that they are shut out, will themselves bar the

door against thousands of others. Dissent, not satisfied with

toleration, is not conscience, but ambition.

You altered the Liturgy for the Directory. This was settled by a set of

most learned divines and learned laymen: Selden sat amongst them. Did

this please? It was considered upon both sides as a most unchristian

imposition. Well, at the Restoration they rejected the Directory, and

reformed the Common Prayer,--which, by the way, had been three times

reformed before. Were they then contented? Two thousand (or some great

number) of clergy resigned their livings in one day rather than read it:

and truly, rather than raise that second idol, I should have adhered to

the Directory, as I now adhere to the Common Prayer. Nor can you content

other men's conscience, real or pretended, by any concessions: follow

your own; seek peace and ensue it. You have no symptoms of discontent in

the people to their Establishment. The churches are too small for their

congregations. The livings are too few for their candidates. The spirit

of religious controversy has slackened by the nature of things: by act

you may revive it. I will not enter into the question, how much truth is

preferable to peace. Perhaps truth may be far better. But as we have

scarcely ever the same certainty in the one that we have in the other, I

would, unless the truth were evident indeed, hold fast to peace, which

has in her company charity, the highest of the virtues.

This business appears in two points of view: 1st, Whether it is a matter

of grievance; 2nd, Whether it is within our province to redress it with

propriety and prudence. Whether it comes properly before us on a

petition upon matter of grievance I would not inquire too curiously. I

know, technically speaking, that nothing agreeable to law can be

considered as a grievance. But an over-attention to the rules of any act

does sometimes defeat the ends of it; and I think it does so in this

Parliamentary act, as much at least as in any other. I know many

gentlemen think that the very essence of liberty consists in being

governed according to law, as if grievances had nothing real and

intrinsic; but I cannot be of that opinion. Grievances may subsist by

law. Nay, I do not know whether any grievance can be considered as

intolerable, until it is established and sanctified by law. If the Act

of Toleration were not perfect, if there were a complaint of it, I would

gladly consent to amend it. But when I heard a complaint of a pressure

on religious liberty, to my astonishment I find that there was no

complaint whatsoever of the insufficiency of the act of King William,

nor any attempt to make it more sufficient. The matter, therefore, does

not concern toleration, but establishment; and it is not the rights of

private conscience that are in question, but the propriety of the terms

which are proposed by law as a title to public emoluments: so that the

complaint is not, that there is not toleration of diversity in opinion,

but that diversity in opinion is not rewarded by bishoprics, rectories,

and collegiate stalls. When gentlemen complain of the subscription as

matter of grievance, the complaint arises from confounding private

judgment, whose rights are anterior to law, and the qualifications which

the law creates for its own magistracies, whether civil or religious. To

take away from men their lives, their liberty, or their property, those

things for the protection of which society was introduced, is great

hardship and intolerable tyranny; but to annex any condition you please

to benefits artificially created is the most just, natural, and proper

thing in the world. When _e nova_ you form an arbitrary benefit, an

advantage, preëminence, or emolument, not by Nature, but institution,

you order and modify it with all the power of a creator over his

creature. Such benefits of institution are royalty, nobility,

priesthood, all of which you may limit to birth; you might prescribe

even shape and stature. The Jewish priesthood was hereditary. Founders'

kinsmen have a preference in the election of fellows in many colleges of

our universities: the qualifications at All Souls are, that they should

be _optime nati, bene vestiti, mediocriter docti_.

By contending for liberty in the candidate for orders, you take away the

liberty of the elector, which is the people, that is, the state. If they

can choose, they may assign a reason for their choice; if they can

assign a reason, they may do it in writing, and prescribe it as a

condition; they may transfer their authority to their representatives,

and enable them to exercise the same. In all human institutions, a great

part, almost all regulations, are made from the mere necessity of the

case, let the theoretical merits of the question be what they will. For

nothing happened at the Reformation but what will happen in all such

revolutions. When tyranny is extreme, and abuses of government

intolerable, men resort to the rights of Nature to shake it off. When

they have done so, the very same principle of necessity of human affairs

to establish some other authority, which shall preserve the order of

this new institution, must be obeyed, until they grow intolerable; and

you shall not be suffered to plead original liberty against such an

institution. See Holland, Switzerland.

If you will have religion publicly practised and publicly taught, you

must have a power to say what that religion will be which you will

protect and encourage, and to distinguish it by such marks and

characteristics as you in your wisdom shall think fit. As I said before,

your determination may be unwise in this as in other matters; but it

cannot be unjust, hard, or oppressive, or contrary to the liberty of

any man, or in the least degree exceeding your province. It is,

therefore, as a grievance, fairly none at all,--nothing but what is

essential, not only to the order, but to the liberty, of the whole

community.

The petitioners are so sensible of the force of these arguments, that

they do admit of one subscription,--that is, to the Scripture. I shall

not consider how forcibly this argument militates with their whole

principle against subscription as an usurpation on the rights of

Providence: I content myself with submitting to the consideration of the

House, that, if that rule were once established, it must have some

authority to enforce the obedience; because, you well know, a law

without a sanction will be ridiculous. Somebody must sit in judgment on

his conformity; he must judge on the charge; if he judges, he must

ordain execution. These things are necessary consequences one of the

other; and then, this judgment is an equal and a superior violation of

private judgment; the right of private judgment is violated in a much

greater degree than it can be by any previous subscription. You come

round again to subscription, as the best and easiest method; men must

judge of his doctrine, and judge definitively: so that either his test

is nugatory, or men must first or last prescribe his public

interpretation of it.

If the Church be, as Mr. Locke defines it, _a voluntary society_, &c,

then it is essential to this voluntary society to exclude from her

voluntary society any member she thinks fit, or to oppose the entrance

of any upon such conditions as she thinks proper. For, otherwise, it

would be a voluntary society acting contrary to her will, which is a

contradiction in terms. And this is Mr. Locke's opinion, the advocate

for the largest scheme of ecclesiastical and civil toleration to

Protestants (for to Papists he allows no toleration at all).

They dispute only the extent of the subscription; they therefore tacitly

admit the equity of the principle itself. Here they do not resort to the

original rights of Nature, because it is manifest that those rights give

as large a power of controverting every part of Scripture, or even the

authority of the whole, as they do to the controverting any articles

whatsoever. When a man requires you to sign an assent to Scripture, he

requires you to assent to a doctrine as contrary to your natural

understanding, and to your rights of free inquiry, as those who require

your conformity to any one article whatsoever.

The subscription to Scripture is the most astonishing idea I ever heard,

and will amount to just nothing at all. Gentlemen so acute have not,

that I have heard, ever thought of answering a plain, obvious question:

What is that Scripture to which they are content to subscribe? They do

not think that a book becomes of divine authority because it is bound in

blue morocco, and is printed by John Baskett and his assigns. The Bible

is a vast collection of different treatises: a man who holds the divine

authority of one may consider the other as merely human. What is his

Canon? The Jewish? St. Jerome's? that of the Thirty-Nine Articles?

Luther's? There are some who reject the Canticles; others, six of the

Epistles; the Apocalypse has been suspected even as heretical, and was

doubted of for many ages, and by many great men. As these narrow the

Canon, others have enlarged it by admitting St. Barnabas's Epistles, the

Apostolic Constitutions, to say nothing of many other Gospels.

Therefore, to ascertain. Scripture, you must have one article more; and

you must define what that Scripture is which, you mean to teach. There

are, I believe, very few who, when Scripture is so ascertained, do not

see the absolute necessity of knowing what general doctrine a man draws

from it, before he is sent down authorized by the state to teach, it as

pure doctrine, and receive a tenth of the produce of our lands.

The Scripture is no one summary of doctrines regularly digested, in

which, a man could not mistake his way. It is a most venerable, but most

multifarious, collection of the records of the divine economy: a

collection of an infinite variety,--of cosmogony, theology, history,

prophecy, psalmody, morality, apologue, allegory, legislation, ethics,

carried through different books, by different authors, at different

ages, for different ends and purposes. It is necessary to sort out what

is intended for example, what only as narrative,--what to be understood

literally, what figuratively,--where one precept is to be controlled and

modified by another,--what is used directly, and what only as an

argument _ad hominem_,--what is temporary, and what of perpetual

obligation,--what appropriated to one state and to one set of men, and

what the general duty of all Christians. If we do not get some security

for this, we not only permit, but we actually pay for, all the dangerous

fanaticism which, can be produced to corrupt our people, and to derange

the public worship of the country. We owe the best we can (not

infallibility, but prudence) to the subject,--first sound doctrine, then

ability to use it.

SPEECH

ON

A BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF PROTESTANT DISSENTERS.

MARCH 17, 1773.

NOTE.

This speech is given partly from the manuscript papers of Mr. Burke, and

partly from a very imperfect short-hand note taken at the time by a

member of the House of Commons. The bill under discussion was opposed by

petitions from several congregations calling themselves "Protestant

Dissenters," who appear to have been principally composed of the people

who are generally known under the denomination of "Methodists," and

particularly by a petition from a congregation of that description

residing in the town of Chatham.

SPEECH.

I assure you, Sir, that the honorable gentleman who spoke last but one

need not be in the least fear that I should make a war of particles upon

his opinion, whether the Church of England _should, would_, or _ought_

to be alarmed. I am very clear that this House has no one reason in the

world to think she is alarmed by the bill brought before you. It is

something extraordinary that the only symptom of alarm in the Church of

England should appear in the petition of some Dissenters, with whom, I

believe very few in this House are yet acquainted, and of whom you know

no more than that you are assured by the honorable gentleman that they

are not Mahometans. Of the Church we know they are not, by the name that

they assume. They are, then, Dissenters. The first symptom of an alarm,

comes from some Dissenters assembled round the lines of Chatham: these

lines become the security of the Church of England! The honorable

gentleman, in speaking of the lines of Chatham, tells us that they serve

not only for the security of the wooden walls of England, but for the

defence of the Church of England. I suspect the wooden walls of England

secure the lines of Chatham, rather than the lines of Chatham secure the

wooden walls of England.

Sir, the Church of England, if only defended by this miserable petition

upon your table, must, I am afraid, upon the principles of true

fortification, be soon destroyed. But, fortunately, her walls, bulwarks,

and bastions are constructed of other materials than of stubble and

straw,--are built up with the strong and stable matter of the gospel of

liberty, and founded on a true, constitutional, legal establishment.

But, Sir, she has other securities: she has the security of her own

doctrines; she has the security of the piety, the sanctity, of her own

professors,--their learning is a bulwark to defend her; she has the

security of the two universities, not shook in any single battlement, in

any single pinnacle.

But the honorable gentleman has mentioned, indeed, principles which

astonish me rather more than ever. The honorable gentleman thinks that

the Dissenters enjoy a large share of liberty under a connivance; and he

thinks that the establishing toleration by law is an attack upon

Christianity.

The first of these is a contradiction in terms. Liberty under a

connivance! Connivance is a relaxation from slavery, not a definition of

liberty. What is connivance, but a state under which all slaves live? If

I was to describe slavery, I would say, with those who _hate_ it, it is

living under will, not under law; if as it is stated by its advocates, I

would say, that, like earthquakes, like thunder, or other wars the

elements make upon mankind, it happens rarely, it occasionally comes now

and then upon people, who, upon ordinary occasions, enjoy the same legal

government of liberty. Take it under the description of those who would

soften those features, the state of slavery and connivance is the same

thing. If the liberty enjoyed be a liberty not of toleration, but of

connivance, the only question is, whether establishing such by law is an

attack upon Christianity. Toleration an attack upon Christianity! What,

then! are we come to this pass, to suppose that nothing can support

Christianity but the principles of persecution? Is that, then, the idea

of establishment? Is it, then, the idea of Christianity itself, that it

ought to have establishments, that it ought to have laws against

Dissenters, but the breach of which laws is to be connived at? What a

picture of toleration! what a picture of laws, of establishments! what a

picture of religious and civil liberty! I am persuaded the honorable

gentleman, does not see it in this light. But these very terms become

the strongest reasons for my support of the bill: for I am persuaded

that toleration, so far from being an attack upon Christianity, becomes

the best and surest support that possibly can be given, to it. The

Christian religion itself arose without establishment,--it arose even

without toleration; and whilst its own principles were not tolerated, it

conquered all the powers of darkness, it conquered all the powers of the

world. The moment it began to depart from these principles, it converted

the establishment into tyranny; it subverted its foundations from that

very hour. Zealous as I am for the principle of an establishment, so

just an abhorrence do I conceive against whatever may shake it. I know

nothing but the supposed necessity of persecution that can make an

establishment disgusting. I would have toleration a part of

establishment, as a principle favorable to Christianity, and as a part

of Christianity.

All seem agreed that the law, as it stands, inflicting penalties on

all-religious teachers and on schoolmasters who do not sign the

Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, ought not to be executed. We are all

agreed that _the law is not good_: for that, I presume, is undoubtedly

the idea of a law that ought not to be executed. The question,

therefore, is, whether in a well-constituted commonwealth, which we

desire ours to be thought, and I trust intend that it should be, whether

in such a commonwealth it is wise to retain those laws which it is not

proper to execute. A penal law not ordinarily put in execution seems to

me to be a very absurd and a very dangerous thing. For if its principle

be right, if the object of its prohibitions and penalties be a real

evil, then you do in effect permit that very evil, which not only the

reason of the thing, but your very law, declares ought not to be

permitted; and thus it reflects exceedingly on the wisdom, and

consequently derogates not a little from the authority, of a legislature

who can at once forbid and suffer, and in the same breath promulgate

penalty and indemnity to the same persons and for the very same actions.

But if the object of the law be no moral or political evil, then you

ought not to hold even a terror to those whom you ought certainly not to

punish: for if it is not right to hurt, it is neither right nor wise to

menace. Such laws, therefore, as they must be defective either in

justice or wisdom or both, so they cannot exist without a considerable

degree of danger. Take them which way you will, they are pressed with

ugly alternatives.

1st. All penal laws are either upon popular prosecution, or on the part

of the crown. Now if they may be roused from their sleep, whenever a

minister thinks proper, as instruments of oppression, then they put vast

bodies of men into a state of slavery and court dependence; since their

liberty of conscience and their power of executing their functions

depend entirely on his will. I would have no man derive his means of

continuing any function, or his being restrained from it, but from the

laws only: they should be his only superior and sovereign lords.

2nd. They put statesmen and magistrates into an habit of playing fast

and loose with the laws, straining or relaxing them as may best suit

their political purposes,--and in that light tend to corrupt the

executive power through all its offices.

3rd. If they are taken up on popular actions, their operation in that

light also is exceedingly evil. They become the instruments of private

malice, private avarice, and not of public regulation; they nourish the

worst of men to the prejudice of the best, punishing tender consciences,

and rewarding informers.

Shall we, as the honorable gentleman tells us we may with perfect

security, trust to the manners of the age? I am well pleased with the

general manners of the times; but the desultory execution of penal laws,

the thing I condemn, does not depend on the manners of the times. I

would, however, have the laws tuned in unison with the manners. Very

dissonant are a gentle country and cruel laws; very dissonant, that your

reason is furious, but your passions moderate, and that you are always

equitable except in your courts of justice.

I will beg leave to state to the House one argument which has been much

relied upon: that the Dissenters are not unanimous upon this business;

that many persons are alarmed; that it will create a disunion among the

Dissenters.

When any Dissenters, or any body of people, come here with a petition,

it is not the number of people, but the reasonableness of the request,

that should weigh with the House. A body of Dissenters come to this

House, and say, "Tolerate us: we desire neither the parochial advantage

of tithes, nor dignities, nor the stalls of your cathedrals: no! let the

venerable orders of the hierarchy exist with all their advantages." And

shall I tell them, "I reject your just and reasonable petition, not

because it shakes the Church, but because there are others, while you

lie grovelling upon the earth, that will kick and bite you"? Judge which

of these descriptions of men comes with a fair request: that which says,

"Sir, I desire liberty for my own, because I trespass on no man's

conscience,"--or the other, which says, "I desire that these men should

not be suffered to act according to their consciences, though I am

tolerated to act according to mine. But I sign a body of Articles, which

is my title to toleration; I sign no more, because more are against my

conscience. But I desire that you will not tolerate these men, because

they will not go so far as I, though I desire to be tolerated, who will

not go as far as you. No, imprison them, if they come within five miles

of a corporate town, because they do not believe what I do in point of

doctrines." Shall I not say to these men, _Arrangez-vous, canaille?_

You, who are not the predominant power, will not give to others the

relaxation under which you are yourself suffered to live. I have as high

an opinion of the doctrines of the Church as you. I receive them

implicitly, or I put my own explanation on them, or take that which

seems to me to come best recommended by authority. There are those of

the Dissenters who think more rigidly of the doctrine of the Articles

relative to Predestination than others do. They sign the Article

relative to it _ex animo_, and literally. Others allow a latitude of

construction. These two parties are in the Church, as well as among the

Dissenters; yet in the Church we live quietly under the same roof. I do

not see why, as long as Providence gives us no further light into this

great mystery, we should not leave things as the Divine Wisdom has left

them. But suppose all these things to me to be clear, (which Providence,

however, seems to have left obscure,) yet, whilst Dissenters claim a

toleration in things which, seeming clear to me, are obscure to them,

without entering into the merit of the Articles, with what face can

these men say, "Tolerate us, but do not tolerate them"? Toleration is

good for all, or it is good for none.

The discussion this day is not between establishment on one hand and

toleration on the other, but between those who, being tolerated

themselves, refuse toleration to others. That power should be puffed up

with pride, that authority should degenerate into rigor, if not

laudable, is but too natural. But this proceeding of theirs is much

beyond the usual allowance to human weakness: it not only is shocking to

our reason, but it provokes our indignation. _Quid domini facient,

audent cum talia fures?_ It is not the proud prelate thundering in his

Commission Court, but a pack of manumitted slaves, with the lash of the

beadle flagrant on their backs, and their legs still galled with their

fetters, that would drive their brethren into that prison-house from

whence they have just been permitted to escape. If, instead of puzzling

themselves in the depths of the Divine counsels, they would turn, to the

mild morality of the Gospel, they would read their own

condemnation:--"O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt

because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have compassion on

thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?"

In my opinion, Sir, a magistrate, whenever he goes to put any restraint

upon religious freedom, can only do it upon this ground,--that the

person dissenting does not dissent from the scruples of ill-informed

conscience, but from a party ground of dissension, in order to raise a

faction in the state. We give, with regard to rites and ceremonies, an

indulgence to tender consciences. But if dissent is at all punished in

any country, if at all it can be punished upon any pretence, it is upon

a presumption, not that a man is supposed to differ conscientiously from

the establishment, but that he resists truth for the sake of

faction,--that he abets diversity of opinions in religion to distract

the state, and to destroy the peace of his country. This is the only

plausible,--for there is no true ground of persecution. As the laws

stand, therefore, let us see how we have thought fit to act.

If there is any one thing within the competency of a magistrate with

regard to religion, it is this: that he has a right to direct the

exterior ceremonies of religion; that, whilst interior religion is

within the jurisdiction of God alone, the external part, bodily action,

is within the province of the chief governor. Hooker, and all the great

lights of the Church, have constantly argued this to be a part within

the province of the civil magistrate. But look at the Act of Toleration

of William and Mary: there you will see the civil magistrate has not

only dispensed with those things which are more particularly within his

province, with those things which faction might be supposed to take up

for the sake of making visible and external divisions and raising a

standard of revolt, but has also from sound politic considerations

relaxed on those points which are confessedly without his province.

The honorable gentleman, speaking of the heathens, certainly could not

mean to recommend anything that is derived from that impure source. But

he has praised the tolerating spirit of the heathens. Well! but the

honorable gentleman will recollect that heathens, that polytheists, must

permit a number of divinities. It is the very essence of its

constitution. But was it ever heard that polytheism tolerated a dissent

from a polytheistic establishment,--the belief of one God only? Never!

never! Sir, they constantly carried on persecution against that

doctrine. I will not give heathens the glory of a doctrine which I

consider the best part of Christianity. The honorable gentleman must

recollect the Roman law, that was clearly against the introduction of

any foreign rites in matters of religion. You have it at large in Livy,

how they persecuted in the first introduction the rites of Bacchus; and

even before Christ, to say nothing of their subsequent persecutions,

they persecuted the Druids and others. Heathenism, therefore, as in

other respects erroneous, was erroneous in point of persecution. I do

not say every heathen who persecuted was therefore an impious man: I

only say he was mistaken, as such a man is now. But, says the honorable

gentleman, they did not persecute Epicureans. No: the Epicureans had no

quarrel with their religious establishment, nor desired any religion for

themselves. It would have been very extraordinary, if irreligious

heathens had desired either a religious establishment or toleration.

But, says the honorable gentleman, the Epicureans entered, as others,

into the temples. They did so; they defied all subscription; they defied

all sorts of conformity; there was no subscription to which they were

not ready to set their hands, no ceremonies they refused to practise;

they made it a principle of their irreligion outwardly to conform to any

religion. These atheists eluded all that you could do: so will all

freethinkers forever. Then you suffer, or the weakness of your law has

suffered, those great dangerous animals to escape notice, whilst you

have nets that entangle the poor fluttering silken wings of a tender

conscience.

The honorable gentleman insists much upon this circumstance of

objection,--namely, the division amongst the Dissenters. Why, Sir, the

Dissenters, by the nature of the term, are open to have a division among

themselves. They are Dissenters because they differ from the Church of

England: not that they agree among themselves. There are Presbyterians,

there are Independents,--some that do not agree to infant baptism,

others that do not agree to the baptism of adults, or any baptism. All

these are, however, tolerated under the acts of King William, and

subsequent acts; and their diversity of sentiments with one another did

not and could not furnish an argument against their toleration, when

their difference with ourselves furnished none.

But, says the honorable gentleman, if you suffer them to go on, they

will shake the fundamental principles of Christianity. Let it be

considered, that this argument goes as strongly against connivance,

which you allow, as against toleration, which you reject. The gentleman

sets out with a principle of perfect liberty, or, as he describes it,

connivance. But, for fear of dangerous opinions, you leave it in your

power to vex a man who has not held any one dangerous opinion

whatsoever. If one man is a professed atheist, another man the best

Christian, but dissents from two of the Thirty-Nine Articles, I may let

escape the atheist, because I know him to be an atheist, because I am,

perhaps, so inclined myself, and because I may connive where I think

proper; but the conscientious Dissenter, on account of his attachment to

that general religion which perhaps I hate, I shall take care to punish,

because I may punish when I think proper. Therefore, connivance being an

engine of private malice or private favor, not of good government,--an

engine which totally fails of suppressing atheism, but oppresses

conscience,--I say that principle becomes, not serviceable, but

dangerous to Christianity; that it is not toleration, but contrary to

it, even contrary to peace; that the penal system to which it belongs is

a dangerous principle in the economy either of religion or government.

The honorable gentleman (and in him I comprehend all those who oppose

the bill) bestowed in support of their side of the question as much

argument as it could bear, and much more of learning and decoration than

it deserved. He thinks connivance consistent, but legal toleration

inconsistent, with the interests of Christianity. Perhaps I would go as

far as that honorable gentleman, if I thought toleration inconsistent

with those interests. God forbid! I may be mistaken, but I take

toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would

sacrifice: I would keep them both: it is not necessary I should

sacrifice either. I do not like the idea of tolerating the doctrines of

Epicurus: but nothing in the world propagates them so much as the

oppression of the poor, of the honest and candid disciples of the

religion we profess in common,--I mean revealed religion; nothing sooner

makes them take a short cut out of the bondage of sectarian vexation

into open and direct infidelity than tormenting men for every

difference. My opinion is, that, in establishing the Christian religion

wherever you find it, curiosity or research is its best security; and in

this way a man is a great deal better justified in saying, Tolerate all

kinds of consciences, than in imitating the heathens, whom the honorable

gentleman quotes, in tolerating those who have none. I am not over-fond

of calling for the secular arm upon these misguided or misguiding men;

but if ever it ought to be raised, it ought surely to be raised against

these very men, not against others, whose liberty of religion you make a

pretext for proceedings which drive them into the bondage of impiety.

What figure do I make in saying, I do not attack the works of these

atheistical writers, but I will keep a rod hanging over the

conscientious man, their bitterest enemy, because these atheists may

take advantage of the liberty of their foes to introduce irreligion? The

best book that ever, perhaps, has been written against these people is

that in which the author has collected in a body the whole of the

infidel code, and has brought the writers into one body to cut them all

off together. This was done by a Dissenter, who never did subscribe the

Thirty-Nine Articles,--Dr. Leland. But if, after all this, danger is to

be apprehended, if you are really fearful that Christianity will

indirectly suffer by this liberty, you have my free consent: go

directly, and by the straight way, and not by a circuit in which, in

your road you may destroy your friends; point your arms against these

men who do the mischief you fear promoting; point your arms against men

who, not contented with endeavoring to turn your eyes from the blaze and

effulgence of light by which life and immortality is so gloriously

demonstrated by the Gospel, would even extinguish that faint glimmering

of Nature, that only comfort supplied to ignorant man before this great

illumination,--them, who, by attacking even the possibility of all

revelation, arraign all the dispensations of Providence to man. These

are the wicked Dissenters you ought to fear; these are the people

against whom you ought to aim the shaft of the law; these are the men to

whom, arrayed in all the terrors of government, I would say, You shall

not degrade us into brutes! These men, these factious men, as the

honorable gentleman properly called them, are the just objects of

vengeance, not the conscientious Dissenter,--these men, who would take

away whatever ennobles the rank or consoles the misfortunes of human

nature, by breaking off that connection of observances, of affections,

of hopes and fears, which bind us to the Divinity, and constitute the

glorious and distinguishing prerogative of humanity, that of being a

religious creature: against these I would have the laws rise in all

their majesty of terrors, to fulminate such vain and impious wretches,

and to awe them into impotence by the only dread they can fear or

believe, to learn that eternal lesson, _Discite justitiam moniti, et non

temnere Divos_!

At the same time that I would cut up the very root of atheism, I would

respect all conscience,--all conscience that is really such, and which

perhaps its very tenderness proves to be sincere. I wish to see the

Established Church of England great and powerful; I wish to see her

foundations laid low and deep, that she may crush the giant powers of

rebellious darkness; I would have her head raised up to that heaven to

which she conducts us. I would have her open wide her hospitable gates

by a noble and liberal comprehension, but I would have no breaches in

her wall; I would have her cherish all those who are within, and pity

all those who are without; I would have her a common blessing to the

world, an example, if not an instructor, to those who have not the

happiness to belong to her; I would have her give a lesson of peace to

mankind, that a vexed and wandering generation might be taught to seek

for repose and toleration in the maternal bosom of Christian charity,

and not in the harlot lap of infidelity and indifference. Nothing has

driven people more into that house of seduction than the mutual hatred

of Christian congregations. Long may we enjoy our church under a learned

and edifying episcopacy! But episcopacy may fail, and religion exist.

The most horrid and cruel blow that can be offered to civil society is

through atheism. Do not promote diversity; when you have it, bear it;

have as many sorts of religion as you find in your country; there is a

reasonable worship in them all. The others, the infidels, are outlaws of

the constitution, not of this country, but of the human race. They are

never, never to be supported, never to be tolerated. Under the

systematic attacks of these people, I see some of the props of good

government already begin to fail; I see propagated principles which will

not leave to religion even a toleration. I see myself sinking every day

under the attacks of these wretched people. How shall I arm myself

against them? By uniting all those in affection, who are united in the

belief of the great principles of the Godhead that made and sustains the

world. They who hold revelation give double assurance to their country.

Even the man who does not hold revelation, yet who wishes that it were

proved to him, who observes a pious silence with regard to it, such a

man, though not a Christian, is governed by religious principles. Let

him be tolerated in this country. Let it be but a serious religion,

natural or revealed, take what you can get. Cherish, blow up the

slightest spark: one day it may be a pure and holy flame. By this

proceeding you form an alliance offensive and defensive against those

great ministers of darkness in the world who are endeavoring to shake

all the works of God established in order and beauty.

Perhaps I am carried too far; but it is in the road into which the

honorable gentleman has led me. The honorable gentleman would have us

fight this confederacy of the powers of darkness with the single arm of

the Church of England,--would have us not only fight against infidelity,

but fight at the same time with all the faith in the world except our

own. In the moment we make a front against the common enemy, we have to

combat with all those who are the natural friends of our cause. Strong

as we are, we are not equal to this. The cause of the Church of England

is included in that of religion, not that of religion in the Church of

England. I will stand up at all times for the rights of conscience, as

it is such,--not for its particular modes against its general

principles. One may be right, another mistaken; but if I have more

strength than my brother, it shall be employed to support, not to

oppress his weakness; if I have more light, it shall be used to guide,

not to dazzle him....

SPEECH

ON A

MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS BY THE RIGHT HON. C.J. FOX,

MAY 11, 1793,

FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN

A BILL TO REPEAL AND ALTER CERTAIN ACTS RESPECTING RELIGIOUS OPINIONS,

UPON THE OCCASION OF

A PETITION OF THE UNITARIAN SOCIETY

I never govern myself, no rational man ever did govern himself, by

abstractions and universals. I do not put abstract ideas wholly out of

any question; because I well know that under that name I should dismiss

principles, and that without the guide and light of sound,

well-understood principles, all reasonings in politics, as in everything

else, would be only a confused jumble of particular facts and details,

without the means of drawing out any sort of theoretical or practical

conclusion. A statesman differs from a professor in an university: the

latter has only the general view of society; the former, the statesman,

has a number of circumstances to combine with those general ideas, and

to take into his consideration. Circumstances are infinite, are

infinitely combined, are variable and transient: he who does not take

them into consideration is not erroneous, but stark mad; _dat operam ut

cum ratione insaniat_; he is metaphysically mad. A statesman, never

losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and

judging contrary to the exigencies of the moment, he may ruin his

country forever.

I go on this ground,--that government, representing the society, has a

general superintending control over all the actions and over all the

publicly propagated doctrines of men, without which it never could

provide adequately for all the wants of society: but then it is to use

this power with an equitable discretion, the only bond of sovereign

authority. For it is not, perhaps, so much by the assumption of unlawful

powers as by the unwise or unwarrantable use of those which are most

legal, that governments oppose their true end and object: for there is

such a thing as tyranny, as well as usurpation. You can hardly state to

me a case to which legislature is the most confessedly competent, in

which, if the rules of benignity and prudence are not observed, the most

mischievous and oppressive things may not be done. So that, after all,

it is a moral and virtuous discretion, and not any abstract theory of

right, which keeps governments faithful to their ends. Crude,

unconnected truths are in the world of practice what falsehoods are in

theory. A reasonable, prudent, provident, and moderate coercion may be a

means of preventing acts of extreme ferocity and rigor: for by

propagating excessive and extravagant doctrines, such extravagant

disorders take place as require the most perilous and fierce corrections

to oppose them.

It is not morally true that we are bound to establish in every country

that form of religion which in _our_ minds is most agreeable to truth,

and conduces most to the eternal happiness of mankind. In the same

manner, it is not true that we are, against the conviction of our own

judgment, to establish a system of opinions and practices directly

contrary to those ends, only because some majority of the people, told

by the head, may prefer it. No conscientious man would willingly

establish what he knew to be false and mischievous in religion, or in

anything else. No wise man, on the contrary, would tyrannically set up

his own sense so as to reprobate that of the great prevailing body of

the community, and pay no regard to the established opinions and

prejudices of mankind, or refuse to them the means of securing a

religious instruction suitable to these prejudices. A great deal depends

on the state in which you find men....

An alliance between Church and State in a Christian commonwealth is, in

my opinion, an idle and a fanciful speculation. An alliance is between

two things that are in their nature distinct and independent, such as

between two sovereign states. But in a Christian commonwealth the Church

and the State are one and the, same thing, being different integral

parts of the same whole. For the Church has been always divided into two

parts, the clergy and the laity,--of which the laity is as much an

essential integral part, and has as much its duties and privileges, as

the clerical member, and in the rule, order, and government of the

Church has its share. Religion is so far, in my opinion, from being out

of the province or the duty of a Christian magistrate, that it is, and

it ought to be, not only his care, but the principal thing in his care;

because it is one of the great bonds of human society, and its object

the supreme good, the ultimate end and object of man himself. The

magistrate, who is a man, and charged with the concerns of men, and to

whom very specially nothing human is remote and indifferent, has a right

and a duty to watch over it with an unceasing vigilance, to protect, to

promote, to forward it by every rational, just, and prudent means. It is

principally his duty to prevent the abuses which grow out of every

strong and efficient principle that actuates the human mind. As

religion is one of the bonds of society, he ought not to suffer it to be

made the pretext of destroying its peace, order, liberty, and its

security. Above all, he ought strictly to look to it, when men begin to

form new combinations, to be distinguished by new names, and especially

when they mingle a political system with their religious opinions, true

or false, plausible or implausible.

It is the interest, and it is the duty, and because it is the interest

and the duty, it is the right of government to attend much to opinions;

because, as opinions soon combine with passions, even when they do not

produce them, they have much influence on actions. Factions are formed

upon opinions, which factions become in effect bodies corporate in the

state; nay, factions generate opinions, in order to become a centre of

union, and to furnish watchwords to parties; and this may make it

expedient for government to forbid things in themselves innocent and

neutral. I am not fond of defining with precision what the ultimate

rights of the sovereign supreme power, in providing for the safety of

the commonwealth, may be, or may not extend to. It will signify very

little what my notions or what their own notions on the subject may be;

because, according to the exigence, they will take, in fact, the steps

which seem to them necessary for the preservation of the whole: for as

self-preservation in individuals is the first law of Nature, the same

will prevail in societies, who will, right or wrong, make that an object

paramount to all other rights whatsoever. There are ways and means by

which a good man would not even save the commonwealth.... All things

founded on the idea of danger ought in a great degree to be temporary.

All policy is very suspicious that sacrifices any part to the ideal good

of the whole. The object of the state is (as far as may be) the

happiness of the whole. Whatever makes multitudes of men utterly

miserable can never answer that object; indeed, it contradicts it wholly

and entirely; and the happiness or misery of mankind, estimated by their

feelings and sentiments, and not by any theories of their rights, is,

and ought to be, the standard for the conduct of legislators towards the

people. This naturally and necessarily conducts us to the peculiar and

characteristic situation of a people, and to a knowledge of their

opinions, prejudices, habits, and all the circumstances that diversify

and color life. The first question a good statesman would ask himself,

therefore, would be, How and in what circumstances do you find the

society? and to act upon them.

To the other laws relating to other sects I have nothing to say: I only

look to the petition which has given rise to this proceeding. I confine

myself to that, because in my opinion its merits have little or no

relation to that of the other laws which the right honorable gentleman

has with so much ability blended with it. With the Catholics, with the

Presbyterians, with the Anabaptists, with the Independents, with the

Quakers, I have nothing at all to do. They are in _possession_,--a great

title in all human affairs. The tenor and spirit of our laws, whether

they were restraining or whether they were relaxing, have hitherto taken

another course. The spirit of our laws has applied their penalty or

their relief to the supposed abuse to be repressed or the grievance to

be relieved; and the provision for a Catholic and a Quaker has been

totally different, according to his exigence: you did not give a

Catholic liberty to be freed from an oath, or a Quaker power of saying

mass with impunity. You have done this, because you never have laid it

down as an universal proposition, as a maxim, that nothing relative to

religion was your concern, but the direct contrary; and therefore you

have always examined whether there was a grievance. It has been so at

all times: the legislature, whether right or wrong, went no other way to

work but by circumstances, times, and necessities. My mind marches the

same road; my school is the practice and usage of Parliament.

Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out; on the lava and ashes

and squalid scoriæ of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the

cheering vine, and the sustaining corn. Such was the first, such the

second condition of Vesuvius. But when a now fire bursts out, a face of

desolations comes on, not to be rectified in ages. Therefore, when men

come before us, and rise up like an exhalation from the ground, they

come in a questionable shape, and we must _exorcise_ them, and try

whether their intents be wicked or charitable, whether they bring airs

from heaven or blasts from hell. This is the first time that our records

of Parliament have heard, or our experience or history given us an

account of any religious congregation or association known by the name

which these petitioners have assumed. We are now to see by what people,

of what character, and under what temporary circumstances, this business

is brought before you. We are to see whether there be any and what

mixture of political dogmas and political practices with their religious

tenets, of what nature they are, and how far they are at present

practically separable from them. This faction (the authors of the

petition) are not confined to a _theological_ sect, but are also a

_political_ faction. 1st, As theological, we are to show that they do

not aim at the quiet enjoyment of their own liberty, but are

_associated_ for the express purpose of proselytism. In proof of this

first proposition, read their primary association. 2nd, That their

purpose of proselytism is to collect a multitude sufficient by force and

violence to overturn the Church. In proof of the second proposition, see

the letter of Priestley to Mr. Pitt, and extracts from his works. 3rd,

That the designs against the Church are concurrent with a design to

subvert the State. In proof of the third proposition, read the

advertisement of the Unitarian Society for celebrating the 14th of July.

4th, On what _model_ they intend to build,--that it is the _French_. In

proof of the fourth proposition, read the correspondence of the

Revolution Society with the clubs of France, read Priestley's adherence

to their opinions. 5th, What the _French_ is with regard to religious

toleration, and with regard to, 1. Religion,--2. Civil happiness,--3.

Virtue, order, and real liberty,--4. Commercial opulence,--5. National

defence. In proof of the fifth proposition, read the representation of

the French minister of the Home Department, and the report of the

committee upon it.

Formerly, when the superiority of two parties contending for dogmas and

an establishment was the question, we knew in such a contest the whole

of the evil. We knew, for instance, that Calvinism would prevail

according to the Westminster Catechism with regard to _tenets_. We knew

that Presbytery would prevail in _church government_. But we do not

know what opinions would prevail, if the present Dissenters should

become masters. They will not tell us their present opinions; and one

principle of modern Dissent is, not to discover them. Next, as their

religion, is in a continual fluctuation, and is so by principle and in

profession, it is impossible for us to know what it will be. If religion

only related to the individual, and was a question between God and the

conscience, it would not be wise, nor in my opinion equitable, for human

authority to step in. But when religion is embodied into faction, and

factions have objects to pursue, it will and must, more or less, become

a question of power between them. If even, when embodied into

congregations, they limited their principle to their own congregations,

and were satisfied themselves to abstain from what they thought

unlawful, it would be cruel, in my opinion, to molest them in that

tenet, and a consequent practice. But we know that they not only

entertain these opinions, but entertain them with a zeal for propagating

them by force, and employing the power of law and place to destroy

establishments, if ever they should come to power sufficient to effect

their purpose: that is, in other words, they declare they would

persecute the heads of our Church; and the question is, whether you

should keep them within the bounds of toleration, or subject yourself to

their persecution.

A bad and very censurable practice it is to warp doubtful and ambiguous

expressions to a perverted sense, which makes the charge not the crime

of others, but the construction of your own malice; nor is it allowed to

draw conclusions from allowed premises, which those who lay down the

premises utterly deny, and disown as their conclusions. For this,

though it may possibly be good logic, cannot by any possibility

whatsoever be a fair or charitable representation of any man or any set

of men. It may show the erroneous nature of principles, but it argues

nothing as to dispositions and intentions. Far be such a mode from me! A

mean and unworthy jealousy it would be to do anything upon, the mere

speculative apprehension of what men will do. But let us pass by _our_

opinions concerning the danger of the Church. What do the gentlemen

themselves think of that danger? They from, whom the danger is

apprehended, what do they declare to be their own designs? What do they

conceive to be their own forces? And what do they proclaim to be their

means? Their designs they declare to be to destroy the Established

Church; and not to set up a new one of their own. See Priestley. If they

should find the State stick to the Church, the question is, whether they

love the constitution in _State_ so well as that they would not destroy

the constitution of the State in order to destroy that of the Church.

Most certainly they do not.

The foundations on which obedience to governments is founded are not to

be constantly discussed. That we are here supposes the discussion

already made and the dispute settled. We must assume the rights of what

represents the public to control the individual, to make his will and

his acts to submit to their will, until some intolerable grievance shall

make us know that it does not answer its end, and will submit neither to

reformation nor restraint. Otherwise we should dispute all the points of

morality, before we can punish a murderer, robber, and adulterer; we

should analyze all society. Dangers by being despised grow great; so

they do by absurd provision against them. _Stulti est dixisse, Non

putâram_. Whether an early discovery of evil designs, an early

declaration, and an early precaution against them be more wise than to

stifle all inquiry about them, for fear they should declare themselves

more early than otherwise they would, and therefore precipitate the

evil,--all this depends on the reality of the danger. Is it only an

unbookish jealousy, as Shakspeare calls it? It is a question of fact.

Does a design against the Constitution of this country exist? If it

does, and if it is carried on with increasing vigor and activity by a

restless faction, and if it receives countenance by the most ardent and

enthusiastic applauses of its object in the great council of this

kingdom, by men of the first parts which this kingdom produces, perhaps

by the first it has ever produced, can I think that there is no danger?

If there be danger, must there be no precaution at all against it? If

you ask whether I think the danger urgent and immediate, I answer, Thank

God, I do not. The body of the people is yet sound, the Constitution is

in their hearts, while wicked men are endeavoring to put another into

their heads. But if I see the very same beginnings which have commonly

ended in great calamities, I ought to act as if they might produce the

very same effects. Early and provident fear is the mother of safety;

because in that state of things the mind is firm and collected, and the

judgment unembarrassed. But when the fear and the evil feared come on

together, and press at once upon us, deliberation itself is ruinous,

which saves upon all other occasions; because, when perils are instant,

it delays decision: the man is in a flutter, and in a hurry, and his

judgment is gone,--as the judgment of the deposed King of France and his

ministers was gone, if the latter did not premeditately betray him. He

was just come from his usual amusement of hunting, when the head of the

column of treason and assassination was arrived at his house. Let not

the king, let not the Prince of Wales, be surprised in this manner. Let

not both Houses of Parliament be led in triumph along with him, and have

law dictated to them, by the Constitutional, the Revolution, and the

Unitarian Societies. These insect reptiles, whilst they go on only

caballing and toasting, only fill us with disgust; if they get above

their natural size, and increase the quantity whilst they keep the

quality of their venom, they become objects of the greatest terror. A

spider in his natural size is only a spider, ugly and loathsome; and his

flimsy net is only fit for catching flies. But, good God! suppose a

spider as large as an ox, and that he spread cables about us, all the

wilds of Africa would not produce anything so dreadful:--

Quale portentum neque militaris

Daunia in latis alit esculetis,

Nec Jubæ tellus generat, leonum

Arida nutrix.

Think of them who dare menace in the way they do in their present state,

what would they do, if they had power commensurate to their malice? God

forbid I ever should have a despotic master!--but if I must, my choice

is made. I will have Louis the Sixteenth rather than Monsieur Bailly, or

Brissot, or Chabot,--rather George the Third, or George the Fourth,

than. Dr. Priestley, or Dr. Kippis,--persons who would not load a

tyrannous power by the poisoned taunts of a vulgar, low-bred insolence.

I hope we have still spirit enough to keep us from the one or the other.

The contumelies of tyranny are the worst parts of it.

But if the danger be existing in reality, and silently maturing itself

to our destruction, what! is it not better to take _treason_ unprepared

than that _treason_ should come by surprise upon us and take us

unprepared? If we must have a conflict, let us have it with all our

forces fresh about us, with our government in full function and full

strength, our troops uncorrupted, our revenues in the legal hands, our

arsenals filled and possessed by government,--and not wait till the

conspirators met to commemorate the 14th of July shall seize on the

Tower of London and the magazines it contains, murder the governor, and

the mayor of London, seize upon the king's person, drive out the House

of Lords, occupy your gallery, and thence, as from an high tribunal,

dictate to you. The degree of danger is not only from the circumstances

which threaten, but from the value of the objects which are threatened.

A small danger menacing an inestimable object is of more importance than

the greatest perils which regard one that is indifferent to us. The

whole question of the danger depends upon facts. The first fact is,

whether those who sway in France at present confine themselves to the

regulation of their internal affairs,--or whether upon system they

nourish cabals in all other countries, to extend their power by

producing revolutions similar to their own. 2. The next is, whether we

have any cabals formed or forming within these kingdoms, to coöperate

with them for the destruction of our Constitution. On the solution of

these two questions, joined with our opinion of the value of the object

to be affected by their machinations, the justness of our alarm and the

necessity of our vigilance must depend. Every private conspiracy, every

open attack upon the laws, is dangerous. One robbery is an alarm to all

property; else I am sure we exceed measure in our punishment. As

robberies increase in number and audacity, the alarm increases. These

wretches are at war with us upon principle. They hold this government to

be an usurpation. See the language of the Department.

The whole question is on the _reality_ of the danger. Is it such a

danger as would justify that fear _qui cadere potest in hominem

constantem et non metuentem_? This is the fear which the principles of

jurisprudence declare to be a lawful and justifiable fear. When a man

threatens my life openly and publicly, I may demand from him securities

of the peace. When every act of a man's life manifests such a design

stronger than by words, even though he does not make such a declaration,

I am justified in being on my guard. They are of opinion that they are

already one fifth of the kingdom. If so, their force is naturally not

contemptible. To say that in all contests the decision will of course be

in favor of the greater number is by no means true in fact. For, first,

the greater number is generally composed of men of sluggish tempers,

slow to act, and unwilling to attempt, and, by being in possession, are

so disposed to peace that they are unwilling to take early and vigorous

measures for their defence, and they are almost always caught

unprepared:--

Nec coïere pares: alter vergentibus annis

In senium, longoque togæ tranquillior usu.

Dedidicit jam pace ducem;...

Nec reparare novas vires, multumque priori

Credere fortunæ: stat magni nominis umbra.[1]

A smaller number, more expedite, awakened, active, vigorous, and

courageous, who make amends for what they want in weight by their

superabundance of velocity, will create an acting power of the greatest

possible strength. When men are furiously and fanatically fond of an

object, they will prefer it, as is well known, to their own peace, to

their own property, and to their own lives: and can there be a doubt, in

such a case, that they would prefer it to the peace of their country? Is

it to be doubted, that, if they have not strength enough at home, they

will call in foreign force to aid them?

Would you deny them _what is reasonable_, for fear they should?

Certainly not. It would be barbarous to pretend to look into the minds

of men. I would go further: it would not be just even to trace

consequences from principles which, though evident to me, were denied by

them. Let them disband as a faction, and let them act as individuals,

and when I see them with no other views than to enjoy their own

conscience in peace, I, for one, shall most cheerfully vote for their

relief.

A tender conscience, of all things, ought to be tenderly handled; for if

you do not, you injure not only the conscience, but the whole moral

frame and constitution is injured, recurring at times to remorse, and

seeking refuge only in making the conscience callous. But the conscience

of faction,--the conscience of sedition,--the conscience of conspiracy,

war, and confusion....

Whether anything be proper to be denied, which is right in itself,

because it may lead to the demand of others which it is improper to

grant? Abstractedly speaking, there can be no doubt that this question

ought to be decided in the negative. But as no moral questions are ever

abstract questions, this, before I judge upon any abstract proposition,

must be embodied in circumstances; for, since things are right or wrong,

morally speaking, only by their relation and connection with other

things, this very question of what it is politically right to grant

depends upon this relation to its effects. It is the direct office of

wisdom to look to the consequences of the acts we do: if it be not this,

it is worth nothing, it is out of place and of function, and a downright

fool is as capable of government as Charles Fox. A man desires a sword:

why should he be refused? A sword is a means of defence, and defence is

the natural right of man,--nay, the first of all his rights, and which

comprehends them all. But if I know that the sword desired is to be

employed to cut my own throat, common sense, and my own self-defence,

dictate to me to keep out of his hands this natural right of the sword.

But whether this denial be wise or foolish, just or unjust, prudent or

cowardly, depends entirely on the state of the man's means. A man may

have very ill dispositions, and yet be so very weak as to make all

precaution foolish. See whether this be the case of these Dissenters, as

to their designs, as to their means, numbers, activity, zeal, foreign

assistance.

The first question, to be decided, when we talk of the Church's being in

danger from any particular measure, is, whether the danger to the Church

is a public evil: for to those who think that the national Church

Establishment is itself a national grievance, to desire them to forward

or to resist any measure, upon account of its conducing to the safety of

the Church or averting its danger, would be to the last degree absurd.

If you have reason to think thus of it, take the reformation instantly

into your own hands, whilst you are yet cool, and can do it in measure

and proportion, and not under the influence of election tests and

popular fury. But here I assume that by far the greater number of those

who compose the House are of opinion that this national Church

Establishment is a great national benefit, a great public blessing, and

that its existence or its non-existence of course is a thing by no means

indifferent to the public welfare: then to them its danger or its safety

must enter deeply into every question which has a relation to it. It is

not because ungrounded alarms have been given that there never can exist

a real danger: perhaps the worst effect of an ungrounded alarm is to

make people insensible to the approach of a real peril. Quakerism is

strict, methodical, in its nature highly aristocratical, and so regular

that it has brought the whole community to the condition of one family;

but it does not actually interfere with the government. The principle of

your petitioners is no passive conscientious dissent, on account of an

over-scrupulous habit of mind: the dissent on their part is fundamental,

goes to the very root; and it is at issue not upon this rite or that

ceremony, on this or that school opinion, but upon this one question of

an Establishment, as unchristian, unlawful, contrary to the Gospel and

to natural right, Popish and idolatrous. These are the principles

violently and fanatically held and pursued,--taught to their children,

who are sworn at the altar like Hannibal. The war is with the

Establishment itself,--no quarter, no compromise. As a party, they are

infinitely mischievous: see the declarations of Priestley and

Price,--declarations, you will say, of _hot_ men. Likely enough: but who

are the _cool_ men who have disclaimed them? Not one,--no, not one.

Which of them has ever told you that they do not mean to _destroy the

Church_, if ever it should be in their power? Which of them has told you

that this would not be the first and favorite use of any power they

should get? Not one,--no, not one. Declarations of hot men! The danger

is thence, that they are under the _conduct_ of hot men: _falsos in

amore odia non fingere_.

They say they are well affected to the State, and mean only to destroy

the Church. If this be the utmost of their meaning, you must first

consider whether you wish your Church Establishment to be destroyed. If

you do, you had much better do it now in temper, in a grave, moderate,

and parliamentary way. But if you think otherwise, and that you think it

to be an invaluable blessing, a way fully sufficient to nourish a manly,

rational, solid, and at the same time humble piety,--if you find it well

fitted to the frame and pattern of your civil constitution,--if you find

it a barrier against fanaticism, infidelity, and atheism,--if you find

that it furnishes support to the human mind in the afflictions and

distresses of the world, consolation in sickness, pain, poverty, and

death,--if it dignifies our nature with the hope of immortality, leaves

inquiry free, whilst it preserves an authority to teach, where authority

only can teach, _communia altaria, æque ac patriam, diligite, colite,

fovete_.

In the discussion of this subject which took place in the year 1790, Mr.

Burke declared his intention, in case the motion for repealing the Test

Acts had been agreed to, of proposing to substitute the following test

in the room of what was intended to be repealed:--

"I, _A.B._, do, in the presence of God, sincerely profess and believe

that a religious establishment in this state is not contrary to the law

of God, or disagreeable to the law of Nature, or to the true principles

of the Christian religion, or that it is noxious to the community; and I

do sincerely promise and engage, before God, that I never will, by any

conspiracy, contrivance, or political device whatever, attempt, or abet

others in any attempt, to subvert the constitution of the Church of

England, as the same is now by law established, and that I will not

employ any power or influence which I may derive from any office

corporate, or any other office which I hold or shall hold under his

Majesty, his heirs and successors, to destroy and subvert the same, or

to cause members to be elected into any corporation or into Parliament,

give my vote in the election of any member or members of Parliament, or

into any office, for or on account of their attachment to any other or

different religious opinions or establishments, or with any hope that

they may promote the same to the prejudice of the Established Church,

but will dutifully and peaceably content myself with my private liberty

of conscience, as the same is allowed by law. So help me God."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Lucan, I. 129 to 135.

SPEECH

ON

THE MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,

FEBRUARY 7, 1771,

RELATIVE TO

THE MIDDLESEX ELECTION.

NOTE.

The motion supported in the following Speech, which was for leave to

bring in a bill to ascertain the rights of the electors in respect to

the eligibility of persons to serve in Parliament, was rejected by a

majority of 167 against 103.

SPEECH.

In every complicated constitution (and every free constitution is

complicated) cases will arise when the several orders of the state will

clash with one another, and disputes will arise about the limits of

their several rights and privileges. It may be almost impossible to

reconcile them....

Carry the principle on by which you expelled Mr. Wilkes, there is not a

man in the House, hardly a man in the nation, who may not be

disqualified. That this House should have no power of expulsion is an

hard saying: that this House should have a general discretionary power

of disqualification is a dangerous saying. That the people should not

choose their own representative is a saying that shakes the

Constitution: that this House should name the representative is a saying

which, followed by practice, subverts the Constitution. They have the

right of electing; you have a right of expelling: they of choosing; you

of judging, and only of judging, of the choice. What bounds shall be set

to the freedom of that choice? Their right is prior to ours: we all

originate there. They are the mortal enemies of the House of Commons who

would persuade them to think or to act as if they were a self-originated

magistracy, independent of the people, and unconnected with their

opinions and feelings. Under a pretence of exalting the dignity, they

undermine the very foundations of this House. When the question is asked

_here_, What disturbs the people? whence all this clamor? we apply to

the Treasury bench, and they tell us it is from the efforts of

libellers, and the wickedness of the people: a worn-out ministerial

pretence. If abroad the people are deceived by popular, within we are

deluded by ministerial cant.

The question amounts to this: Whether you mean to be a legal tribunal,

or an arbitrary and despotic assembly? I see and I feel the delicacy and

difficulty of the ground upon which we stand in this question. I could

wish, indeed, that they who advise the crown had not left Parliament in

this very ungraceful distress, in which they can neither retract with

dignity nor persist with justice. Another Parliament might have

satisfied the people without lowering themselves. But our situation is

not in our own choice: our conduct in that situation is all that is in

our own option. The substance of the question is, to put bounds to your

own power by the rules and principles of law. This is, I am sensible, a

difficult thing to the corrupt, grasping, and ambitious part of human

nature. But the very difficulty argues and enforces the necessity of it.

First, because the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Since the Revolution, at least, the power of the nation has all flowed

with a full tide into the House of Commons. Secondly, because the House

of Commons, as it is the most powerful, is the most corruptible part of

the whole Constitution. Our public wounds cannot be concealed; to be

cured, they must be laid open. The public does think we are a corrupt

body. In our _legislative capacity_, we are, in most instances,

esteemed a very wise body; in our judicial, we have no credit, no

character at all. Our judgments stink in the nostrils of the people.

They think us to be not only without virtue, but without shame.

Therefore the greatness of our power, and the great and just opinion of

our corruptibility and our corruption, render it necessary to fix some

bound, to plant some landmark, which we are never to exceed. This is

what the bill proposes.

First, on this head, I lay it down as a fundamental rule in the law and

Constitution of this country, that this House has not by itself alone a

legislative authority in any case whatsoever. I know that the contrary

was the doctrine of the usurping House of Commons, which threw down the

fences and bulwarks of law, which annihilated first the lords, then the

crown, then its constituents. But the first thing that was done on the

restoration of the Constitution was to settle this point. Secondly, I

lay it down as a rule, that the power of occasional incapacitation, on

discretionary grounds, is a legislative power. In order to establish

this principle, if it should not be sufficiently proved by being stated,

tell me what are the criteria, the characteristics, by which you

distinguish between a legislative and a juridical act. It will be

necessary to state, shortly, the difference between a legislative and a

juridical act.

A legislative act has no reference to any rule but these two,--original

justice, and discretionary application. Therefore it can give

rights,--rights where no rights existed before; and it can take away

rights where they were before established. For the law, which binds all

others, does not and cannot bind the law-maker: he, and he alone, is

above the law. But a judge, a person exercising a judicial capacity, is

neither to apply to original justice nor to a discretionary application

of it. He goes to justice and discretion only at second hand, and

through the medium of some superiors. He is to work neither upon his

opinion of the one nor of the other, but upon a fixed rule, of which he

has not the making, but singly and solely the _application_ to the case.

The power assumed by the House neither is nor can be judicial power

exercised according to known law. The properties of law are, first, that

it should be known; secondly, that it should be fixed, and not

occasional. First, this power cannot be according to the first property

of law; because no man does or can know it, nor do you yourselves know

upon what grounds you will vote the incapacity of any man. No man in

Westminster Hall, or in any court upon earth, will say that is law, upon

which, if a man going to his counsel should say to him, "What is my

tenure in law of this estate?" he would answer, "Truly, Sir, I know not;

the court has no rule but its own discretion; they will determine." It

is not a fixed law; because you profess you vary it according to the

occasion, exercise it according to your discretion, no man can call for

it as a right. It is argued, that the incapacity is not originally

voted, but a consequence of a power of expulsion. But if you expel, not

upon legal, but upon arbitrary, that is, upon discretionary grounds, and

the incapacity is _ex vi termini_ and inclusively comprehended in the

expulsion, is not the incapacity voted in the expulsion? Are they not

convertible terms? And if incapacity is voted to be inherent in

expulsion, if expulsion be arbitrary, incapacity is arbitrary also. I

have therefore shown that the power of incapacitation is a legislative

power; I have shown that legislative power does not belong to the House

of Commons; and therefore it follows that the House of Commons has not a

power of incapacitation.

I know not the origin of the House of Commons, but am very sure that it

did not create itself; the electors were prior to the elected, whose

rights originated either from the people at large, or from some other

form of legislature, which never could intend for the chosen a power of

superseding the choosers.

If you have not a power of declaring an incapacity simply by the mere

act of declaring it, it is evident to the most ordinary reason you

cannot have a right of expulsion, inferring, or rather including, an

incapacity. For as the law, when it gives any direct right, gives also

as necessary incidents all the means of acquiring the possession of that

right, so, where it does not give a right directly, it refuses all the

means by which such a right may by any mediums be exercised, or in

effect be indirectly acquired. Else it is very obvious that the

intention of the law in refusing that right might be entirely

frustrated, and the whole power of the legislature baffled. If there be

no certain, invariable rule of eligibility, it were better to get

simplicity, if certainty is not to be had, and to resolve all the

franchises of the subject into this one short proposition,--the will and

pleasure of the House of Commons.

The argument drawn from the courts of law applying the principles of law

to new cases as they emerge is altogether frivolous, inapplicable, and

arises from a total ignorance of the bounds between civil and criminal

jurisdiction, and of the separate maxims that govern these two

provinces of law, that are eternally separate. Undoubtedly the courts of

law, where a new case comes before them, as they do every hour, then,

that there may be no defect in justice, call in similar principles, and

the example of the nearest determination, and do everything to draw the

law to as near a conformity to general equity and right reason as they

can bring it with its being a fixed principle. _Boni judicis est

ampliare justitiam_,--that is, to make open and liberal justice. But in

criminal matters this parity of reason and these analogies ever have

been and ever ought to be shunned.

Whatever is incident to a court of judicature is necessary to the House

of Commons as judging in elections. But a power of making incapacities

is not necessary to a court of judicature: therefore a power of making

incapacities is not necessary to the House of Commons.

Incapacity, declared by whatever authority, stands upon two principles:

first, an incapacity arising from the supposed incongruity of two duties

in the commonwealth; secondly, an incapacity arising from unfitness by

infirmity of nature or the criminality of conduct. As to the first class

of incapacities, they have no _hardship_ annexed to them. The persons so

incapacitated are paid by one dignity for what they abandon in another,

and for the most part the situation arises from their own choice. But as

to the second, arising from an unfitness not fixed by Nature, but

superinduced by some positive acts, or arising from honorable motives,

such as an occasional personal disability, of all things it ought to be

defined by the fixed rule of law, what Lord Coke calls the golden

metwand of the law, and not by the crooked cord of discretion. Whatever

is general is better borne. We take our common lot with men of the same

description. But to be selected and marked out by a particular brand of

unworthiness among our fellow-citizens is a lot of all others the

hardest to be borne, and consequently is of all others that act winch

ought only to be trusted to the legislature, as not only _legislative_

in its nature, but of all parts of legislature the most odious. The

question is over, if this is shown not to be a legislative act.

But what is very usual and natural is, to corrupt judicature into

legislature. On this point it is proper to inquire whether a court of

judicature which decides without appeal has it as a necessary incident

of such judicature, that whatever it decides is _de jure_ law. Nobody

will, I hope, assert this; because the direct consequence would be the

entire extinction of the difference between true and false judgments.

For if the judgment makes the law, and not the law directs the judgment,

it is impossible there should be such a thing as an illegal judgment

given.

But instead of standing upon this ground, they introduce another

question wholly foreign to it: Whether it ought not to be submitted to

as if it were law? And then the question is,--By the Constitution of

this country, what degree of submission is due to the authoritative acts

of a limited power? This question of submission, determine it how you

please, has nothing to do in this discussion and in this House. Here it

is not, how long the people are bound to tolerate the illegality of our

judgments, but whether we have a right to substitute our occasional

opinion in the place of law, so as to deprive the citizen of his

franchise....

SPEECH

ON

A BILL FOR SHORTENING THE DURATION OF PARLIAMENTS.

MAY 8, 1780.

It is always to be lamented, when men are driven to search into the

foundations of the commonwealth. It is certainly necessary to resort to

the theory of your government, whenever you propose any alteration in

the frame of it,--whether that alteration means the revival of some

former antiquated and forsaken constitution of state, or the

introduction of some new improvement in the commonwealth. The object of

our deliberation is, to promote the good purposes for which elections

have been instituted, and to prevent their inconveniences. If we thought

frequent elections attended with no inconvenience, or with but a

trifling inconvenience, the strong overruling principle of the

Constitution would sweep us like a torrent towards them. But your remedy

is to be suited to your disease, your present disease, and to your whole

disease. That man thinks much too highly, and therefore he thinks weakly

and delusively, of any contrivance of human wisdom, who believes that it

can make any sort of approach to perfection. There is not, there never

was, a principle of government under heaven, that does not, in the very

pursuit of the good it proposes, naturally and inevitably lead into some

inconvenience which makes it absolutely necessary to counterwork and

weaken the application of that first principle itself, and to abandon

something of the extent of the advantage you proposed by it, in order

to prevent also the inconveniences which have arisen from the instrument

of all the good you had in view.

To govern according to the sense and agreeably to the interests of the

people is a great and glorious object of government. This object cannot

be obtained but through the medium of popular election; and popular

election is a mighty evil. It is such and so great an evil, that, though

there are few nations whose monarchs were not originally elective, very

few are now elected. They are the distempers of elections that have

destroyed all free states. To cure these distempers is difficult, if not

impossible; the only thing, therefore, left to save the commonwealth is,

to prevent their return too frequently. The objects in view are, to have

Parliaments as frequent as they can be without distracting them in the

prosecution of public business: on one hand, to secure their dependence

upon the people; on the other, to give them that quiet in their minds

and that ease in their fortunes as to enable them to perform the most

arduous and most painful duty in the world with spirit, with efficiency,

with independency, and with experience, as real public counsellors, not

as the canvassers at a perpetual election. It is wise to compass as many

good ends as possibly you can, and, seeing there are inconveniences on

both sides, with benefits on both, to give up a part of the benefit to

soften the inconvenience. The perfect cure is impracticable; because the

disorder is dear to those from whom alone the cure can possibly be

derived. The utmost to be done is to palliate, to mitigate, to respite,

to put off the evil day of the Constitution to its latest possible

hour,--and may it be a very late one!

This bill, I fear, would precipitate one of two consequences,--I know

not which most likely, or which most dangerous: either that the crown,

by its constant, stated power, influence, and revenue, would wear out

all opposition in elections, or that a violent and furious popular

spirit would arise. I must see, to satisfy me, the remedies; I must see,

from their operation in the cure of the old evil, and in the cure of

those new evils which are inseparable from all remedies, how they

balance each other, and what is the total result. The excellence of

mathematics and metaphysics is, to have but one thing before you; but he

forms the best judgment in all moral disquisitions who has the greatest

number and variety of considerations in one view before him, and can

take them in with the best possible consideration of the middle results

of all.

We of the opposition, who are not friends to the bill, give this pledge

at least of our integrity and sincerity to the people,--that in our

situation of systematic opposition to the present ministers, in which

all our hope of rendering it effectual depends upon popular interest and

favor, we will not flatter them by a surrender of our uninfluenced

judgment and opinion; we give a security, that, if ever we should be in

another situation, no flattery to any other sort of power and influence

would induce us to act against the true interests of the people.

All are agreed that Parliaments should not be perpetual; the only

question is, What is the most convenient time for their duration?--on

which there are three opinions. We are agreed, too, that the term ought

not to be chosen most likely in its operation to spread corruption, and

to augment the already overgrown influence of the crown. On these

principles I mean to debate the question. It is easy to pretend a zeal

for liberty. Those who think themselves not likely to be incumbered with

the performance of their promises, either from their known inability or

total indifference about the performance, never fail to entertain the

most lofty ideas. They are certainly the most specious; and they cost

them neither reflection to frame, nor pains to modify, nor management to

support. The task is of another nature to those who mean to promise

nothing that it is not in their intention, or may possibly be in their

power to perform,--to those who are bound and principled no more to

delude the understandings than to violate the liberty of their

fellow-subjects. Faithful watchmen we ought to be over the rights and

privileges of the people. But our duty, if we are qualified for it as we

ought, is to give them information, and not to receive it from them: we

are not to go to school to them, to learn the principles of law and

government. In doing so, we should not dutifully serve, but we should

basely and scandalously betray the people, who are not capable of this

service by nature, nor in any instance called to it by the Constitution.

I reverentially look up to the opinion of the people, and with an awe

that is almost superstitious. I should be ashamed to show my face before

them, if I changed my ground as they cried up or cried down men or

things or opinions,--if I wavered and shifted about with every change,

and joined in it or opposed as best answered any low interest or

passion,--if I held them up hopes which I knew I never intended, or

promised what I well knew I could not perform. Of all these things they

are perfect sovereign judges without appeal; but as to the detail of

particular measures, or to any general schemes of policy, they have

neither enough of speculation in the closet nor of experience in

business to decide upon it. They can well see whether we are tools of a

court or their honest servants. Of that they can well judge,--and I wish

that they always exercised their judgment; but of the particular merits

of a measure I have other standards....

That the frequency of elections proposed by this bill has a tendency to

increase the power and consideration of the electors, not lessen

corruptibility, I do most readily allow: so far it is desirable. This is

what it has: I will tell you now what it has not. 1st. It has no sort of

tendency to increase their integrity and public spirit, unless an

increase of power has an operation upon voters in elections, that it has

in no other situation in the world, and upon no other part of mankind.

2nd. This bill has no tendency to limit the quantity of influence in the

crown, to render its operation more difficult, or to counteract that

operation which it cannot prevent in any way whatsoever. It has its full

weight, its full range, and its uncontrolled operation on the electors

exactly as it had before. 3rd. Nor, thirdly, does it abate the interest

or inclination of ministers to apply that influence to the electors: on

the contrary, it renders it much more necessary to them, if they seek to

have a majority in Parliament, to increase the means of that influence,

and redouble their diligence, and to sharpen dexterity in the

application. The whole effect of the bill is, therefore, the removing

the application of some part of the influence from the elected to the

electors, and further to strengthen and extend a court interest already

great and powerful in boroughs: here to fix their magazines and places

of arms, and thus to make them the principal, not the secondary, theatre

of their manœuvres for securing a determined majority in Parliament.

I believe nobody will deny that the electors are corruptible. They are

men,--it is saying nothing worse of them; many of them are but ill

informed in their minds, many feeble in their circumstances, easily

overreached, easily seduced. If they are many, the wages of corruption

are the lower; and would to God it were not rather a contemptible and

hypocritical adulation than a charitable sentiment, to say that there is

already no debauchery, no corruption, no bribery, no perjury, no blind

fury and interested faction among the electors in many parts of this

kingdom!--nor is it surprising, or at all blamable, in that class of

private men, when they see their neighbors aggrandized, and themselves

poor and virtuous without that _éclat_ or dignity which attends men in

higher situations.

But admit it were true that the great mass of the electors were too vast

an object for court influence to grasp or extend to, and that in despair

they must abandon it; he must be very ignorant of the state of every

popular interest, who does not know that in all the corporations, all

the open boroughs, indeed in every district of the kingdom, there is

some leading man, some agitator, some wealthy merchant or considerable

manufacturer, some active attorney, some popular preacher, some

money-lender, _&c., &c.,_ who is followed by the whole flock. This is

the style of all free countries.

Multum in Fabiâ valet hic, valet ille Velinâ;

Cuilibet hic fasces dabit, eripietque curule.

These spirits, each of which informs and governs his own little orb, are

neither so many, nor so little powerful, nor so incorruptible, but that

a minister may, as he does frequently, find means of gaining them, and

through, them all their followers. To establish, therefore, a very

general influence among electors will no more be found an impracticable

project than to gain an undue influence over members of Parliament.

Therefore I am apprehensive that this bill, though it shifts the place

of the disorder, does by no means relieve the Constitution. I went

through almost every contested election in the beginning of this

Parliament, and acted as a manager in very many of them; by which,

though as at a school of pretty severe and rugged discipline, I came to

have some degree of instruction concerning the means by which

Parliamentary interests are in general procured and supported.

Theory, I know, would suppose that every general election is to the

representative a day of judgment, in which he appears before his

constituents to account for the use of the talent with which they

intrusted him, and for the improvement he has made of it for the public

advantage. It would be so, if every corruptible representative were to

find an enlightened and incorruptible constituent. But the practice and

knowledge of the world will not suffer us to be ignorant that the

Constitution on paper is one thing, and in fact and experience is

another. We must know that the candidate, instead of trusting at his

election to the testimony of his behavior in Parliament, must bring the

testimony of a large sum of money, the capacity of liberal expense in

entertainments, the power of serving and obliging the rulers of

corporations, of winning over the popular leaders of political clubs,

associations, and neighborhoods. It is ten thousand times more necessary

to show himself a man of power than a man of integrity, in almost all

the elections with which I have been acquainted. Elections, therefore,

become a matter of heavy expense; and if contests are frequent, to many

they will become a matter of an expense totally ruinous, which no

fortunes can bear, but least of all the landed fortunes, incumbered as

they often, indeed as they mostly are, with debts, with portions, with

jointures, and tied up in the hands of the possessor by the limitations

of settlement. It is a material, it is in my opinion a lasting

consideration, in all the questions concerning election. Let no one

think the charges of elections a trivial matter.

The charge, therefore, of elections ought never to be lost sight of in a

question concerning their frequency; because the grand object you seek

is independence. Independence of mind will ever be more or less

influenced by independence of fortune; and if every three years the

exhausting sluices of entertainments, drinkings, open houses, to say

nothing of bribery, are to be periodically drawn up and renewed,--if

government favors, for which now, in some shape or other, the whole race

of men are candidates, are to be called for upon every occasion, I see

that private fortunes will be washed away, and every, even to the least,

trace of independence borne down by the torrent. I do not seriously

think this Constitution, even to the wrecks of it, could survive five

triennial elections. If you are to fight the battle, you must put on

the armor of the ministry, you must call in the public to the aid of

private money. The expense of the last election has been computed (and I

am persuaded that it has not been overrated) at 1,500,000_l._,--three

shillings in the pound more in [than?] the land-tax. About the close of

the last Parliament and the beginning of this, several agents for

boroughs went about, and I remember well that it was in every one of

their mouths, "Sir, your election will cost you three thousand pounds,

if you are independent; but if the ministry supports you, it may be done

for two, and perhaps for less." And, indeed, the thing spoke itself.

Where a living was to be got for one, a commission in the army for

another, a lift in the navy for a third, and custom-house offices

scattered about without measure or number, who doubts but money may be

saved? The Treasury may even add money: but, indeed, it is superfluous.

A gentleman of two thousand a year, who meets another of the same

fortune, fights with equal arms; but if to one of the candidates you add

a thousand a year in places for himself, and a power of giving away as

much among others, one must, or there is no truth in arithmetical

demonstration, ruin his adversary, if he is to meet him and to fight

with him every third year. It will be said I do not allow for the

operation of character: but I do; and I know it will have its weight in

most elections,--perhaps it may be decisive in some; but there are few

in which it will prevent great expenses. The destruction of independent

fortunes will be the consequence on the part of the candidate. What will

be the consequence of triennial corruption, triennial drunkenness,

triennial idleness, triennial lawsuits, litigations, prosecutions,

triennial frenzy,--of society dissolved, industry interrupted,

ruined,--of those personal hatreds that will never be suffered to

soften, those animosities and feuds which will be rendered immortal,

those quarrels which are never to be appeased,--morals vitiated and

gangrened to the vitals? I think no stable and useful advantages were

ever made by the money got at elections by the voter, but all he gets is

doubly lost to the public: it is money given to diminish the general

stock of the community, which is in the industry of the subject. I am

sure that it is a good while before he or his family settle again to

their business. Their heads will never cool; the temptations of

elections will be forever glittering before their eyes. They will all

grow politicians; every one, quitting his business, will choose to

enrich himself by his vote. They will all take the gauging-rod; new

places will be made for them; they will run to the custom-house quay;

their looms and ploughs will be deserted.

So was Rome destroyed by the disorders of continual elections, though

those of Rome were sober disorders. They had nothing but faction,

bribery, bread, and stage-plays, to debauch them: we have the

inflammation of liquor superadded, a fury hotter than any of them. There

the contest was only between citizen and citizen: here you have the

contests of ambitious citizens of one side supported by the crown to

oppose to the efforts (let it be so) of private and unsupported ambition

on the other. Yet Rome was destroyed by the frequency and charge of

elections, and the monstrous expense of an unremitted courtship to the

people. I think, therefore, the independent candidate and elector may

each be destroyed by it, the whole body of the community be an infinite

sufferer, and a vicious ministry the only gainer.

Gentlemen, I know, feel the weight of this argument; they agree, that

this would be the consequence of more frequent elections, if things were

to continue as they are. But they think the greatness and frequency of

the evil would itself be, a remedy for it,--that, sitting but for a

short time, the member would not find it worth while to make such vast

expenses, while the fear of their constituents will hold them the more

effectually to their duty.

To this I answer, that experience is full against them. This is no new

thing; we have had triennial Parliaments; at no period of time were

seats more eagerly contested. The expenses of elections ran higher,

taking the state of all charges, than they do now. The expense of

entertainments was such, that an act, equally, severe and ineffectual,

was made against it; every monument of the time bears witness of the

expense, and most of the acts against corruption in elections were then

made; all the writers talked of it and lamented it. Will any one think

that a corporation will be contented with a bowl of punch or a piece of

beef the less, because elections are every three, instead of every seven

years? Will they change their wine for ale, because they are to get more

ale three years hence? Don't think it. Will they make fewer demands for

the advantages o£ patronage in favors and offices, because their member

is brought more under their power? We have not only our own historical

experience in England upon this subject, but we have the experience

coexisting with us in Ireland, where, since their Parliament has been

shortened, the expense of elections has been so far from being lowered,

that it has been very near doubled. Formerly they sat for the king's

life; the ordinary charge of a seat in Parliament was then fifteen

hundred pounds. They now sit eight years, four sessions; it is now

twenty-five hundred pounds, and upwards. The spirit of _emulation_ has

also been extremely increased, and all who are acquainted with the tone

of that country have no doubt that the spirit is still growing, that new

candidates will take the field, that the contests will be more violent,

and the expenses of elections larger than ever.

It never can be otherwise. A seat in this House, for good purposes, for

bad purposes, for no purposes at all, (except the mere consideration

derived from being concerned in the public counsels,) will ever be a

first-rate object of ambition in England. Ambition is no exact

calculator. Avarice itself does not calculate strictly, when it games.

One thing is certain,--that in this political game the great lottery of

power is that into which men will purchase with millions of chances

against them. In Turkey, where the place, where the fortune, where the

head itself are so insecure that scarcely any have died in their beds

for ages, so that the bowstring is the natural death of bashaws, yet in

no country is power and distinction (precarious enough, God knows, in

all) sought for with such boundless avidity,--as if the value of place

was enhanced by the danger and insecurity of its tenure. Nothing will

ever make a seat in this House not an object of desire to numbers by any

means or at any charge, but the depriving it of all power and all

dignity. This would do it. This is the true and only nostrum for that

purpose. But an House of Commons without power and without dignity,

either in itself or in its members, is no House of Commons for the

purposes of this Constitution.

But they will be afraid to act ill, if they know that the day of their

account is always near. I wish it were true; but it is not: here again

we have experience, and experience is against us. The distemper of this

age is a poverty of spirit and of genius: it is trifling, it is futile,

worse than ignorant, superficially taught, with the politics and morals

of girls at a boarding-school rather than of men and statesmen: but it

is not yet desperately wicked, or so scandalously venal as in former

times. Did not a triennial Parliament give up the national dignity,

approve the peace of Utrecht, and almost give up everything else, in

taking every step to defeat the Protestant succession? Was not the

Constitution saved by those who had no election at all to go to, the

Lords, because the court applied to electors, and by various means

carried them from their true interests, so that the Tory ministry had a

majority without an application to a single member? Now as to the

conduct of the members, it was then far from pure and independent.

Bribery was infinitely more flagrant. A predecessor of yours, Mr.

Speaker, put the question of his own expulsion for bribery. Sir William

Musgrave was a wise man, a grave man, an independent man, a man of good

fortune and good family; however, he carried on, while in opposition, a

traffic, a shameful traffic, with the ministry. Bishop Burnet knew of

six thousand pounds which he had received at one payment. I believe the

payment of sums in hard money, plain, naked bribery, is rare amongst us.

It was then far from uncommon.

A triennial was near ruining, a septennial Parliament saved your

Constitution; nor, perhaps, have you ever known a more flourishing

period, for the union of national prosperity, dignity, and liberty,

than the sixty years you have passed under that constitution of

Parliament.

The shortness of time in which they are to reap the profits of iniquity

is far from checking the avidity of corrupt men; it renders them

infinitely more ravenous. They rush violently and precipitately on their

object; they lose all regard to decorum. The moments of profits are

precious; never are men so wicked as during a general mortality. It was

so in the great plague at Athens, every symptom of which (and this its

worse symptom amongst the rest) is so finely related by a great

historian of antiquity. It was so in the plague of London in 1665. It

appears in soldiers, sailors, &c. Whoever would contrive to render the

life of man much shorter than it is would, I am satisfied, find the

surest receipt for increasing the wickedness of our nature.

Thus, in my opinion, the shortness of a triennial sitting would have the

following ill effects: It would make the member more shamelessly and

shockingly corrupt; it would increase his dependence on those who could

best support him at his election; it would wrack and tear to pieces the

fortunes of those who stood upon their own fortunes and their private

interest; it would make the electors infinitely more venal; and it would

make the whole body of the people, who are, whether they have votes or

not, concerned in elections, more lawless, more idle, more debauched; it

would utterly destroy the sobriety, the industry, the integrity, the

simplicity of all the people, and undermine, I am much afraid, the

deepest and best-laid foundations of the commonwealth.

Those who have spoken and written upon this subject without doors do

not so much deny the probable existence of these inconveniences in their

measure as they trust for their prevention to remedies of various sorts

which they propose. First, a place bill. But if this will not do, as

they fear it will not, then, they say, We will have a rotation, and a

certain number of you shall be rendered incapable of being elected for

ten years. Then for the electors, they shall ballot. The members of

Parliament also shall decide by ballot. A fifth project is the change of

the present legal representation of the kingdom. On all this I shall

observe, that it will be very unsuitable to your wisdom to adopt the

project of a bill to which there are objections insuperable by anything

in the bill itself, upon the hope that those objections may be removed

by subsequent projects, every one of which is full of difficulties of

its own, and which are all of them very essential alterations in the

Constitution. This seems very irregular and unusual. If anything should

make this a very doubtful measure, what can make it more so than that in

the opinion of its advocates it would aggravate all our old

inconveniences in such a manner as to require a total alteration in the

Constitution of the kingdom? If the remedies are proper in triennial,

they will not be less so in septennial elections. Let us try them

first,--see how the House relishes them,--see how they will operate in

the nation,--and then, having felt your way, and prepared against these

inconveniences....

The honorable gentleman sees that I respect the principle upon which he

goes, as well as his intentions and his abilities. He will believe that

I do not differ from him wantonly and on trivial grounds. He is very

sure that it was not his embracing one way which determined me to take

the other. _I_ have not in newspapers, to derogate from his fair fame

with the nation, printed the first rude sketch of his bill with

ungenerous and invidious comments. _I_ have not, in conversations

industriously circulated about the town, and talked on the benches of

this House, attributed his conduct to motives low and unworthy, and as

groundless as they are injurious. _I_ do not affect to be frightened

with this proposition, as if some hideous spectre had started from hell,

which was to be sent back again by every form of exorcism and every kind

of incantation. _I_ invoke no Acheron to overwhelm him in the whirlpools

of its muddy gulf. _I_ do not tell the respectable mover and seconder,

by a perversion of their sense and expressions, that their proposition

halts between the ridiculous and the dangerous. _I_ am not one of those

who start up, three at a time, and fall upon and strike at him with so

much eagerness that our daggers hack one another in his sides. My

honorable friend has not brought down a spirited imp of chivalry to win

the first achievement and blazon of arms on his milk-white shield in a

field listed against him,--nor brought out the generous offspring of

lions, and said to them,--"Not against that side of the forest! beware

of that!--here is the prey, where you are to fasten your paws!"--and

seasoning his unpractised jaws with blood, tell him,--"This is the milk

for which you are to thirst hereafter!" _We_ furnish at his expense no

holiday,--nor suspend hell, that a crafty Ixion may have rest from his

wheel,--nor give the common adversary (if he be a common adversary)

reason to say,--"I would have put in my word to oppose, but the

eagerness of your allies in your social war was such that I could not

break in upon you." I hope he sees and feels, and that every member sees

and feels along with him, the difference between amicable dissent and

civil discord.

SPEECH

ON A

MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,

MAY 7, 1782,

FOR

A COMMITTEE TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE

COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT.

Mr. Speaker,--We have now discovered, at the close of the eighteenth

century, that the Constitution of England, which for a series of ages

had been the proud distinction of this country, always the admiration

and sometimes the envy of the wise and learned in every other

nation,--we have discovered that this boasted Constitution, in the most

boasted part of it, is a gross imposition upon the understanding of

mankind, an insult to their feelings, and acting by contrivances

destructive to the best and most valuable interests of the people. Our

political architects have taken a survey of the fabric of the British

Constitution. It is singular that they report nothing against the crown,

nothing against the lords: but in the House of Commons everything is

unsound; it is ruinous in every part; it is infested by the dry rot, and

ready to tumble about our ears without their immediate help. You know by

the faults they find what are their ideas of the alteration. As all

government stands upon opinion, they know that the way utterly to

destroy it is to remove that opinion, to take away all reverence, all

confidence from it; and then, at the first blast of public discontent

and popular tumult, it tumbles to the ground.

In considering this question, they who oppose it oppose it on different

grounds. One is in the nature of a previous question: that some

alterations may be expedient, but that this is not the time for making

them. The other is, that no essential alterations are at all wanting,

and that neither _now_ nor at _any_ time is it prudent or safe to be

meddling with the fundamental principles and ancient tried usages of our

Constitution,--that our representation is as nearly perfect as the

necessary imperfection of human affairs and of human creatures will

suffer it to be,--and that it is a subject of prudent and honest use and

thankful enjoyment, and not of captious criticism and rash experiment.

On the other side there are two parties, who proceed on two grounds, in

my opinion, as they state them, utterly irreconcilable. The one is

juridical, the other political. The one is in the nature of a claim of

right, on the supposed rights of man as man: this party desire the

decision of a suit. The other ground, as far as I can divine what it

directly means, is, that the representation is not so politically framed

as to answer the theory of its institution. As to the claim of _right_,

the meanest petitioner, the most gross and ignorant, is as good as the

best: in some respects his claim is more favorable, on account of his

ignorance; his weakness, his poverty, and distress only add to his

titles; he sues _in forma pauperis_; he ought to be a favorite of the

court. But when the _other_ ground is taken, when the question is

political, when a new constitution is to be made on a sound theory of

government, then the presumptuous pride of didactic ignorance is to be

excluded from the counsel in this high and arduous matter, which often

bids defiance to the experience of the wisest. The first claims a

personal representation; the latter rejects it with scorn and fervor.

The language of the first party is plain and intelligible; they who

plead an absolute right cannot be satisfied with anything short of

personal representation, because all _natural_ rights must be the rights

of individuals, as by _nature_ there is no such thing as politic or

corporate personality: all these ideas are mere fictions of law, they

are creatures of voluntary institution; men as men are individuals, and

nothing else. They, therefore, who reject the principle of natural and

personal representation are essentially and eternally at variance with

those who claim it. As to the first sort of reformers, it is ridiculous

to talk to them of the British Constitution upon any or upon all of its

bases: for they lay it down, that every man ought to govern, himself,

and that, where he cannot go, himself, he must send his representative;

that all other government is usurpation, and is so far from having a

claim to our obedience, it is not only our right, but our duty, to

resist it. Nine tenths of the reformers argue thus,--that is, on the

natural right.

It is impossible not to make some reflection on the nature of this

claim, or avoid a comparison between the extent of the principle and the

present object of the demand. If this claim be founded, it is clear to

what it goes. The House of Commons, in that light, undoubtedly, is no

representative of the people, as a collection of individuals. Nobody

pretends it, nobody can justify such an assertion. When you come to

examine into this claim of right, founded on the right of

self-government in each individual, you find the thing demanded

infinitely short of the principle of the demand. What! _one third_ only

of the legislature, and of the government no share at all? What sort of

treaty of partition is this for those who have an inherent right to the

whole? Give them all they ask, and your grant is still a cheat: for how

comes only a third to be their younger-children's fortune in this

settlement? How came they neither to have the choice of kings, or lords,

or judges, or generals, or admirals, or bishops, or priests, or

ministers, or justices of peace? Why, what have you to answer in favor

of the prior rights of the crown and peerage but this: Our Constitution

is a prescriptive constitution; it is a constitution whose sole

authority is, that it has existed time out of mind? It is settled in

these _two_ portions against one, legislatively,--and in the whole of

the judicature, the whole of the federal capacity, of the executive, the

prudential, and the financial administration, in one alone. Nor was your

House of Lords and the prerogatives of the crown settled on any

adjudication in favor of natural rights: for they could never be so

partitioned. Your king, your lords, your judges, your juries, grand and

little, all are prescriptive; and what proves it is the disputes, not

yet concluded, and never near becoming so, when any of them first

originated. Prescription is the most solid of all titles, not only to

property, but, which is to secure that property, to government. They

harmonize with each other, and give mutual aid to one another. It is

accompanied with another ground of authority in the constitution of the

human mind, presumption. It is a presumption in favor of any settled

scheme of government against any untried project, that a nation has long

existed and flourished under it. It is a better presumption even of the

_choice_ of a nation,--far better than any sudden and temporary

arrangement by actual election. Because a nation is not an idea only of

local extent and individual momentary aggregation, but it is an idea of

continuity which extends in time as well as in numbers and in space. And

this is a choice not of one day or one set of people, not a tumultuary

and giddy choice; it is a deliberate election of ages and of

generations; it is a constitution, made by what is ten thousand times

better than choice; it is made by the peculiar circumstances, occasions,

tempers, dispositions, and moral, civil, and social habitudes of the

people, which, disclose themselves only in a long space of time. It is a

vestment which accommodates itself to the body. Nor is prescription of

government formed upon blind, unmeaning prejudices. For man is a most

unwise and a most wise being. The individual is foolish; the multitude,

for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the

species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species, it almost

always acts right.

The reason for the crown as it is, for the lords as they are, is my

reason for the commons as they are, the electors as they are. Now if the

crown, and the lords, and the judicatures are all prescriptive, so is

the House of Commons of the very same origin, and of no other. We and

our electors have their powers and privileges both made and

circumscribed by prescription, as much to the full as the other parts;

and as such we have always claimed them, and on no other title. The

House of Commons is a legislative body corporate by prescription, not

made upon any given theory, but existing prescriptively,--just like the

rest. This proscription has made it essentially what it is, an aggregate

collection of three parts, knights, citizens, burgesses. The question

is, whether this has been always so, since the House of Commons has

taken its present shape and circumstances, and has been an essential

operative part of the Constitution,--which, I take it, it has been for

at least five hundred years.

This I resolve to myself in the affirmative: and then another question

arises:--Whether this House stands firm upon its ancient foundations,

and is not, by time and accidents, so declined from its perpendicular as

to want the hand of the wise and experienced architects of the day to

set it upright again, and to prop and buttress it up for

duration;--whether it continues true to the principles upon which it has

hitherto stood;--whether this be _de facto_ the constitution of the

House of Commons, as it has been since the time that the House of

Commons has without dispute become a necessary and an efficient part of

the British Constitution. To ask whether a thing which has always been

the same stands to its usual principle seems to me to be perfectly

absurd: for how do you know the principles, but from the construction?

and if that remains the same, the principles remain the same. It is true

that to say your Constitution is what it has been is no sufficient

defence for those who say it is a bad constitution. It is an answer to

those who say that it is a degenerate constitution. To those who say it

is a bad one, I answer, Look to its effects. In all moral machinery, the

moral results are its test.

On what grounds do we go to restore our Constitution to what it has been

at some given period, or to reform and reconstruct it upon principles

more conformable to a sound theory of government? A prescriptive

government, such as ours, never was the work of any legislator, never

was made upon any foregone theory. It seems to me a preposterous way of

reasoning, and a perfect confusion of ideas, to take the theories which

learned and speculative men have made from that government, and then,

supposing it made on those theories which were made from it, to accuse

the government as not corresponding with them. I do not vilify theory

and speculation: no, because that would be to vilify reason itself,

_Neque decipitur ratio, neque decipit unquam_. No,--whenever I speak

against theory, I mean always a weak, erroneous, fallacious, unfounded,

or imperfect theory; and one of the ways of discovering that it is a

false theory is by comparing it with practice. This is the true

touchstone of all theories which regard man and the affairs of

men,--Does it suit his nature in general?--does it suit his nature as

modified by his habits?

The more frequently this affair is discussed, the stronger the case

appears to the sense and the feelings of mankind. I have no more doubt

than I entertain of my existence, that this very thing, which is stated

as an horrible thing, is the means of the preservation of our

Constitution whilst it lasts,--of curing it of many of the disorders

which, attending every species of institution, would attend the

principle of an exact local representation, or a representation on the

principle of numbers. If you reject personal representation, you are

pushed upon expedience; and, then what they wish us to do is, to prefer

their speculations on that subject to the happy experience of this

country, of a growing liberty and a growing prosperity for five hundred

years. Whatever respect I have for their talents, this, for one, I will

not do. Then what is the standard of expedience? Expedience is that

which is good for the community, and good for every individual in it.

Now this expedience is the _desideratum_, to be sought either without

the experience of means or with that experience. If without, as in case

of the fabrication of a new commonwealth, I will hear the learned

arguing what promises to be expedient; but if we are to judge of a

commonwealth actually existing, the first thing I inquire is, What has

been _found_ expedient or inexpedient? And I will not take their

_promise_ rather than the _performance_ of the Constitution.

.... But no, this was not the cause of the discontents. I went through

most of the northern parts,--the Yorkshire election was then raging; the

year before, through most of the western counties,--Bath, Bristol,

Gloucester: not one word, either in the towns or country, on the subject

of representation; much on the receipt tax, something on Mr. Fox's

ambition; much greater apprehension of danger from thence than from want

of representation. One would think that the ballast of the ship was

shifted with us, and that our Constitution had the gunwale under water.

But can you fairly and distinctly point out what one evil or grievance

has happened which you can refer to the representative not following the

opinion of his constituents? What one symptom do we find of this

inequality? But it is not an arithmetical inequality with which we ought

to trouble ourselves. If there be a moral, a political equality, this is

the _desideratum_ in our Constitution, and in every constitution in the

world. Moral inequality is as between places and between classes. Now,

I ask, what advantage do you find that the places which abound in

representation possess over others in which it is more scanty, in

security for freedom, in security for justice, or in any one of those

means of procuring temporal prosperity and eternal happiness the ends

for which society was formed? Are the local interests of Cornwall and

Wiltshire, for instance, their roads, canals, their prisons, their

police, better than Yorkshire, Warwickshire, or Staffordshire? Warwick

has members: is Warwick or Stafford more opulent, happy, or free than

Newcastle, or than Birmingham? Is Wiltshire the pampered favorite,

whilst Yorkshire, like the child of the bondwoman, is turned out to the

desert? This is like the unhappy persons who live, if they can be said

to live, in the statical chair,--who are ever feeling their pulse, and

who do not judge of health by the aptitude of the body to perform its

functions, but by their ideas of what ought to be the true balance

between the several secretions. Is a committee of Cornwall, &c,

thronged, and the others deserted? No. You have an equal representation,

because you have men equally interested in the prosperity of the whole,

who are involved in the general interest and the general sympathy; and,

perhaps, these places furnishing a superfluity of public agents and

administrators, (whether in strictness they are representatives or not I

do not mean to inquire, but they are agents and administrators,) they

will stand clearer of local interests, passions, prejudices, and cabals

than the others, and therefore preserve the balance of the parts, and

with a more general view and a more steady hand than the rest....

In every political proposal we must not leave out of the question the

political views and object of the proposer; and these we discover, not

by what he says, but by the principles he lays down. "I mean," says he,

"a moderate and temperate reform: that is, I mean to do as little good

as possible." If the Constitution be what you represent it, and there be

no danger in the change, you do wrong not to make the reform

commensurate to the abuse. Fine reformer, indeed! generous donor! What

is the cause of this parsimony of the liberty which you dole out to the

people? Why all this limitation in giving blessings and benefits to

mankind? You admit that there is an extreme in liberty, which may be

infinitely noxious to those who are to receive it, and which in the end

will leave them no liberty at all. I think so, too. They know it, and

they feel it. The question is, then, What is the standard of that

extreme? What that gentleman, and the associations, or some parts of

their phalanxes, think proper? Then our liberties are in their pleasure;

it depends on their arbitrary will how far I shall be free. I will have

none of that freedom. If, therefore, the standard of moderation be

sought for, I will seek for it. Where? Not in their fancies, nor in my

own: I will seek for it where I know it is to be found,--in the

Constitution I actually enjoy. Here it says to an encroaching

prerogative,--"Your sceptre has its length; you cannot add an hair to

your head, or a gem to your crown, but what an eternal law has given to

it." Here it says to an overweening peerage,--"Your pride finds banks

that it cannot overflow": here to a tumultuous and giddy people,--"There

is a bound to the raging of the sea." Our Constitution is like our

island, which uses and restrains its subject sea; in vain the waves

roar. In that Constitution, I know, and exultingly I feel, both that I

am free, and that I am not free dangerously to myself or to others. I

know that no power on earth, acting as I ought to do, can touch my life,

my liberty, or my property. I have that inward and dignified

consciousness of my own security and independence, which constitutes,

and is the only thing which, does constitute, the proud and comfortable

sentiment of freedom in the human breast. I know, too, and I bless God

for, my safe mediocrity: I know, that, if I possessed all the talents of

the gentlemen on the side of the House I sit, and on the other, I

cannot, by royal favor, or by popular delusion, or by oligarchical

cabal, elevate myself above a certain very limited point, so as to

endanger my own fall, or the ruin of my country. I know there is an

order that keeps things fast in their place: it is made to us, and we

are made to it. Why not ask another wife, other children, another body,

another mind?

The great object of most of these reformers is, to prepare the

destruction of the Constitution, by disgracing and discrediting the

House of Commons. For they think, (prudently, in my opinion,) that, if

they can persuade the nation that the House of Commons is so constituted

as not to secure the public liberty, not to have a proper connection

with the public interests, so constituted as not either actually or

virtually to be the representative of the people, it will be easy to

prove that a government composed of a monarchy, an oligarchy chosen by

the crown, and such a House of Commons, whatever good can be in such a

system, can by no means be a system of free government.

The Constitution of England is never to have a quietus; it is to be

continually vilified, attacked, reproached, resisted; instead of being

the hope and sure anchor in all storms, instead of being the means of

redress to all grievances, itself is the grand grievance of the nation,

our shame instead of our glory. If the only specific plan proposed,

individual personal representation, is directly rejected by the person

who is looked on as the great support of this business, then the only

way of considering it is a question of convenience. An honorable

gentleman prefers the individual to the present. He therefore himself

sees no middle term whatsoever, and therefore prefers, of what he sees,

the individual: this is the only thing distinct and sensible that has

been advocated. He has, then, a scheme, which is the individual

representation,--he is not at a loss, not inconsistent,--which scheme

the other right honorable gentleman reprobates. Now what does this go

to, but to lead directly to anarchy? For to discredit the only

government which he either possesses or can project, what is this but to

destroy all government? and this is anarchy. My right honorable friend,

in supporting this motion, disgraces his friends and justifies his

enemies in order to blacken the Constitution of his country, even of

that House of Commons which supported him. There is a difference between

a moral or political exposure of a public evil relative to the

administration of government, whether in men or systems, and a

declaration of defects, real or supposed, in the fundamental

constitution of your country. The first may be cured in the individual

by the motives of religion, virtue, honor, fear, shame, or interest. Men

may be made to abandon also false systems, by exposing their absurdity

or mischievous tendency to their own better thoughts, or to the contempt

or indignation of the public; and after all, if they should exist, and

exist uncorrected, they only disgrace individuals as fugitive opinions.

But it is quite otherwise with the frame and constitution of the state:

if that is disgraced, patriotism is destroyed in its very source. No man

has ever willingly obeyed, much less was desirous of defending with his

blood, a mischievous and absurd scheme of government. Our first, our

dearest, most comprehensive relation, our country, is gone.

It suggests melancholy reflections, in consequence of the strange course

we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the

character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenor of measures, but we

are grown out of humor with the English Constitution itself: this is

become the object of the animosity of Englishmen. This Constitution in

former days used to be the admiration and the envy of the world: it was

the pattern for politicians, the theme of the eloquent, the meditation

of the philosopher, in every part of the world. As to Englishmen, it was

their pride, their consolation. By it they lived, for it they were ready

to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly covered by partiality,

and partly borne by prudence. Now all its excellencies are forgot, its

faults are now forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every artifice

of representation. It is despised and rejected of men, and every device

and invention of ingenuity or idleness set up in opposition or in

preference to it. It is to this humor, and it is to the measures growing

out of it, that I set myself (I hope not alone) in the most determined

opposition. Never before did we at any time in this country meet upon

the theory of our frame of government, to sit in judgment on the

Constitution of our country, to call it as a delinquent before us, and

to accuse it of every defect and every vice,--to see whether it, an

object of our veneration, even our adoration, did or did not accord with

a preconceived scheme in the minds of certain gentlemen. Cast your eyes

on the journals of Parliament. It is for fear of losing the inestimable

treasure we have that I do not venture to game it out of my hands for

the vain hope of improving it. I look with filial reverence on the

Constitution of my country, and never will cut it in pieces, and put it

into the kettle of any magician, in order to boil it, with the puddle of

their compounds, into youth and vigor. On the contrary, I will drive

away such pretenders; I will nurse its venerable age, and with lenient

arts extend a parent's breath.

SPEECH

ON

A MOTION, MADE BY THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM DOWDESWELL,

MARCH 7, 1771,

FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN

A BILL FOR EXPLAINING THE POWERS OF JURIES IN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS.

TOGETHER WITH

A LETTER IN VINDICATION OF THAT MEASURE,

AND

A COPY OF THE PROPOSED BILL.

I have always understood that a superintendence over the doctrines as

well as the proceedings of the courts of justice was a principal object

of the constitution of this House,--that you were to watch at once over

the lawyer and the law,--that there should be an orthodox faith, as well

as proper works: and I have always looked with a degree of reverence and

admiration on this mode of superintendence. For, being totally

disengaged from the detail of juridical practice, we come something

perhaps the better qualified, and certainly much the better disposed, to

assert the genuine principle of the laws, in which we can, as a body,

have no other than an enlarged and a public interest. We have no common

cause of a professional attachment or professional emulations to bias

our minds; we have no foregone opinions which from obstinacy and false

point of honor we think ourselves at all events obliged to support. So

that, with our own minds perfectly disengaged from the exercise, we may

superintend the execution of the national justice, which from this

circumstance is better secured to the people than in any other country

under heaven it can be. As our situation puts us in a proper condition,

our power enables us to execute this trust. We may, when we see cause of

complaint, administer a remedy: it is in our choice by an address to

remove an improper judge, by impeachment before the peers to pursue to

destruction a corrupt judge, or by bill to assert, to explain, to

enforce, or to reform the law, just as the occasion and necessity of the

case shall guide us. We stand in a situation very honorable to ourselves

and very useful to our country, if we do not abuse or abandon the trust

that is placed in us.

The question now before you is upon the power of juries in prosecuting

for libels. There are four opinions:--1. That the doctrine as held by

the courts is proper and constitutional, and therefore should not be

altered; 2. That it is neither proper nor constitutional, but that it

will be rendered worse by your interference; 3. That it is wrong, but

that the only remedy is a bill of retrospect; 4. The opinion of those

who bring in the bill, that the thing is wrong, but that it is enough to

direct the judgment of the court in future.

The bill brought in is for the purpose of asserting and securing a great

object in the juridical constitution of this kingdom, which, from a long

series of practices and opinions in our judges, has _in one point_, and

in one very essential point, deviated from the true principle.

It is the very ancient privilege of the people of England, that they

shall be tried, except in the known exceptions, not by judges appointed

by the crown, but by their own fellow-subjects, the peers of that county

court at which they owe their suit and service; and out of this

principle the trial by juries has grown. This principle has not, that I

can find, been contested in any case by any authority whatsoever; but

there is one case in which, without directly contesting the principle,

the whole substance, energy, and virtue of the privilege is taken out

of it,--that is, in the case of a trial by indictment or information for

a libel. The doctrine in that case, laid down by several judges, amounts

to this: that the jury have no competence, where a libel is alleged,

except to find the gross corporeal facts of the writing and the

publication, together with the identity of the things and persons to

which it refers; but that the intent and the tendency of the work, in

which intent and tendency the whole criminality consists, is the sole

and exclusive province of the judge. Thus having reduced the jury to the

cognizance of facts not in themselves presumptively criminal, but

actions neutral and indifferent, the whole matter in which the subject

has any concern or interest is taken out of the hands of the jury: and

if the jury take more upon themselves, what they so take is contrary to

their duty; it is no _moral_, but a merely _natural_ power,--the same by

which they may do any other improper act, the same by which they may

even prejudice themselves with regard to any other part of the issue

before them. Such is the matter, as it now stands in possession of your

highest criminal courts, handed down to them from very respectable legal

ancestors. If this can once be established in this case, the application

in principle to other cases will be easy, and the practice will run upon

a descent, until the progress of an encroaching jurisdiction (for it is

in its nature to encroach, when once it has passed its limits) coming to

confine the juries, case after case, to the corporeal fact, and to that

alone, and excluding the intention of mind, the only source of merit and

demerit, of reward or punishment, juries become a dead letter in the

Constitution.

For which reason it is high time to take this matter into the

consideration of Parliament: and for that purpose it will be necessary

to examine, first, whether there is anything in the peculiar nature of

this crime that makes it necessary to exclude the jury from considering

the intention in it, more than in others. So far from it, that I take it

to be much less so from the analogy of other criminal cases, where no

such restraint is ordinarily put upon them. The act of homicide is

_primâ facie_ criminal; the intention is afterwards to appear, for the

jury to acquit or condemn. In burglary do they insist that the jury have

nothing to do but to find the taking of goods, and that, if they do,

they must necessarily find the party guilty, and leave the rest to the

judge, and that they have nothing to do with the word _felonicè_ in the

indictment?

The next point is, to consider it as a question of constitutional

policy: that is, whether the decision of the question of libel ought to

be left to the judges as a presumption of law, rather than to the jury

as matter of popular judgment,--as the malice in the case of murder, the

felony in the case of stealing. If the intent and tendency are not

matters within the province of popular judgment, but legal and technical

conclusions formed upon general principles of law, let us see what they

are. Certainly they are most unfavorable, indeed totally adverse, to the

Constitution of this country.

Here we must have recourse to analogies; for we cannot argue on ruled

cases one way or the other. See the history. The old books, deficient in

general in crown cases, furnish us with little on this head. As to the

crime, in the very early Saxon law I see an offence of this species,

called folk-leasing, made a capital offence, but no very precise

definition of the crime, and no trial at all. See the statute of 3rd

Edward I. cap. 84. The law of libels could not have arrived at a very

early period in this country. It is no wonder that we find no vestige of

any constitution from authority, or of any deductions from legal

science, in our old books and records, upon that subject. The statute of

_Scandalum Magnatum_ is the oldest that I know, and this goes but a

little way in this sort of learning. Libelling is not the crime of an

illiterate people. When they were thought no mean clerks who could read

and write, when he who could read and write was presumptively a person

in holy orders, libels could not be general or dangerous; and scandals

merely _oral_ could _spread_ little and must _perish_ soon. It is

writing, it is printing more emphatically, that imps calumny with those

eagle-wings on which, as the poet says, "immortal slanders fly." By the

press they spread, they last, they leave the sting in the wound.

Printing was not known in England much earlier than the reign of Henry

the Seventh, and in the third year of that reign the court of

Star-Chamber was established. The press and its enemy are nearly coeval.

As no positive law against libels existed, they fell under the

indefinite class of misdemeanors. For the trial of misdemeanors that

court was instituted. Their tendency to produce riots and disorders was

a main part of the charge, and was laid in order to give the court

jurisdiction chiefly against libels. The offence was new. Learning of

their own upon the subject they had none; and they were obliged to

resort to the only emporium where it was to be had, the Roman law. After

the Star-Chamber was abolished in the 10th of Charles I., its authority

indeed ceased, but its maxims subsisted and survived it. The spirit of

the Star-Chamber has transmigrated and lived again; and Westminster Hall

was obliged to borrow from the Star-Chamber, for the same reasons as the

Star-Chamber had borrowed from the Roman Forum, because they had no law,

statute, or tradition of their own. Thus the Roman law took possession

of our courts,--I mean its doctrine, not its sanctions: the severity of

capital punishment was omitted, all the rest remained. The grounds of

these laws are just and equitable. Undoubtedly the good fame of every

man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life

and liberty and property. Good fame is an outwork that defends them all

and renders them all valuable. The law forbids you to revenge; when it

ties up the hands of some, it ought to restrain the tongues of others.

The good fame of government is the same; it ought not to be traduced.

This is necessary in all government; and if opinion be support, what

takes away this destroys that support: but the liberty of the press is

necessary to this government.

The wisdom, however, of government is of more importance than the laws.

I should study the temper of the people, before I ventured on actions of

this kind. I would consider the whole of the prosecution of a libel of

such importance as Junius, as one piece, as one consistent plan of

operations: and I would contrive it so, that, if I were defeated, I

should not be disgraced,--that even my victory should not be more

ignominious than my defeat; I would so manage, that the lowest in the

predicament of guilt should not be the only one in punishment. I would

not inform against the mere vender of a collection of pamphlets. I

would not put him to trial first, if I could possibly avoid it. I would

rather stand the consequences of my first error than carry it to a

judgment that must disgrace my prosecution or the court. We ought to

examine these things in a manner which becomes ourselves, and becomes

the object of the inquiry,--not to examine into the most important

consideration which can come before us with minds heated with prejudice

and filled with passions, with vain popular opinions and humors, and,

when we propose to examine into the justice of others, to be unjust

ourselves.

An inquiry is wished, as the most effectual way of putting an end to the

clamors and libels which are the disorder and disgrace of the times. For

people remain quiet, they sleep secure, when they imagine that the

vigilant eye of a censorial magistrate watches over all the proceedings

of judicature, and that the sacred fire of an eternal constitutional

jealousy, which, is the guardian of liberty, law, and justice, is alive

night and day, and burning in this House. But when the magistrate gives

up his office and his duty, the people assume it, and they inquire too

much and too irreverently, because they think their representatives do

not inquire at all.

We have in a libel, 1st, the writing; 2nd, the communication, called by

the lawyers the publication; 3rd, the application to persons and facts;

4th, the intent and tendency; 5th, the matter,--diminution of fame. The

law presumptions on all these are in the communication. No intent can

make a defamatory publication good, nothing can make it have a good

tendency; truth is not pleadable. Taken _juridically_, the foundation

of these law presumptions is not unjust; taken _constitutionally_, they

are ruinous, and tend to the total suppression of all publication. If

juries are confined to the fact, no writing which censures, however

justly or however temperately, the conduct of administration, can be

unpunished. Therefore, if the intent and tendency be left to the judge,

as legal conclusions growing from the fact, you may depend upon it you

can have no public discussion of a public measure; which is a point

which even those who are most offended with the licentiousness of the

press (and it is very exorbitant, very provoking) will hardly contend

for.

So far as to the first opinion,--that the doctrine is right, and needs

no alteration. 2nd. The next is, that it is wrong, but that we are not

in a condition to help it. I admit it is true that there are cases of a

nature so delicate and complicated that an act of Parliament on the

subject may become a matter of great difficulty. It sometimes cannot

define with exactness, because the subject-matter will not bear an exact

definition. It may seem to _take away_ everything which it does not

positively _establish_, and this might be inconvenient; or it may seem,

_vice versâ_, to _establish_ everything which it does not _expressly

take away_. It may be more advisable to leave such matters to the

enlightened discretion of a judge, awed by a censorial House of Commons.

But then it rests upon those who object to a legislative interposition

to prove these inconveniences in the particular case before them. For it

would be a most dangerous, as it is a most idle and most groundless

conceit, to assume as a general principle, that the rights and liberties

of the subject are impaired by the care and attention of the

legislature to secure them. If so, very ill would the purchase of Magna

Charta have merited the deluge of blood which was shed in order to have

the body of English privileges defined by a positive written law. This

charter, the inestimable monument of English freedom, so long the boast

and glory of this nation, would have been at once an instrument of our

servitude and a monument of our folly, if this principle were true. The

thirty-four confirmations would have been only so many repetitions of

their absurdity, so many new links in the chain, and so many

invalidations of their right.

You cannot open your statute-book without seeing positive provisions

relative to every right of the subject. This business of juries is the

subject of not fewer than a dozen. To suppose that juries are something

innate in the Constitution of Great Britain, that they have jumped, like

Minerva, out of the head of Jove in complete armor, is a weak fancy,

supported neither by precedent nor by reason. Whatever is most ancient

and venerable in our Constitution, royal prerogative, privileges of

Parliament, rights of elections, authority of courts, juries, must have

been modelled according to the occasion. I spare your patience, and I

pay a compliment to your understanding, in not attempting to prove that

anything so elaborate and artificial as a jury was not the work of

_chance_, but a matter of institution, brought to its present state by

the joint efforts of legislative authority and juridical prudence. It

need not be ashamed of being (what in many parts of it, at least, it is)

the offspring of an act of Parliament, unless it is a shame for our laws

to be the results of our legislature. Juries, which sensitively shrink

from the rude touch of Parliamentary remedy, have been the subject of

not fewer than, I think, forty-three acts of Parliament, in which they

have been changed with all the authority of a creator over its creature,

from Magna Charta to the great alterations which were made in the 29th

of George II.

To talk of this matter in any other way is to turn a rational principle

into an idle and vulgar superstition,--like the antiquary, Dr. Woodward,

who trembled to have his shield scoured, for fear it should be

discovered to be no better than an old pot-lid. This species of

tenderness to a jury puts me in mind of a gentleman of good condition,

who had been reduced to great poverty and distress: application was made

to some rich fellows in his neighborhood to give him some assistance;

but they begged to be excused, for fear of affronting a person of his

high birth; and so the poor gentleman was left to starve, out of pure

respect to the antiquity of his family. From this principle has arisen

an opinion, that I find current amongst gentlemen, that this distemper

ought to be left to cure itself:--that the judges, having been well

exposed, and something terrified on account of these clamors, will

entirely change, if not very much relax from their rigor;--if the

present race should not change, that the chances of succession may put

other more constitutional judges in their place;--lastly, if neither

should happen, yet that the spirit of an English jury will always be

sufficient for the vindication of its own rights, and will not suffer

itself to be overborne by the bench. I confess that I totally dissent

from all these opinions. These suppositions become the strongest

reasons with me to evince the necessity of some clear and positive

settlement of this question of contested jurisdiction. If judges are so

full of levity, so full of timidity, if they are influenced by such mean

and unworthy passions that a popular clamor is sufficient to shake the

resolution they build upon the solid basis of a legal principle, I would

endeavor to fix that mercury by a positive law. If to please an

administration the judges can go one way to-day, and to please the crowd

they can go another to-morrow, if they will oscillate backward and

forward between power and popularity, it is high time to fix the law in

such a manner as to resemble, as it ought, the great Author of all law,

in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning.

As to their succession I have just the same opinion. I would not leave

it to the chances of promotion, or to the characters of lawyers, what

the law of the land, what the rights of juries, or what the liberty of

the press should be. My law should not depend upon the fluctuation of

the closet or the complexion of men. Whether a black-haired man or a

fair-haired man presided in the Court of King's Bench, I would have the

law the same; the same, whether he was born _in domo regnatrice_ and

sucked from his infancy the milk of courts, or was nurtured in the

rugged discipline of a popular opposition. This law of court cabal and

of party, this _mens quædam nullo perturbata affectu_, this law of

complexion, ought not to be endured for a moment in a country whose

being depends upon the certainty, clearness, and stability of

institutions.

Now I come to the last substitute for the proposed bill,--the spirit of

juries operating their own jurisdiction. This I confess I think the

worst of all, for the same reasons on which I objected to the

others,--and for other weighty reasons besides, which are separate and

distinct. First, because juries, being taken at random out of a mass of

men infinitely large, must be of characters as various as the body they

arise from is large in its extent. If the judges differ in their

complexions, much more will a jury. A timid jury will give way to an

awful judge delivering oracularly the law, and charging them on their

oaths, and putting it home to their consciences to beware of judging,

where the law had given them no competence. We know that they will do

so, they have done so in an hundred instances. A respectable member of

your own House, no vulgar man, tells you, that, on the authority of a

judge, he found a man guilty in whom at the same time he could find no

guilt. But supposing them full of knowledge and full of manly confidence

in themselves, how will their knowledge or their confidence inform or

inspirit others? They give no reason for their verdict, they can but

condemn or acquit; and no man can tell the motives on which they have

acquitted or condemned. So that this hope of the power of juries to

assert their own jurisdiction must be a principle blind, as being

without reason, and as changeable as the complexion of men and the

temper of the times.

But, after all, is it fit that this dishonorable contention between the

court and juries should subsist any longer? On what principle is it that

a jury [juror?] refuses to be directed by the court as to his

_competence_? Whether a libel or no libel be a question of law or of

fact may be doubtful; but a question of jurisdiction and competence is

certainly a question of law: on this the court ought undoubtedly to

judge, and to judge solely and exclusively. If they judge wrong from

excusable error, you ought to correct it, as to-day it is proposed, by

an explanatory bill,--or if by corruption, by bill of _penalties_

declaratory, and by punishment. What does a juror say to a judge, when

he refuses his opinion upon a question of judicature? "You are so

corrupt, that I should consider myself a partaker of your crime, were I

to be guided by your opinion"; or, "You are so grossly ignorant, that I,

fresh from my hounds, from my plough, my counter, or my loom, am fit to

direct you in your own profession." This is an unfitting, it is a

dangerous state of things. The spirit of any sort of men is not a fit

_rule_ for deciding on the bounds of their jurisdiction: first, because

it is different in different men, and even different in the same at

different times, and can never become the proper directing line of law;

next, because it is not reason, but feeling, and, when once it is

irritated, it is not apt to confine itself within its proper limits. If

it becomes not difference in opinion upon law, but a trial of spirit

between parties, our courts of law are no longer the temple of justice,

but the amphitheatre for gladiators. No,--God forbid! Juries ought to

take their law from the bench only; but it is _our_ business that they

should hear nothing from the bench but what is agreeable to the

principles of the Constitution. The jury are to hear the judge: the

judge is to hear the law, where it speaks plain; where it does not, he

is to hear the legislature. As I do not think these opinions of the

judges to be agreeable to those principles, I wish to take the only

method in which they can or ought to be corrected,--by bill.

Next, my opinion is, that it ought to be rather by a bill for removing

controversies than by a bill in the state of manifest and express

declaration and in words _de præterito_. I do this upon reasons of

equity and constitutional policy. I do not want to censure the present

judges. I think them to be excused for their error. Ignorance is no

excuse for a judge; it is changing the nature of his crime; it is not

absolving. It must be such error as a wise and conscientious judge may

possibly fall into, and must arise from one or both these causes:--1. A

plausible principle of law; 2. The precedents of respectable

authorities, and in good times. In the first, the principle of law, that

the judge is to decide on law, the jury to decide on fact, is an ancient

and venerable principle and maxim of the law; and if supported in this

application by precedents of good times and of good men, the judge, if

wrong, ought to be corrected,--he ought not to be reproved or to be

disgraced, or the authority or respect to your tribunals to be impaired.

In cases in which declaratory bills have been made, where by violence

and corruption some fundamental part of the Constitution has been struck

at, where they would damn the principle, censure the persons, and annul

the acts,--but where the law has been by the accident of human frailty

depraved or in a particular instance misunderstood, where you neither

mean to rescind the acts nor to censure the persons, in such cases you

have taken the explanatory mode, and, without condemning what is done,

you direct the future judgment of the court.

All bills for the reformation of the law must be according to the

subject-matter, the circumstances, and the occasion, and are of four

kinds:--1. Either the law is totally wanting, and then a new enacting

statute must be made to supply that want; or, 2. it is _defective_, then

a new law must be made to enforce it; 3. or it is opposed by power or

fraud, and then an act must be made to declare it; 4. or it is rendered

doubtful and controverted, and then a law must be made to explain it.

These must be applied according to the exigence of the case: one is just

as good as another of them. Miserable indeed would be the resources,

poor and unfurnished the stores and magazines of legislation, if we were

bound up to a little narrow form, and not able to frame our acts of

Parliament according to every disposition of our own minds and to every

possible emergency of the commonwealth,--to make them declaratory,

enforcing, explanatory, repealing, just in what mode or in what degree

we please.

Those who think that the judges living and dead are to be condemned,

that your tribunals of justice are to be dishonored, that their acts and

judgments on this business are to be rescinded,--they will undoubtedly

vote against this bill, and for another sort.

I am not of the opinion of those gentlemen who are against disturbing

the public repose: I like a clamor, whenever there is an abuse. The

fire-bell at midnight disturbs your sleep, but it keeps you from being

burned in your bed. The hue-and-cry alarms the county, but it preserves

all the property of the province. All these clamors aim at _redress_.

But a clamor made merely for the purpose of rendering the people

discontented with their situation, without an endeavor to give them a

practical remedy, is indeed one of the worst acts of sedition.

I have read and heard much upon the conduct of our courts in the

business of libels. I was extremely willing to enter into, and very free

to act as facts should turn out on that inquiry, aiming constantly at

remedy as the end of all clamor, all debate, all writing, and all

inquiry; for which reason I did embrace, and do now with joy, this

method of giving quiet to the courts, jurisdiction to juries, liberty to

the press, and satisfaction to the people. I thank my friends for what

they have done; I hope the public will one day reap the benefit of their

pious and judicious endeavors. They have now sown the seed; I hope they

will live to see the flourishing harvest. Their bill is sown in

weakness; it will, I trust, be reaped in power. And then, however, we

shall have reason to apply to them what my Lord Coke says was an

aphorism continually in the mouth of a great sage of the law,--"Blessed

be not the complaining tongue, but _blessed be the amending hand_."

LETTER

ON

MR. DOWDESWELL'S BILL FOR EXPLAINING THE POWERS OF JURIES IN

PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBELS.[2]

An improper and injurious account of the bill brought into the House of

Commons by Mr. Dowdeswell has lately appeared in one of the public

papers. I am not at all surprised at it, as I am not a stranger to the

views and politics of those who have caused it to be inserted.

Mr. Dowdeswell did not _bring in an enacting bill to give to juries_, as

the account expresses it, _a power to try law and fact in matter of

libel_. Mr. Dowdeswell brought in a bill to put an end to those doubts

and controversies upon that subject which have unhappily distracted our

courts, to the great detriment of the public, and to the great dishonor

of the national justice.

That it is the province of the jury, in informations and indictments for

libels, to try nothing more than the fact of the composing and of the

publishing averments and innuendoes is a doctrine held at present by all

the judges of the King's Bench, probably by most of the judges of the

kingdom. The same doctrine has been held pretty uniformly since the

Revolution; and it prevails more or less with the jury, according to the

degree of respect with which they are disposed to receive the opinions

of the bench.

This doctrine, which, when it prevails, tends to annihilate the benefit

of trial by jury, and when it is rejected by juries, tends to weaken and

disgrace the authority of the judge, is not a doctrine proper for an

English judicature. For the sake both of judge and jury, the controversy

ought to be quieted, and the law ought to be settled in a manner clear,

definitive, and constitutional, by the only authority competent to it,

the authority of the legislature.

Mr. Dowdeswell's bill was brought in for that purpose. It _gives_ to the

jury no _new_ powers; but, after reciting the doubts and controversies,

(which nobody denies actually to subsist,) and after stating, that, if

juries are not reputed competent to try the whole matter, the benefit of

trial by jury will be of none or imperfect effect, it enacts, not that

the jury _shall_ have the _power_, but that they shall be _held and

reputed in law and right competent_ to try the whole matter laid in the

information. The bill is directing to the judges concerning the opinion

in law which they are known to hold upon this subject,--and does not in

the least imply that the jury were to derive a new right and power from

that bill, if it should have passed into an act of Parliament. The

implication is directly the contrary, and is as strongly conveyed as it

is possible for those to do who state a doubt and controversy without

charging with criminality those persons who so doubted and so

controverted.

Such a style is frequent in acts of this nature, and is that only which

is suited to the occasion. An insidious use has been made of the words

_enact_ and _declare_, as if they were formal and operative words of

force to distinguish different species of laws producing different

effects. Nothing is more groundless; and I am persuaded no lawyer will

stand to such an assertion. The gentlemen who say that a bill ought to

have been brought in upon the principle and in the style of the Petition

of Right and Declaration of Right ought to consider how far the

circumstances are the same in the two cases, and how far they are

prepared to go the whole lengths of the reason of those remarkable laws.

Mr. Dowdeswell and his friends are of opinion that the circumstances are

not the same, and that therefore the bill ought not to be the same.

It has been always disagreeable to the persons who compose that

connection to engage wantonly in a paper war, especially with gentlemen

for whom they have an esteem, and who seem to agree with them in the

great grounds of their public conduct; but they can never consent to

purchase any assistance from any persons by the forfeiture of their own

reputation. They respect public opinion; and therefore, whenever they

shall be called upon, they are ready to meet their adversaries, as soon

as they please, before the tribunal of the public, and there to justify

the constitutional nature and tendency, the propriety, the prudence, and

the policy of their bill. They are equally ready to explain and to

justify all their proceedings in the conduct of it,--equally ready to

defend their resolution to make it one object (if ever they should have

the power) in a plan of public reformation.

Your correspondent ought to have been satisfied with the assistance

which his friends have lent to administration in defeating that bill. He

ought not to make a feeble endeavor (I dare say, much to the displeasure

of those friends) to disgrace the gentleman who brought it in. A measure

proposed by Mr. Dowdeswell, seconded by Sir George Savile, and supported

by their friends, will stand fair with the public, even though it should

have been opposed by that list of names (respectable names, I admit)

which have been printed with so much parade and ostentation in your

papers.

It is not true that Mr. Burke spoke in praise of Lord Mansfield. If he

had found anything in Lord Mansfield praiseworthy, I fancy he is not

disposed to make an apology to anybody for doing justice. Your

correspondent's reason for asserting it is visible enough; and it is

altogether in the strain of other misrepresentations. That gentlemen

spoke decently of the judges, and he did no more; most of the gentlemen

who debated, on both sides, held the same language; and nobody will

think their zeal the less warm, or the less effectual, because it is not

attended with scurrility and virulence.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] The manuscript from which this Letter is taken is in Mr. Burke's own

handwriting, but it does not appear to whom it was addressed, nor is

there any date affixed to it. It has been thought proper to insert it

here, as being connected with the subject of the foregoing Speech.

LIBEL BILL.

Whereas doubts and controversies have arisen at various times concerning

the right of jurors to try the whole matter laid in indictments and

informations for seditious and other libels; and whereas trial by juries

would be of none or imperfect effect, if the jurors were not held to be

competent to try the whole matter aforesaid: for settling and clearing

such doubts and controversies, and for securing to the subject the

effectual and complete benefit of trial by juries in such indictments

and informations,

Be it enacted, &c, That jurors duly impanelled and sworn to try the

issue between the king and the defendant upon any indictment or

information for a seditious libel, or a libel under any other

denomination or description, shall be held and reputed competent, to all

intents and purposes, in law and in right, to try every part of the

matter laid or charged in said indictment or information, comprehending

the criminal intention of the defendant, and the evil tendency of the

libel charged, as well as the mere fact of the publication thereof, and

the application by innuendo of blanks, initial letters, pictures, and

other devices; any opinion, question, ambiguity, or doubt to the

contrary notwithstanding.

SPEECH

ON

A BILL FOR THE REPEAL OF THE MARRIAGE ACT.

JUNE 15, 1781.

This act [_the Marriage Act_] stands upon _two_ principles: one, that

the power of marrying without consent of parents should not take place

till twenty-one years of age; the other, that all marriages should be

_public_.

The proposition of the honorable mover goes to the first; and

undoubtedly his motives are fair and honorable; and even, in that

measure by which he would take away paternal power, he is influenced to

it by filial piety; and he is led into it by a natural, and to him

inevitable, but real mistake,--that the ordinary race of mankind advance

as fast towards maturity of judgment and understanding as he does.

The question is not now, whether the law ought to acknowledge and

protect such a state of life as minority, nor whether the continuance

which is fixed for that state be not improperly prolonged in the law of

England. Neither of these in general are questioned. The only question,

is, whether matrimony is to be taken out of the general rule, and

whether the minors of both sexes, without the consent of their parents,

ought to have a capacity of contracting the matrimonial, whilst they

have not the capacity of contracting any other engagement. Now it

appears to me very clear that they ought not. It is a great mistake to

think that mere _animal_ propagation is the sole end of matrimony.

Matrimony is instituted not only for the propagation of men, but for

their nutrition, their education, their establishment, and for the

answering of all the purposes of a rational and moral being; and it is

not the duty of the community to consider alone of how many, but how

useful citizens it shall be composed.

It is most certain that men are well qualified for propagation long

before they are sufficiently qualified even by bodily strength, much

less by mental prudence, and by acquired skill in trades and

professions, for the maintenance of a family. Therefore to enable and

authorize any man to introduce citizens into the commonwealth, before a

rational security can be given that he may provide for them and educate

them as citizens ought to be provided for and educated, is totally

incongruous with the whole order of society. Nay, it is fundamentally

unjust; for a man that breeds a family without competent means of

maintenance incumbers other men with his children, and disables them so

far from maintaining their own. The improvident marriage of one man

becomes a tax upon the orderly and regular marriage of all the rest.

Therefore those laws are wisely constituted that give a man the use of

all his faculties at one time, that they may be mutually subservient,

aiding and assisting to each other: that the time of his completing his

bodily strength, the time of mental discretion, the time of his having

learned his trade, and the time at which he has the disposition of his

fortune, should be likewise the time in which he is permitted to

introduce citizens into the state, and to charge the community with

their maintenance. To give a man a family during his apprenticeship,

whilst his very labor belongs to another,--to give him a family, when

you do not give him a fortune to maintain it,--to give him a family

before he can contract any one of those engagements without which no

business can be carried on, would be to burden the state with families

without any security for their maintenance. When parents themselves

marry their children, they become in some sort security to prevent the

ill consequences. You have this security in parental consent; the state

takes its security in the knowledge of human nature. Parents ordinarily

consider little the passion of their children and their present

gratification. Don't fear the power of a father: it is kind to passion

to give it time to cool. But their censures sometimes make me

smile,--sometimes, for I am very infirm, make me angry: _sæpe bilem,

sæpe jocum movent_.

It gives me pain to differ on this occasion from many, if not most, of

those whom I honor and esteem. To suffer the grave animadversion and

censorial rebuke of the honorable gentleman who made the motion, of him

whose good-nature and good sense the House look upon with a particular

partiality, whose approbation would have been one of the highest objects

of my ambition,--this hurts me. It is said the Marriage Act is

aristocratic. I am accused, I am told abroad, of being a man of

aristocratic principles. If by aristocracy they mean the peers, I have

no vulgar admiration, nor any vulgar antipathy towards them; I hold

their order in cold and decent respect. I hold them to be of an absolute

necessity in the Constitution; but I think they are only good when kept

within their proper bounds. I trust, whenever there has been a dispute

between these Houses, the part I have taken has not been equivocal. If

by the aristocracy (which, indeed, comes nearer to the point) they mean

an adherence to the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, this

would, indeed, be a very extraordinary part. I have incurred the odium

of gentlemen in this House for not paying sufficient regard to men of

ample property. When, indeed, the smallest rights of the poorest people

in the kingdom are in question, I would set my face against any act of

pride and power countenanced by the highest that are in it; and if it

should come to the last extremity, and to a contest of blood,--God

forbid! God forbid!--my part is taken: I would take my fate with the

poor and low and feeble. But if these people came to turn their liberty

into a cloak for maliciousness, and to seek a privilege of exemption,

not from power, but from the rules of morality and virtuous discipline,

then I would join my hand to make them feel the force which a few united

in a good cause have over a multitude of the profligate and ferocious.

I wish the nature of the ground of repeal were considered with a little

attention. It is said the act tends to accumulate, to keep up the power

of great families, and to add wealth to wealth. It may be that it does

so. It is impossible that any principle of law or government useful to

the community should be established without an advantage to those who

have the greatest stake in the country. Even some vices arise from it.

The same laws which secure property encourage avarice; and the fences

made about honest acquisition are the strong bars which secure the

hoards of the miser. The dignities of magistracy are encouragements to

ambition, with all the black train of villanies which attend that wicked

passion. But still we must have laws to secure property, and still we

must have ranks and distinctions and magistracy in the state,

notwithstanding their manifest tendency to encourage avarice and

ambition.

By affirming the parental authority throughout the state, parents in

high rank will generally aim at, and will sometimes have the means, too,

of preserving their minor children from any but wealthy or splendid

matches. But this authority preserves from a thousand misfortunes which

embitter every part of every man's domestic life, and tear to pieces the

dearest lies in human society.

I am no peer, nor like to be,--but am in middle life, in the mass of

citizens; yet I should feel for a son who married a prostituted woman,

or a daughter who married a dishonorable and prostituted man, as much as

any peer in the realm.

You are afraid of the avaricious principle of fathers. But observe that

the avaricious principle is here mitigated very considerably. It is

avarice by proxy; it is avarice not working by itself or for itself, but

through the medium of parental affection, meaning to procure good to its

offspring. But the contest is not between love and avarice.

While you would guard against the possible operation of this species of

benevolent avarice, the avarice of the father, you let loose another

species of avarice,--that of the fortune-hunter, unmitigated,

unqualified. To show the motives, who has heard of a man running away

with a woman not worth sixpence? Do not call this by the name of the

sweet and best passion,--love. It is robbery,--not a jot better than any

other.

Would you suffer the sworn enemy of his family, his life, and his

honor, possibly the shame and scandal and blot of human society, to

debauch from his care and protection the dearest pledge that he has on

earth, the sole comfort of his declining years, almost in infantine

imbecility,--and with it to carry into the hands of his enemy, and the

disgrace of Nature, the dear-earned substance of a careful and laborious

life? Think of the daughter of an honest, virtuous parent allied to vice

and infamy. Think of the hopeful son tied for life by the meretricious

arts of the refuse of mercenary and promiscuous lewdness. Have mercy on

the youth of both sexes; protect them from their ignorance and

inexperience; protect one part of life by the wisdom of another; protect

them by the wisdom of laws and the care of Nature.

SPEECH

ON A

MOTION MADE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS,

FEBRUARY 17, 1772,

FOR LEAVE TO BRING IN

A BILL TO QUIET THE POSSESSIONS OF THE SUBJECT AGAINST DORMANT CLAIMS OF

THE CHURCH.

If I considered this bill as an attack upon the Church, brought in for

the purpose of impoverishing and weakening the clergy, I should be one

of the foremost in an early and vigorous opposition to it.

I admit, the same reasons do not press for limiting the claims of the

Church that existed for limiting the crown, by that wisest of all laws

which, has secured the property, the peace, and the freedom of this

country from the most dangerous mode of attack which could be made upon

them all.

I am very sensible of the propriety of maintaining that venerable body

with decency,--and with more than mere decency. I would maintain it

according to the ranks wisely established in it, with that sober and

temperate splendor that is suitable to a sacred character invested with

high dignity.

There ought to be a symmetry between all the parts and orders of a

state. A _poor_ clergy in an _opulent_ nation can have little

correspondence with the body it is to instruct, and it is a disgrace to

the public sentiments of religion. Such irreligious frugality is even

bad economy, as the little that is given is entirely thrown away. Such

an impoverished and degraded clergy in quiet tunes could never execute

their duty, and in time of disorder would infinitely aggravate the

public confusions.

That the property of the Church is a favored and privileged property I

readily admit. It is made with great wisdom; since a perpetual body,

with a perpetual duty, ought to have a perpetual provision.

The question is not, the property of the Church, or its security. The

question is, whether you will render the principle of prescription a

principle of the law of this laud, and incorporate it with the whole of

your jurisprudence,--whether, having given it first against the laity,

then against the crown, you will now extend it to the Church.

The acts which were made, giving limitation against the laity, were not

acts against the property of those who might be precluded by

limitations. The act of quiet against the crown was not against the

interests of the crown, but against a power of vexation.

If the principle of prescription be not a constitution of positive law,

but a principle of natural equity, then to hold it out against any man

is not doing him injustice.

That _tithes_ are due of common right is readily granted; and if this

principle had been kept in its original straitness, it might, indeed, be

supposed that to plead an exemption was to plead a long-continued

_fraud_, and that no man could _be deceived_ in such a title,--as the

moment he bought land, he must know that he bought land tithed:

prescription could not aid him, for prescription can only attach on a

supposed _bonâ fide_ possession. But the fact is, that the principle has

been broken in upon.

Here it is necessary to distinguish two sorts of property.

1. Land carries no _mark_ on it to distinguish it as ecclesiastical, as

tithes do, which are a _charge_ on land; therefore, though it had been

made _inalienable_, it ought perhaps to be subject to limitation. It

might _bonâ fide_ be held.

But, first, it was not originally inalienable, no, not by the Canon Law,

until the restraining act of the 11th [1st?] of Elizabeth. But the great

revolution of the dissolution of monasteries, by the 31st Hen., ch. 13,

has so mixed and confounded ecclesiastical with lay property, that a man

may by every rule of good faith be possessed of it. The statute of Queen

Elizabeth, ann. 1, ch. 1, [?] gave away the bishop's lands.

So far as to _lands_.

As to _tithes_, they are not things in their own nature subject to be

barred by prescription upon the general principle. But tithes and Church

lands, by the statutes of Henry VIII. and the 11th [1st?] Eliz., have

become objects _in commercio_: for by coming to the crown they became

grantable in that way to the subject, and a great part of the Church

lands passed through the crown to the people.

By passing to the king, tithes became property to a mixed party; by

passing from the king, they became absolutely _lay_ property: the

partition-wall was broken down, and tithes and Church possession became

no longer synonymous terms. No [A?] man, therefore, might become a fair

purchaser of tithes, and of exemption from tithes.

By the statute of Elizabeth, the lands took the same course, (I will not

inquire by what justice, good policy, and decency,) but they passed into

lay lands, became the object of purchases for valuable consideration,

and of marriage settlements.

Now, if tithes might come to a layman, land in the hands of a layman

might be also tithe-free. So that there was an object which a layman

might become seized of equitably and _bonâ fide_; there was something

on which a prescription might attach, the end of which is, to secure the

natural well-meaning ignorance of men, and to secure property by the

best of all principles, continuance.

I have therefore shown that a layman may be equitably seized of Church

lands,--2. of tithes,--3. of exemption from tithes; and you will not

contend that there should be no prescription. Will you say that the

alienations made before the 11th of Elizabeth shall not stand good?

I do not mean anything against the Church, her dignities, her honors,

her privileges, or her possessions. I should wish even to enlarge them

all: not that the Church of England is incompetently endowed. This is to

take nothing from her but the power of making herself odious. If she be

secure herself, she can have no objection to the security of others. For

I hope she is secure from lay-bigotry and anti-priestcraft, for

certainly such things there are. I heartily wish to see the Church

secure in such possessions as will not only enable her ministers to

preach the Gospel with ease, but of such a kind as will enable them to

preach it with its full effect, so that the pastor shall not have the

inauspicious appearance of a tax-gatherer,--such a maintenance as is

compatible with the civil prosperity and improvement of their country.

HINTS

FOR

AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA.

NOTE.

These hints appear to have been first thoughts, which were probably

intended to be amplified and connected, and so worked up into a regular

dissertation. No date appears of the time when they were written, but it

was probably before the year 1765.

HINTS

FOR AN ESSAY ON THE DRAMA.

It is generally observed that no species of writing is so difficult as

the dramatic. It must, indeed, appear so, were we to consider it upon

one side only. It is a dialogue, or species of composition which in

itself requires all the mastery of a complete writer with grace and

spirit to support. We may add, that it must have a fable, too, which

necessarily requires invention, one of the rarest qualities of the human

mind. It would surprise us, if we were to examine the thing critically,

how few good original stories there are in the world. The most

celebrated borrow from each other, and are content with some new turn,

some corrective, addition, or embellishment. Many of the most celebrated

writers in that way can claim no other merit. I do not think La Fontaine

has one original story. And if we pursue him to those who were his

originals, the Italian writers of tales and novels, we shall find most

even of them drawing from antiquity, or borrowing from the Eastern

world, or adopting and decorating the little popular stories they found

current and traditionary in their country. Sometimes they laid the

foundation of their tale in real fact. Even after all their borrowing

from so many funds, they are still far from opulent. How few stories has

Boccace which are tolerable, and how much fewer are there which you

would desire to read twice! But this general difficulty is greatly

increased, when we come to the drama. Here a fable is essential,--a

fable which is to be conducted with rapidity, clearness, consistency,

and surprise, without any, or certainly with very little, aid from

narrative. This is the reason that generally nothing is more dull in

telling than the plot of a play. It is seldom or never a good story in

itself; and in this particular, some of the greatest writers, both in

ancient and modern theatres, have failed in the most miserable manner.

It is well a play has still so many requisites to complete it, that,

though the writer should not succeed in these particulars, and therefore

should be so far from perfection, there are still enough left in which

he may please, at less expense of labor to himself, and perhaps, too,

with more real advantage to his auditory. It is, indeed, very difficult

happily to excite the passions and draw the characters of men; but our

nature leads us more directly to such paintings than to the invention of

a story. We are imitative animals; and we are more naturally led to

imitate the exertions of character and passion than to observe and

describe a series of events, and to discover those relations and

dependencies in them which will please. Nothing can be more rare than

this quality. Herein, as I believe, consists the difference between the

inventive and the descriptive genius. By the inventive genius I mean the

creator of agreeable facts and incidents; by the descriptive, the

delineator of characters, manners, and passions. Imitation calls us to

this; we are in some cases almost forced to it, and it is comparatively

easy. More observe the characters of men than the order of things: to

the one we are formed by Nature, and by that sympathy from which we are

so strongly led to take a part in the passions and manners of our

fellow-men; the other is, as it were, foreign and extrinsical. Neither,

indeed, can anything be done, even in this, without invention; but it is

obvious that this invention is of a kind altogether different from the

former. However, though the more sublime genius and the greatest art are

required for the former, yet the latter, as it is more common and more

easy, so it is more useful, and administers more directly to the great

business of life.

If the drama requires such a combination of talents, the most common of

which is very rarely to be found and difficult to be exerted, it is not

surprising, at a time when almost all kinds of poetry are cultivated

with little success, to find that we have done no great matters in this.

Many causes may be assigned for our present weakness in that oldest and

most excellent branch of philosophy, poetical learning, and particularly

in what regards the theatre. I shall here only consider what appears to

me to be one of these causes: I mean the wrong notion of the art itself,

which begins to grow fashionable, especially among people of an elegant

turn of mind with a weak understanding; and these are they that form the

great body of the idle part of every polite and civilized nation. The

prevailing system of that class of mankind is indolence. This gives them

an aversion to all strong movements. It infuses a delicacy of sentiment,

which, when it is real, and accompanied with a justness of thought, is

an amiable quality, and favorable to the fine arts; but when it comes

to make the whole of the character, it injures things more excellent

than those which it improves, and degenerates into a false refinement,

which diffuses a languor and breathes a frivolous air over everything

which it can influence....

Having differed in my opinion about dramatic composition, and

particularly in regard to comedy, with a gentleman for whose character

and talents I have a very high respect, I thought myself obliged, on

account of that difference, to a new and more exact examination of the

grounds upon which I had formed my opinions. I thought it would be

impossible to come to any clear and definite idea on this subject,

without remounting to the natural passions or dispositions of men, which

first gave rise to this species of writing; for from these alone its

nature, its limits, and its true character can be determined.

There are but four general principles which can move men to interest

themselves in the characters of others, and they may be classed under

the heads of good and ill opinion: on the side of the first may be

classed admiration and love, hatred and contempt on the other. And these

have accordingly divided poetry into two very different kinds,--the

panegyrical, and the satirical; under one of which heads all genuine

poetry falls (for I do not reckon the didactic as poetry, in the

strictness of speech).

Without question, the subject of all poetry was originally direct and

personal. Fictitious character is a refinement, and comparatively

modern; for abstraction is in its nature slow, and always follows the

progress of philosophy. Men had always friends and enemies before they

knew the exact nature of vice and virtue; they naturally, and with

their best powers of eloquence, whether in prose or verse, magnified and

set off the one, vilified and traduced the other.

The first species of composition in either way was probably some

general, indefinite topic of praise or blame, expressed in a song or

hymn, which is the most common and simple kind of panegyric and satire.

But as nothing tended to set their hero or subject in a more forcible

light than some story to their advantage or prejudice, they soon

introduced a narrative, and thus improved the composition into a greater

variety of pleasure to the hearer, and to a more forcible instrument of

honor or disgrace to the subject.

It is natural with men, when they relate any action with any degree of

warmth, to represent the parties to it talking as the occasion requires;

and this produces that mixed species of poetry, composed of narrative

and dialogue, which is very universal in all languages, and of which

Homer is the noblest example in any. This mixed kind of poetry seems

also to be most perfect, as it takes in a variety of situations,

circumstances, reflections, and descriptions, which must be rejected on

a more limited plan.

It must be equally obvious, that men, in relating a story in a forcible

manner, do very frequently mimic the looks, gesture, and voice of the

person concerned, and for the time, as it were, put themselves into his

place. This gave the hint to the drama, or acting; and observing the

powerful effect of this in public exhibitions....

But the drama, the most artificial and complicated of all the poetical

machines, was not yet brought to perfection; and like those animals

which change their state, some parts of the old narrative still adhered.

It still had a chorus, it still had a prologue to explain the design;

and the perfect drama, an automaton supported and moved without any

foreign help, was formed late and gradually. Nay, there are still

several parts of the world in which it is not, and probably never may

be, formed. The Chinese drama.

The drama, being at length formed, naturally adhered to the first

division of poetry, the satirical and panegyrical, which made tragedy

and comedy.

Men, in praising, naturally applaud the dead. Tragedy celebrated the

dead.

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles. Tragedy turned,

therefore, on melancholy and affecting subjects,--a sort of

threnodia,--its passions, therefore, admiration, terror, and pity.

Comedy was satirical. Satire is best on the living.

It was soon found that the best way to depress an hated character was to

turn it into ridicule; and therefore the greater vices, which in the

beginning were lashed, gave place to the _contemptible_. Its passion,

therefore, became ridicule.

Every writing must have its characteristic passion. What is that of

comedy, if not ridicule?

Comedy, therefore, is a satirical poem, representing an action carried

on by dialogue, to excite laughter by describing ludicrous characters.

See Aristotle.

Therefore, to preserve this definition, the ridicule must be either in

the action or characters, or both.

An action may be ludicrous, independent of the characters, by the

ludicrous situations and accidents which may happen to the characters.

But the action is not so important as the characters. We see this every

day upon the stage.

What are the characters fit for comedy?

It appears that no part of human life which may be subject to ridicule

is exempted from comedy; for wherever men run into the absurd, whether

high or low, they may be the subject of satire, and consequently of

comedy. Indeed, some characters, as kings, are exempted through decency;

others might be too insignificant. Some are of opinion that persons in

better life are so polished that their tone characters and the real bent

of their humor cannot appear. For my own part, I cannot give entire

credit to this remark. For, in the first place, I believe that

good-breeding is not so universal or strong in any part of life as to

overrule the real characters and strong passions of such men as would be

proper objects of the drama. Secondly, it is not the ordinary,

commonplace discourse of assemblies that is to be represented in comedy.

The parties are to be put in situations in which their passions are

roused, and their real characters called forth; and if their situations

are judiciously adapted to the characters, there is no doubt but they

will appear in all their force, choose what situation of life you

please. Let the politest man alive game, and feel at loss; let this be

his character; and his politeness will never hide it, nay, it will put

it forward with greater violence, and make a more forcible contrast.[3]

But genteel comedy puts these characters, not in their passionate, but

in their genteel light; makes elegant cold conversation, and virtuous

personages.[4] Such sort of pictures disagreeable.

Virtue and politeness not proper for comedy; for they have too much or

no movement.

They are not good in tragedy, much less here.

The greater virtues, fortitude, justice, and the like, too serious and

sublime.

It is not every story, every character, every incident, but those only

which answer their end.--Painting of artificial things not good; a thing

being useful does not therefore make it most pleasing in

picture.--Natural manners, good and bad.--Sentiment. In common affairs

and common life, virtuous sentiments are not even the character of

virtuous men; we cannot bear these sentiments, but when they are pressed

out, as it were, by great exigencies, and a certain contention which is

above the general style of comedy....

The first character of propriety the Lawsuit possesses in an eminent

degree. The plot of the play is an iniquitous suit; there can be no

fitter persons to be concerned in the active part of it than low,

necessitous lawyers of bad character, and profligates of desperate

fortune. On the other hand, in the passive part, if an honest and

virtuous man had been made the object of their designs, or a weak man of

good intentions, every successful step they should take against him

ought rather to fill the audience with horror than pleasure and mirth;

and if in the conclusion their plots should be baffled, even this would

come too late to prevent that ill impression. But in the Lawsuit this is

admirably avoided: for the character chosen is a rich, avaricious

usurer: the pecuniary distresses of such a person can never be looked

upon with horror; and if he should be even handled unjustly, we always

wait his delivery with patience.

Now with regard to the display of the character, which is the essential

part of the plot, nothing can be more finely imagined than to draw a

miser in law. If you draw him inclined to love and marriage, you depart

from the height of his character in some measure, as Molière has done.

Expenses of this kind he may easily avoid. If you draw him in law, to

advance brings expense, to draw back brings expense; and the character

is tortured and brought out at every moment.

A sort of notion has prevailed that a comedy might subsist without

humor. It is an idle disquisition, whether a story in private life,

represented in dialogues, may not be carried on with some degree of

merit without humor. It may unquestionably; but what shines chiefly in

comedy, the painting the manners of life, must be in a great measure

wanting. A character which has nothing extravagant, wrong, or singular

in it can affect but very little: and this is what makes Aristotle draw

the great line of distinction between tragedy and comedy. Ἐν αὐτῇ δὲ τῇ

διαφορᾷ καὶ ἡ τραγῳδία, &c. Arist. Poet. Ch. II.

* * * * *

There is not a more absurd mistake than that whatever may not

unnaturally happen in an action is of course to be admitted into every

painting of it. In Nature, the great and the little, the serious and the

ludicrous, things the most disproportionate the one to the other, are

frequently huddled together in much confusion, And what then? It is the

business of Art first to choose some determinate end and purpose, and

then to select those parts of Nature, and those only, which conduce to

that end, avoiding with most religious exactness the intermixture of

anything which would contradict it. Else the whole idea of propriety,

that is, the only distinction between the just and chimerical in the

arts, would be utterly lost. An hero eats, drinks, and sleeps, like

other men; but to introduce such scenes on the stage, because they are

natural, would be ridiculous. And why? Because they have nothing to do

with the end for which the play is written. The design of a piece might

be utterly destroyed by the most natural incidents in the world. Boileau

has somewhere criticized with what surely is a very just severity on

Ariosto, for introducing a ludicrous tale from his host to one of the

principal persons of his poem, though the story has great merit in its

way. Indeed, that famous piece is so monstrous and extravagant in all

its parts that one is not particularly shocked with this indecorum. But,

as Boileau has observed, if Virgil had introduced Æneas listening to a

bawdy story from his host, what an episode had this formed in that

divine poem! Suppose, instead of Æneas, he had represented the impious

Mezentius as entertaining himself in that manner; such a thing would not

have been without probability, but it would have clashed with the very

first principles of taste, and, I would say, of common sense.

I have heard of a celebrated picture of the Last Supper,--and if I do

not mistake, it is said to be the work of some of the Flemish masters:

in this picture all the personages are drawn in a manner suitable to

the solemnity of the occasion; but the painter has filled the void under

the table with a dog gnawing bones. Who does not see the possibility of

such an incident, and, at the same time, the absurdity of introducing it

on such an occasion! Innumerable such cases might be stated. It is not

the incompatibility or agreeableness of incidents, characters, or

sentiments with the probable in fact, but with propriety in design, that

admits or excludes them from a place in any composition. We may as well

urge that stones, sand, clay, and metals lie in a certain manner in the

earth, as a reason for building with these materials and in that manner,

as for writing according to the accidental disposition of characters in

Nature. I have, I am afraid, been longer than it might seem necessary in

refuting such a notion; but such authority can only be opposed by a good

deal of reason. We are not to forget that a play is, or ought to be, a

very short composition; that, if one passion or disposition is to be

wrought up with tolerable success, I believe it is as much as can in any

reason be expected. If there be scenes of distress and scenes of humor,

they must either be in a double or single plot. If there be a double

plot, there are in fact two. If they be in checkered scenes of serious

and comic, you are obliged continually to break both the thread of the

story and the continuity of the passion,--if in the same scene, as Mrs.

V. seems to recommend, it is needless to observe how absurd the mixture

must be, and how little adapted to answer the genuine end of any

passion. It is odd to observe the progress of bad taste: for this mixed

passion being universally proscribed in the regions of tragedy, it has

taken refuge and shelter in comedy, where it seems firmly established,

though no reason can be assigned why we may not laugh in the one as well

as weep in the other. The true reason of this mixture is to be sought

for in the manners which are prevalent amongst a people. It has become

very fashionable to affect delicacy, tenderness of heart, and fine

feeling, and to shun all imputation of rusticity. Much mirth is very

foreign to this character; they have introduced, therefore, a sort of

neutral writing.

Now as to characters, they have dealt in them as in the passions. There

are none but lords and footmen. One objection to characters in high life

is, that almost all wants, and a thousand happy circumstances arising

from them, being removed from it, their whole mode of life is too

artificial, and not so fit for painting; and the contrary opinion has

arisen from a mistake, that whatever has merit in the reality

necessarily must have it in the representation. I have observed that

persons, and especially women, in lower life, and of no breeding, are

fond of such representations. It seems like introducing them into good

company, and the honor compensates the dulness of the entertainment.

Fashionable manners being fluctuating is another reason for not choosing

them.--Sensible comedy,--talking sense a dull thing--....

FOOTNOTES:

[3] Sic in MS.

[4] Sic in MS.

AN ESSAY

TOWARDS AN

ABRIDGMENT OF THE ENGLISH HISTORY.

IN THREE BOOKS.

AN

ABRIDGMENT OF ENGLISH HISTORY.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

CAUSES OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ROMANS AND BRITONS.--CAESAR'S TWO

INVASIONS OF BRITAIN.

In order to obtain a clear notion of the state of Europe before the

universal prevalence of the Roman power, the whole region is to be

divided into two principal parts, which we shall call Northern and

Southern Europe. The northern part is everywhere separated from the

southern by immense and continued chains of mountains. From Greece it is

divided by Mount Hæmus; from Spain by the Pyrenees; from Italy by the

Alps. This division is not made by an arbitrary or casual distribution

of countries. The limits are marked out by Nature, and in these early

ages were yet further distinguished by a considerable difference in the

manners and usages of the nations they divided.

If we turn our eyes to the northward of these boundaries, a vast mass of

solid continent lies before us, stretched out from the remotest shore of

Tartary quite to the Atlantic Ocean. A line drawn through this extent,

from east to west, would pass over the greatest body of unbroken land

that is anywhere known upon the globe. This tract, in a course of some

degrees to the northward, is not interrupted by any sea; neither are the

mountains so disposed as to form any considerable obstacle to hostile

incursions. Originally it was all inhabited but by one sort of people,

known by one common denomination of Scythians. As the several tribes of

this comprehensive name lay in many parts greatly exposed, and as by

their situation and customs they were much inclined to attack, and by

both ill qualified for defence, throughout the whole of that immense

region there was for many ages a perpetual flux and reflux of barbarous

nations. None of their commonwealths continued long enough established

on any particular spot to settle and to subside into a regular order,

one tribe continually overpowering or thrusting out another. But as

these were only the mixtures of Scythians with Scythians, the triumphs

of barbarians over barbarians, there were revolutions in empire, but

none in manners. The Northern Europe, until some parts of it were

subdued by the progress of the Roman arms, remained almost equally

covered with all the ruggedness of primitive barbarism.

The southern part was differently circumstanced. Divided, as we have

said, from the northern by great mountains, it is further divided within

itself by considerable seas. Spain, Greece, and Italy are peninsulas. By

these advantages of situation the inhabitants were preserved from those

great and sudden revolutions to which the Northern world had been always

liable; and being confined within a space comparatively narrow, they

were restrained from wandering into a pastoral and unsettled life. It

was upon one side only that they could be invaded by land. Whoever made

an attempt on any other part must necessarily have arrived in ships of

some magnitude, and must therefore have in a degree been cultivated, if

not by the liberal, at least by the mechanic arts. In fact, the

principal colonies-which we find these countries to have received were

sent from Phœnicia, or the Lesser Asia, or Egypt, the great fountains

of the ancient civility and learning. And they became more or less,

earlier or later, polished, as they were situated nearer to or further

from these celebrated sources. Though I am satisfied, from a comparison

of the Celtic tongues with the Greek and Roman, that the original

inhabitants of Italy and Greece were of the same race with the people of

Northern Europe, yet it is certain they profited so much by their

guarded situation, by the mildness of their climate favorable to

humanity, and by the foreign infusions, that they came greatly to excel

the Northern nations in every respect, and particularly in the art and

discipline of war. For, not being so strong in their bodies, partly from

the temperature of their climate, partly from a degree of softness

induced by a more cultivated life, they applied themselves to remove the

few inconveniences of a settled society by the advantages which it

affords in art, disposition, and obedience; and as they consisted of

many small states, their people were well exercised in arms, and

sharpened against each other by continual war.

Such was the situation of Greece and Italy from a very remote period.

The Gauls and other Northern nations, envious of their wealth, and

despising the effeminacy of their manners, often invaded them with,

numerous, though ill-formed armies. But their greatest and most frequent

attempts were against Italy, their connection with which country alone

we shall here consider. In the course of these wars, the superiority of

the Roman discipline over the Gallic ferocity was at length

demonstrated. The Gauls, notwithstanding the numbers with which their

irruptions were made, and the impetuous courage by which that nation was

distinguished, had no permanent success. They were altogether unskilful

either in improving their victories or repairing their defeats. But the

Romans, being governed by a most wise order of men, perfected by a

traditionary experience in the policy of conquest, drew some advantage

from every turn of fortune, and, victorious or vanquished, persisted in

one uniform and comprehensive plan of breaking to pieces everything

which endangered their safety or obstructed their greatness. For, after

having more than once expelled the Northern invaders out of Italy, they

pursued them over the Alps; and carrying the war into the country of

their enemy, under several able generals, and at last under Caius Cæsar,

they reduced all the Gauls from the Mediterranean Sea to the Rhine and

the Ocean. During the progress of this decisive war, some of the

maritime nations of Gaul had recourse for assistance to the neighboring

island of Britain. Prom thence they received considerable succors; by

which means this island first came to be known with any exactness by the

Romans, and first drew upon it the attention of that victorious people.

Though Cæsar had reduced Gaul, he perceived clearly that a great deal

was still wanting to make his conquest secure and lasting. That

extensive country, inhabited by a multitude of populous and fierce

nations, had been rather overrun than conquered. The Gauls were not yet

broken to the yoke, which they bore with murmuring and discontent. The

ruins of their own strength were still considerable; and they had hopes

that the Germans, famous for their invincible courage and their ardent

love of liberty, would be at hand powerfully to second any endeavors for

the recovery of their freedom; they trusted that the Britons, of their

own blood, allied in manners and religion, and whose help they had

lately experienced, would not then be wanting to the same cause. Cæsar

was not ignorant of these dispositions. He therefore judged, that, if he

could confine the attention of the Germans and Britons to their own

defence, so that the Gauls, on which side soever they turned, should

meet nothing but the Roman arms, they must soon be deprived of all hope,

and compelled to seek their safety in an entire submission.

These were the public reasons which made the invasion of Britain and

Germany an undertaking, at that particular time, not unworthy a wise and

able general. But these enterprises, though reasonable in themselves,

were only subservient to purposes of more importance, and which he had

more at heart. Whatever measures he thought proper to pursue on the side

of Germany, or on that of Britain, it was towards Rome that he always

looked, and to the furtherance of his interest there that all his

motions were really directed. That republic had receded from many of

those maxims by which her freedom had been hitherto preserved under the

weight of so vast an empire. Rome now contained many citizens of immense

wealth, eloquence, and ability. Particular men were more considered than

the republic; and the fortune and genius of the Roman people, which

formerly had been thought equal to everything, came now to be less

relied upon than the abilities of a few popular men. The war with the

Gauls, as the old and most dangerous enemy of Rome, was of the last

importance; and Cæsar had the address to obtain the conduct of it for a

term of years, contrary to one of the most established principles of

their government. But this war was finished before that term was

expired, and before the designs which he entertained against the liberty

of his country were fully ripened. It was therefore necessary to find

some pretext for keeping his army on foot; it was necessary to employ

them in some enterprise that might at once raise his character, keep his

interest alive at Rome, endear him to his troops, and by that means

weaken the ties which held them to their country.

From this motive, colored by reasons plausible and fit to be avowed, he

resolved in one and the same year, and even when that was almost

expired, upon two expeditions, the objects of which lay at a great

distance from each other, and were as yet untouched by the Roman arms.

And first he resolved to pass the Rhine, and penetrate into Germany.

Cæsar spent but twenty-eight days in his German expedition. In ten he

built his admirable bridge across the Rhine; in eighteen he performed

all he proposed by entering that country. When the Germans saw the

barrier of their river so easily overcome, and Nature herself, as it

were, submitted to the yoke, they were struck with astonishment, and

never after ventured to oppose the Romans in the field. The most

obnoxious of the German countries were ravaged, the strong awed, the

weak taken into protection. Thus an alliance being formed, always the

first step of the Roman policy, and not only a pretence, but a means,

being thereby acquired of entering the country upon any future occasion,

he marched back through Gaul to execute a design of much the same nature

and extent in Britain.

[Sidenote: B.C. 55.]

The inhabitants of that island, who were divided into a great number of

petty nations, under a very coarse and disorderly frame of government,

did not find it easy to plan any effectual measures for their defence.

In order, however, to gain time in this exigency, they sent ambassadors

to Cæsar with terms of submission. Cæsar could not colorably reject

their offers. But as their submission rather clashed than coincided with

his real designs, he still persisted in his resolution of passing over

into Britain; and accordingly embarked with the infantry of two legions

at the port of Itium.[5] His landing was obstinately disputed by the

natives, and brought on a very hot and doubtful engagement. But the

superior dispositions of so accomplished a commander, the resources of

the Roman discipline, and the effect of the military engines on the

unpractised minds of a barbarous people prevailed at length over the

best resistance which could be made by rude numbers and mere bravery.

The place where the Romans first entered this island was somewhere near

Deal, and the time fifty-five years before the birth of Christ.

The Britons, who defended their country with so much resolution in the

engagement, immediately after it lost all their spirit. They had laid no

regular plan, for their defence. Upon their first failure they seamed to

have no resources left. On the slightest loss they betook themselves to

treaty and submission; upon the least appearance in their favor they

were as ready to resume their arms, without any regard to their former

engagements: a conduct which demonstrates that our British ancestors had

no regular polity with a standing coercive power. The ambassadors which

they sent to Cæsar laid all the blame of a war carried on by great

armies upon the rashness of their young men, and they declared that the

ruling people had no share in these hostilities. This is exactly the

excuse which the savages of America, who have no regular government,

make at this day upon the like occasions; but it would be a strange

apology from one of the modern states of Europe that had employed armies

against another. Cæsar reprimanded them for the inconstancy of their

behavior, and ordered them to bring hostages to secure their fidelity,

together with provisions for his army. But whilst the Britons were

engaged in the treaty, and on that account had free access to the Roman

camp, they easily observed that the army of the invaders was neither

numerous nor well provided; and having about the same time received

intelligence that the Roman fleet had suffered in a storm, they again

changed their measures, and came to a resolution of renewing the war.

Some prosperous actions against the Roman foraging parties inspired them

with great confidence. They were betrayed by their success into a

general action in the open field. Here the disciplined troops obtained

an easy and complete victory; and the Britons were taught the error of

their conduct at the expense of a terrible slaughter.

Twice defeated, they had recourse once more to submission. Cæsar, who

found the winter approaching, provisions scarce, and his fleet not fit

to contend with that rough and tempestuous sea in a winter voyage,

hearkened to their proposals, exacting double the number of the former

hostages. He then set sail with his whole army.

In this first expedition into Britain, Cæsar did not make, nor indeed

could he expect, any considerable advantage. He acquired a knowledge of

the sea-coast, and of the country contiguous to it; and he became

acquainted with the force, the manner of fighting, and the military

character of the people. To compass these purposes he did not think a

part of the summer ill-bestowed. But early in the next he prepared to

make a more effective use of the experience he had gained. He embarked

again at the same port, but with a more numerous army. The Britons, on

their part, had prepared more regularly for their defence in this than

the former year. Several of those states which were nearest and most

exposed to the danger had, during Cæsar's absence, combined for their

common safety, and chosen Cassibelan, a chief of power and reputation,

for the leader of their union. They seemed resolved to dispute the

landing of the Romans with their former intrepidity. But when they

beheld the sea covered, as far as the eye could reach, with the

multitude of the enemy's ships, (for they were eight hundred sail,) they

despaired of defending the coast, they retired into the woods' and

fastnesses, and Cæsar landed his army without opposition.

The Britons now saw the necessity of altering their former method of

war. They no longer, therefore, opposed the Romans in the open field;

they formed frequent ambuscades; they divided themselves into light

flying parties, and continually harassed the enemy on his march. This

plan, though in their circumstances the most judicious, was attended

with no great success. Cæsar forced some of their strongest

intrenchments, and then carried the war directly into the territories of

Cassibelan.

The only fordable passage which he could find over the Thames was

defended by a row of palisadoes which lined the opposite bank; another

row of sharpened stakes stood under water along the middle of the

stream. Some remains of these works long subsisted, and were to be

discerned in the river[6] down almost to the present times. The Britons

had made the best of the situation; but the Romans plunged into the

water, tore away the stakes and palisadoes, and obtained a complete

victory. The capital, or rather chief fastness, of Cassibelan was then

taken, with a number of cattle, the wealth of this barbarous city. After

these misfortunes the Britons were no longer in a condition to act with

effect. Their ill-success in the field soon dissolved the ill-cemented

union of their councils. They split into factions, and some of them

chose the common enemy for their protector, insomuch that, after some

feeble and desultory efforts, most of the tribes to the southward of the

Thames submitted themselves to the conqueror. Cassibelan, worsted in so

many encounters, and deserted by his allies, was driven at length to sue

for peace. A tribute was imposed; and as the summer began to wear away,

Cæsar, having finished the war to his satisfaction, embarked for Gaul.

The whole of Cæsar's conduct in these two campaigns sufficiently

demonstrates that he had no intention of making an absolute conquest of

any part of Britain. Is it to be believed, that, if he had formed such

a design, he would have left Britain without an army, without a legion,

without a single cohort, to secure his conquest, and that he should sit

down contented with an empty glory and the tribute of an indigent

people, without any proper means of securing a continuance of that small

acquisition? This is not credible. But his conduct here, as well as in

Germany, discovers his purpose in both expeditions: for by them he

confirmed the Roman dominion in Gaul, he gained time to mature his

designs, and he afforded his party in Rome an opportunity of promoting

his interest and exaggerating his exploits, which they did in such a

manner as to draw from the Senate a decree for a very remarkable

acknowledgment of his services in a supplication or thanksgiving of

twenty days. This attempt, not being pursued, stands single, and has

little or no connection with the subsequent events.

Therefore I shall in this place, where the narrative will be the least

broken, insert from the best authorities which are left, and the best

conjectures which in so obscure a matter I am able to form, some account

of the first peopling of this island, the manners of its inhabitants,

their art of war, their religious and civil discipline. These are

matters not only worthy of attention as containing a very remarkable

piece of antiquity, but as not wholly unnecessary towards comprehending

the great change made in all these points, when the Roman conquest came

afterwards to be completed.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Some think this port to be Witsand, others Boulogne.

[6] Coway Stakes, near Kingston-on-Thames.

CHAPTER II.

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF BRITAIN.

That Britain was first peopled from Gaul we are assured by the best

proofs,--proximity of situation, and resemblance in language and

manners. Of the time in which this event happened we must be contented

to remain in ignorance, for we have no monuments. But we may conclude

that it was a very ancient settlement, since the Carthaginians found

this island inhabited when they traded hither for tin,--as the

Phœnicians, whose tracks they followed in this commerce, are said to

have done long before them. It is true, that, when we consider the short

interval between the universal deluge and that period, and compare it

with the first settlement of men at such a distance from this corner of

the world, it may seem not easy to reconcile such a claim to antiquity

with the only authentic account we have of the origin and progress of

mankind,--especially as in those early ages the whole face of Nature was

extremely rude and uncultivated, when the links of commerce, even in the

countries first settled, were few and weak, navigation imperfect,

geography unknown, and the hardships of travelling excessive. But the

spirit of migration, of which we have now only some faint ideas, was

then strong and universal, and it fully compensated all these

disadvantages. Many writers, indeed, imagine that these migrations, so

common in the primitive times, were caused by the prodigious increase of

people beyond what their several territories could maintain. But this

opinion, far from being supported, is rather contradicted by the

general appearance of things in that early time, when in every country

vast tracts of land were suffered to lie almost useless in morasses and

forests. Nor is it, indeed, more countenanced by the ancient modes of

life, no way favorable to population. I apprehend that these first

settled countries, so far from being overstocked with inhabitants, were

rather thinly peopled, and that the same causes which occasioned that

thinness occasioned also those frequent migrations which make so large a

part of the first history of almost all nations. For in these ages men

subsisted chiefly by pasturage or hunting. These are occupations which

spread the people without multiplying them in proportion; they teach

them an extensive knowledge of the country; they carry them frequently

and far from their homes, and weaken those ties which might attach them

to any particular habitation.

It was in a great degree from this manner of life that mankind became

scattered in the earliest times over the whole globe. But their peaceful

occupations did not contribute so much to that end as their wars, which

were not the less frequent and violent because the people were few, and

the interests for which they contended of but small importance. Ancient

history has furnished us with many instances of whole nations, expelled

by invasion, falling in upon others, which they have entirely

overwhelmed,--more irresistible in their defeat and ruin than in their

fullest prosperity. The rights of war were then exercised with great

inhumanity. A cruel death, or a servitude scarcely less cruel, was the

certain fate of all conquered people; the terror of which hurried men

from habitations to which they were but little attached, to seek

security and repose under any climate that, however in other respects

undesirable, might afford them refuge from the fury of their enemies.

Thus the bleak and barren regions of the North, not being peopled by

choice, were peopled as early, in all probability, as many of the milder

and more inviting climates of the Southern world; and thus, by a

wonderful disposition of the Divine Providence, a life of hunting, which

does not contribute to increase, and war, which is the great instrument

in the destruction of men, were the two principal causes of their being

spread so early and so universally over the whole earth. From what is

very commonly known of the state of North America, it need not be said

how often and to what distance several of the nations on that continent

are used to migrate, who, though thinly scattered, occupy an immense

extent of country. Nor are the causes of it less obvious,--their hunting

life, and their inhuman wars.

Such migrations, sometimes by choice, more frequently from necessity,

were common in the ancient world. Frequent necessities introduced a

fashion which subsisted after the original causes. For how could it

happen, but from some universally established public prejudice, which

always overrules and stifles the private sense of men, that a whole

nation should deliberately think it a wise measure to quit their country

in a body, that they might obtain in a foreign land a settlement which

must wholly depend upon the chance of war? Yet this resolution was taken

and actually pursued by the entire nation of the Helvetii, as it is

minutely related by Cæsar. The method of reasoning which led them to it

must appear to us at this day utterly inconceivable. They were far from

being compelled to this extraordinary migration by any want of

subsistence at home; for it appears that they raised, without

difficulty, as much corn in one year as supported them for two; they

could not complain of the barrenness of such a soil.

This spirit of migration, which grew out of the ancient manners and

necessities, and sometimes operated like a blind instinct, such as

actuates birds of passage, is very sufficient to account for the early

habitation of the remotest parts of the earth, and in some sort also

justifies that claim which has been so fondly made by almost all nations

to great antiquity.

Gaul, from whence Britain was originally peopled, consisted of three

nations: the Belgæ, towards the north; the Celtæ, in the middle

countries; and the Aquitani, to the south. Britain appears to have

received its people only from the two former. From the Celtæ were

derived the most ancient tribes of the Britons, of which the most

considerable were called Brigantes. The Belgæ, who did not even settle

in Gaul until after Britain had been peopled by colonies from the

former, forcibly drove the Brigantes into the inland countries, and

possessed the greatest part of the coast, especially to the south and

west. These latter, as they entered the island in a more improved age,

brought with them the knowledge and practice of agriculture, which,

however, only prevailed in their own countries. The Brigantes still

continued their ancient way of life by pasturage and hunting. In this

respect alone they differed: so that what we shall say, in treating of

their manners, is equally applicable to both. And though the Britons

were further divided into an innumerable multitude of lesser tribes and

nations, yet all being the branches of these two stocks, it is not to

our purpose to consider them more minutely.

Britain was in the time of Julius Cæsar what it is at this day, in

climate and natural advantages, temperate and reasonably fertile. But

destitute of all those improvements which in a succession of ages it has

received from ingenuity, from commerce, from riches and luxury, it then

wore a very rough and savage appearance. The country, forest or marsh;

the habitations, cottages; the cities, hiding-places in woods; the

people naked, or only covered with skins; their sole employment,

pasturage and hunting. They painted their bodies for ornament or terror,

by a custom general amongst all savage nations, who, being passionately

fond of show and finery, and having no object but their naked bodies on

which to exercise this disposition, have in all times painted or cut

their skins, according to their ideas of ornament. They shaved the beard

on the chin; that on the upper lip was suffered to remain, and grow to

an extraordinary length, to favor the martial appearance, in which they

placed their glory. They were in their natural temper not unlike the

Gauls, impatient, fiery, inconstant, ostentatious, boastful, fond of

novelty,--and like all barbarians, fierce, treacherous, and cruel. Their

arms were short javelins, small shields of a slight texture, and great

cutting swords with a blunt point, after the Gaulish fashion.

Their chiefs went to battle in chariots, not unartfully contrived nor

unskilfully managed. I cannot help thinking it something extraordinary,

and not easily to be accounted for, that the Britons should have been so

expert in the fabric of those chariots, when they seem utterly ignorant

in all other mechanic arts: but thus it is delivered to us. They had

also horse, though of no great reputation, in their armies. Their foot

was without heavy armor; it was no firm body, nor instructed to preserve

their ranks, to make their evolutions, or to obey their commanders; but

in tolerating hardships, in dexterity of forming ambuscades, (the art

military of savages,) they are said to have excelled. A natural ferocity

and an impetuous onset stood them in the place of discipline.

It is very difficult, at this distance of time, and with so little

information, to discern clearly what sort of civil government prevailed

among the ancient Britons. In all very uncultivated countries, as

society is not close nor intricate, nor property very valuable, liberty

subsists with few restraints. The natural equality of mankind appears

and is asserted, and therefore there are but obscure lines of any form

of government. In every society of this sort the natural connections are

the same as in others, though the political ties are weak. Among such

barbarians, therefore, though there is little authority in the

magistrate, there is often great power lodged, or rather left, in the

father: for, as among the Gauls, so among the Britons, he had the power

of life and death in his own family, over his children and his servants.

But among freemen and heads of families, causes of all sorts seem to

have been decided by the Druids: they summoned and dissolved all the

public assemblies; they alone had the power of capital punishments, and

indeed seem to have had the sole execution and interpretation of

whatever laws subsisted among this people. In this respect the Celtic

nations did not greatly differ from others, except that we view them in

an earlier stage of society. Justice was in all countries originally

administered by the priesthood: nor, indeed, could laws in their first

feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to

relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come

down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first

openings of civility have been everywhere made by religion. Amongst the

Romans, the custody and interpretation of the laws continued solely in

the college of the pontiffs for above a century.[7]

The time in which the Druid priesthood was instituted is unknown. It

probably rose, like other institutions of that kind, from low and

obscure beginnings, and acquired from time, and the labors of able men,

a form by which it extended itself so far, and attained at length so

mighty an influence over the minds of a fierce and otherwise

ungovernable people. Of the place where it arose there is somewhat less

doubt: Cæsar mentions it as the common opinion that this institution

began in Britain, that there it always remained in the highest

perfection, and that from thence it diffused itself into Gaul. I own I

find it not easy to assign any tolerable cause why an order of so much

authority and a discipline so exact should have passed from the more

barbarous people to the more civilized, from the younger to the older,

from the colony to the mother country: but it is not wonderful that the

early extinction of this order, and that general contempt in which the

Romans held all the barbarous nations, should have left these matters

obscure and full of difficulty.

The Druids were kept entirely distinct from the body of the people; and

they were exempted from all the inferior and burdensome offices of

society, that they might be at leisure to attend the important duties of

their own charge. They were chosen out of the best families, and from

the young men of the most promising talents: a regulation which placed

and preserved them in a respectable light with the world. None were

admitted into this order but after a long and laborious novitiate, which

made the character venerable in their own eyes by the time and

difficulty of attaining it. They were much devoted to solitude, and

thereby acquired that abstracted and thoughtful air which is so imposing

upon the vulgar; and when they appeared in public, it was seldom, and

only on some great occasion,--in the sacrifices of the gods, or on the

seat of judgment. They prescribed medicine; they formed the youth; they

paid the last honors to the dead; they foretold events; they exercised

themselves in magic. They were at once the priests, lawgivers, and

physicians of their nation, and consequently concentred in themselves

all that respect that men have diffusively for those who heal their

diseases, protect their property, or reconcile them to the Divinity.

What contributed not a little to the stability and power of this order

was the extent of its foundation, and the regularity and proportion of

its structure. It took in both sexes; and the female Druids were in no

less esteem for their knowledge and sanctity than the males. It was

divided into several subordinate ranks and classes; and they all

depended upon a chief or Arch-Druid, who was elected to his place with

great authority and preeminence for life. They were further armed with a

power of interdicting from their sacrifices, or excommunicating, any

obnoxious persons. This interdiction, so similar to that used by the

ancient Athenians, and to that since practised among Christians, was

followed by an exclusion from all the benefits of civil community; and

it was accordingly the most dreaded of all punishments. This ample

authority was in general usefully exerted; by the interposition of the

Druids differences were composed, and wars ended; and the minds of the

fierce Northern people, being reconciled to each other under the

influence of religion, united with signal effect against their common

enemies.

There was a class of the Druids whom they called Bards, who delivered in

songs (their only history) the exploits of their heroes, and who

composed those verses which contained the secrets of Druidical

discipline, their principles of natural and moral philosophy, their

astronomy, and the mystical rites of their religion. These verses in all

probability bore a near resemblance to the Golden Verses of

Pythagoras,--to those of Phocylides, Orpheus, and other remnants of the

most ancient Greek poets. The Druids, even in Gaul, where they were not

altogether ignorant of the use of letters, in order to preserve their

knowledge in greater respect, committed none of their precepts to

writing. The proficiency of their pupils was estimated principally by

the number of technical verses which they retained in their memory: a

circumstance that shows this discipline rather calculated to preserve

with accuracy a few plain maxims of traditionary science than to improve

and extend it. And this is not the sole circumstance which leads us to

believe that among them learning had advanced no further than its

infancy.

The scholars of the Druids, like those of Pythagoras, were carefully

enjoined a long and religious silence: for, if barbarians come to

acquire any knowledge, it is rather by instruction than, examination;

they must therefore be silent. Pythagoras, in the rude times of Greece,

required silence in his disciples; but Socrates, in the meridian of the

Athenian refinement, spoke less than his scholars: everything was

disputed in the Academy.

The Druids are said to be very expert in astronomy, in geography, and in

all parts of mathematical knowledge; and authors speak in a very

exaggerated strain of their excellence in these, and in many other

sciences. Some elemental knowledge I suppose they had; but I can

scarcely be persuaded that their learning was either deep or extensive.

In all countries where Druidism was professed, the youth, were generally

instructed by that order; and yet was there little either in the manners

of the people, in their way of life, or their works of art, that

demonstrates profound science or particularly mathematical skill.

Britain, where their discipline was in its highest perfection, and which

was therefore resorted to by the people of Gaul as an oracle in

Druidical questions, was more barbarous in all other respects than Gaul

itself, or than any other country then known in Europe. Those piles of

rude magnificence, Stonehenge and Abury, are in vain produced in proof

of their mathematical abilities. These vast structures have nothing

which can be admired, but the greatness of the work; and they are not

the only instances of the great things which the mere labor of many

hands united, and persevering in their purpose, may accomplish with very

little help from mechanics. This may be evinced by the immense

buildings and the low state of the sciences among the original

Peruvians.

The Druids were eminent above all the philosophic lawgivers of antiquity

for their care in impressing the doctrine of the soul's immortality on

the minds of their people, as an operative and leading principle. This

doctrine was inculcated on the scheme of Transmigration, which some

imagine them to have derived from Pythagoras. But it is by no means

necessary to resort to any particular teacher for an opinion which owes

its birth to the weak struggles of unenlightened reason, and to mistakes

natural to the human mind. The idea of the soul's immortality is indeed

ancient, universal, and in a manner inherent in our nature; but it is

not easy for a rude people to conceive any other mode of existence than

one similar to what they had experienced in life, nor any other world as

the scene of such an existence but this we inhabit, beyond the bounds of

which the mind extends itself with great difficulty. Admiration, indeed,

was able to exalt to heaven a few selected heroes: it did not seem

absurd that those who in their mortal state had distinguished themselves

as superior and overruling spirits should after death ascend to that

sphere which influences and governs everything below, or that the proper

abode of beings at once so illustrious and permanent should be in that

part of Nature in which they had always observed the greatest splendor

and the least mutation. But on ordinary occasions it was natural some

should imagine that the dead retired into a remote country, separated

from the living by seas or mountains. It was natural that some should

follow their imagination with a simplicity still purer, and pursue the

souls of men no further than the sepulchres in which their bodies had

been deposited;[8] whilst others of deeper penetration, observing that

bodies worn out by age or destroyed by accident still afforded the

materials for generating new ones, concluded likewise that a soul being

dislodged did not wholly perish, but was destined, by a similar

revolution in Nature, to act again, and to animate some other body. This

last principle gave rise to the doctrine of Transmigration: but we must

not presume of course, that, where it prevailed, it necessarily excluded

the other opinions; for it is not remote from the usual procedure of the

human mind, blending in obscure matters imagination and reasoning

together, to unite ideas the most inconsistent. When Homer represents

the ghosts of his heroes appearing at the sacrifices of Ulysses, he

supposes them endued with life, sensation, and a capacity of moving; but

he has joined to these powers of living existence uncomeliness, want of

strength, want of distinction, the characteristics of a dead carcass.

This is what the mind is apt to do: it is very apt to confound the ideas

of the surviving soul and the dead body. The vulgar have always and

still do confound these very irreconcilable ideas. They lay the scene of

apparitions in churchyards; they habit the ghost in a shroud; and it

appears in all the ghastly paleness of a corpse. A contradiction of this

kind has given rise to a doubt whether the Druids did in reality hold

the doctrine of Transmigration. There is positive testimony that they

did hold it; there is also testimony as positive that they buried or

burned with the dead utensils, arms, slaves, and whatever might be

judged useful to them, as if they were to be removed into a separate

state. They might have held both these opinions; and we ought not to be

surprised to find error inconsistent.

The objects of the Druid worship were many. In this respect they did not

differ from other heathens: but it must be owned that in general their

ideas of divine matters were more exalted than those of the Greeks and

Romans, and that they did not fall into an idolatry so coarse and

vulgar. That their gods should be represented under a human form they

thought derogatory to beings uncreated and imperishable. To confine what

can endure no limits within walls and roofs they judged absurd and

impious. In these particulars there was something refined and suitable

enough to a just idea of the Divinity. But the rest was not equal. Some

notions they had, like the greatest part of mankind, of a Being eternal

and infinite; but they also, like the greatest part of mankind, paid

their worship to inferior objects, from the nature of ignorance and

superstition always tending downwards.

The first and chief objects of their worship were the elements,--and of

the elements, fire, as the most pure, active, penetrating, and what

gives life and energy to all the rest. Among fires, the preference was

given to the sun, as the most glorious visible being, and the fountain

of all life. Next they venerated the moon and the planets. After fire,

water was held in reverence. This, when pure, and ritually prepared, was

supposed to wash away all sins, and to qualify the priest to approach

the altar of the gods with more acceptable prayers: washing with water

being a type natural enough of inward cleansing and purity of mind.

They also worshipped fountains and lakes and rivers.

Oaks were regarded by this sect with a particular veneration, as, by

their greatness, their shade, their stability, and duration, not ill

representing the perfections of the Deity. From the great reverence in

which they held this tree, it is thought their name of Druids is

derived: the word Deru, in the Celtic language, signifying an oak. But

their reverence was not wholly confined to this tree. All forests were

held sacred; and many particular plants were respected, as endued with a

particular holiness. No plant was more revered than the mistletoe,

especially if it grew on the oak,--not only because it is rarely found

upon that tree, but because the oak was among the Druids peculiarly

sacred. Towards the end of the year they searched for this plant, and

when it was found great rejoicing ensued; it was approached with,

reverence; it was cut with a golden hook; it was not suffered to fall to

the ground, but received with great care and solemnity upon a white

garment.

In ancient times, and in all countries, the profession of physic was

annexed to the priesthood. Men imagined that all their diseases were

inflicted by the immediate displeasure of the Deity, and therefore

concluded that the remedy would most probably proceed from those who

were particularly employed in his service. Whatever, for the same

reason, was found of efficacy to avert or cure distempers was considered

as partaking somewhat of the Divinity. Medicine was always joined with

magic: no remedy was administered without mysterious ceremony and

incantation. The use of plants and herbs, both in medicinal and magical

practices, was early and general. The mistletoe, pointed out by its very

peculiar appearance and manner of growth, must have struck powerfully on

the imaginations of a superstitious people. Its virtues may have been

soon discovered. It has been fully proved, against the opinion of

Celsus, that internal remedies were of very early use.[9] Yet if it had

not, the practice of the present savage nations supports the probability

of that opinion. By some modern authors the mistletoe is said to be of

signal service in the cure of certain convulsive distempers, which, by

their suddenness, their violence, and their unaccountable symptoms, have

been ever considered as supernatural. The epilepsy was by the Romans for

that reason called _morbus sacer_; and all other nations have regarded

it in the same light. The Druids also looked upon vervain, and some

other plants, as holy, and probably for a similar reason.

The other objects of the Druid worship were chiefly serpents, in the

animal world, and rude heaps of stone, or great pillars without polish

or sculpture, in the inanimate. The serpent, by his dangerous qualities,

is not ill adapted to inspire terror,--by his annual renewals, to raise

admiration,--by his make, easily susceptible of many figures, to serve

for a variety of symbols,--and by all, to be an object of religious

observance: accordingly, no object of idolatry has been more

universal.[10] And this is so natural, that serpent-veneration seems to

be rising again, even in the bosom of Mahometanism.[11]

The great stones, it has been supposed, were originally monuments of

illustrious men, or the memorials of considerable actions,--or they were

landmarks for deciding the bounds of fixed property. In time the memory

of the persons or facts which these stones were erected to perpetuate

wore away; but the reverence which custom, and probably certain

periodical ceremonies, had preserved for those places was not so soon

obliterated. The monuments themselves then came to be venerated,--and

not the less because the reason for venerating them was no longer known.

The landmark was in those times held sacred on account of its great

uses, and easily passed into an object of worship. Hence the god

Terminus amongst the Romans. This religious observance towards rude

stones is one of the most ancient and universal of all customs. Traces

of it are to be found in almost all, and especially in these Northern

nations; and to this day, in Lapland, where heathenism is not yet

entirely extirpated, their chief divinity, which they call

_Storjunkare,_ is nothing more than a rude stone.[12]

Some writers among the moderns, because the Druids ordinarily made no

use of images in their worship, have given into an opinion that their

religion was founded on the unity of the Godhead. But this is no just

consequence. The spirituality of the idea, admitting their idea to have

been spiritual, does not infer the unity of the object. All the ancient

authors who speak of this order agree, that, besides those great and

more distinguishing objects of their worship already mentioned they had

gods answerable to those adored by the Romans. And we know that the

Northern nations, who overran the Roman Empire, had in fact a great

plurality of gods, whose attributes, though not their names, bore a

close analogy to the idols of the Southern world.

The Druids performed the highest act of religion by sacrifice, agreeably

to the custom of all other nations. They not only offered up beasts, but

even human victims: a barbarity almost universal in the heathen world,

but exercised more uniformly, and with circumstances of peculiar

cruelty, amongst those nations where the religion of the Druids

prevailed. They held that the life of a man was the only atonement for

the life of a man. They frequently inclosed a number of wretches, some

captives, some criminals, and, when these were wanting, even innocent

victims, in a gigantic statue of wicker-work, to which they set fire,

and invoked their deities amidst the horrid cries and shrieks of the

sufferers, and the shouts of those who assisted at this tremendous rite.

There were none among the ancients more eminent for all the arts of

divination than the Druids. Many of the superstitious practices in use

to this day among the country people for discovering their future

fortune seem to be remains of Druidism. Futurity is the great concern of

mankind. Whilst the wise and learned look back upon experience and

history, and reason from things past about events to come, it is natural

for the rude and ignorant, who have the same desires without the same

reasonable means of satisfaction, to inquire into the secrets of

futurity, and to govern their conduct by omens, dreams, and prodigies.

The Druids, as well as the Etruscan and Roman priesthood, attended with

diligence the flight of birds, the pecking of chickens, and the entrails

of their animal sacrifices. It was obvious that no contemptible

prognostics of the weather were to be taken from certain motions and

appearances in birds and beasts.[13] A people who lived mostly in the

open air must have been well skilled in these observations. And as

changes in the weather influenced much the fortune of their huntings or

their harvests, which were all their fortunes, it was easy to apply the

same prognostics to every event by a transition very natural and common;

and thus probably arose the science of auspices, which formerly guided

the deliberations of councils and the motions of armies, though now they

only serve, and scarcely serve, to amuse the vulgar.

The Druid temple is represented to have been nothing more than a

consecrated wood. The ancients speak of no other. But monuments remain

which show that the Druids were not in this respect wholly confined to

groves. They had also a species of building which in all probability was

destined to religious use. This sort of structure was, indeed, without

walls or roof. It was a colonnade, generally circular, of huge, rude

stones, sometimes single, sometimes double, sometimes with, often

without, an architrave. These open temples were not in all respects

peculiar to the Northern nations. Those of the Greeks, which were

dedicated to the celestial gods, ought in strictness to have had no

roof, and were thence called _hypæthra_.[14]

Many of these monuments remain in the British islands, curious for

their antiquity, or astonishing for the greatness of the work: enormous

masses of rock, so poised as to be set in motion with the slightest

touch, yet not to be pushed from their place by a very great power; vast

altars, peculiar and mystical in their structure, thrones, basins, heaps

or cairns; and a variety of other works, displaying a wild industry, and

a strange mixture of ingenuity and rudeness. But they are all worthy of

attention,--not only as such monuments often clear up the darkness and

supply the defects of history, but as they lay open a noble field of

speculation for those who study the changes which have happened in the

manners, opinions, and sciences of men, and who think them as worthy of

regard as the fortune of wars and the revolutions of kingdoms.

The short account which I have here given does not contain the whole of

what is handed down to us by ancient writers, or discovered by modern

research, concerning this remarkable order. But I have selected those

which appear to me the most striking features, and such as throw the

strongest light on the genius and true character of the Druidical

institution. In some respects it was undoubtedly very singular; it stood

out more from the body of the people than the priesthood of other

nations; and their knowledge and policy appeared the more striking by

being contrasted with the great simplicity and rudeness of the people

over whom they presided. But, notwithstanding some peculiar appearances

and practices, it is impossible not to perceive a great conformity

between this and the ancient orders which have been established for the

purposes of religion in almost all countries. For, to say nothing of the

resemblance which many have traced between this and the Jewish

priesthood, the Persian Magi, and the Indian Brahmans, it did not so

greatly differ from the Roman priesthood, either in the original objects

or in the general mode of worship, or in the constitution of their

hierarchy. In the original institution neither of these nations had the

use of images; the rules of the Salian as well as Druid discipline were

delivered in verse; both orders were under an elective head; and both

were for a long time the lawyers of their country. So that, when the

order of Druids was suppressed by the Emperors, it was rather from a

dread of an influence incompatible with the Roman government than from

any dislike of their religious opinions.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _Digest. Lib. I. Tit. ii. De Origine et Progressu Juris, § 6._

[8] Cic. Tusc. Quest. Lib. I

[9] See this point in the Divine Legation of Moses.

[10] Παρὰ παντὶ νομιζομίνων παρ' ὑμῖν θεῶν ὄφις σύμβολον μέγα καὶ

μιστήριον ἀναγράφεται--Justin Martyr, in Stillingfleet's Origines Sacræ.

[11] Norden's Travels.

[12] Scheffer's Lapland, p. 92, the translation.

[13] Cic. de Divinatione, Lib. I.

[14] Decor.... perficitur statione,.... cum Jovi Fulguri, et Cœlo, et

Soli, et Lunæ ædificia sub divo hypæthraque constituentur. Horum enim

deorum et species et effectus in aperto mundo atque lucenti præsentes

videmus.--Vitruv. de Architect. p. 6. de Laet. Antwerp.

CHAPTER III.

THE REDUCTION OF BRITAIN BY THE ROMANS.

The death of Cæsar, and the civil wars which ensued, afforded foreign

nations some respite from the Roman ambition. Augustus, having restored

peace to mankind, seems to have made it a settled maxim of his reign not

to extend the Empire. He found himself at the head of a new monarchy;

and he was more solicitous to confirm it by the institutions of sound

policy than to extend the bounds of its dominion. In consequence of this

plan Britain was neglected.

Tiberius came a regular successor to an established government. But his

politics were dictated rather by his character than his situation. He

was a lawful prince, and he acted on the maxims of an usurper. Having

made it a rule never to remove far from the capital, and jealous of

every reputation which seemed too great for the measure of a subject, he

neither undertook any enterprise of moment in his own person nor cared

to commit the conduct of it to another. There was little in a British

triumph that could affect a temper like that of Tiberius.

His successor, Caligula, was not influenced by this, nor indeed by any

regular system; for, having undertaken an expedition to Britain without

any determinate view, he abandoned it on the point of execution without

reason. And adding ridicule to his disgrace, his soldiers returned to

Rome loaded with shells. These spoils he displayed as the ornaments of a

triumph which he celebrated over the Ocean,--if in all these particulars

we may trust to the historians of that time, who relate things almost

incredible of the folly of their masters and the patience of the Roman

people.

But the Roman people, however degenerate, still retained much of their

martial spirit; and as the Emperors held their power almost entirely by

the affection of the soldiery, they found themselves often obliged to

such enterprises as might prove them no improper heads of a military

constitution. An expedition to Britain was well adapted to answer all

the purposes of this ostentatious policy. The country was remote and

little known, so that every exploit there, as if achieved in another

world, appeared at Rome with double pomp and lustre; whilst the sea,

which divided Britain from the continent, prevented a failure in that

island from being followed by any consequences alarming to the body of

the Empire. A pretext was not wanting to this war. The maritime Britons,

while the terror of the Roman arms remained fresh, upon their minds,

continued regularly to pay the tribute imposed by Cæsar. But the

generation which experienced that war having passed away, that which

succeeded felt the burden, but knew from rumor only the superiority

which had imposed it; and being very ignorant, as of all things else, so

of the true extent of the Roman power, they were not afraid to provoke

it by discontinuing the payment of the tribute.

[Sidenote: A.D. 43]

This gave occasion to the Emperor Claudius, ninety-seven years after the

first expedition of Cæsar, to invade Britain in person, and with a great

army. But he, having rather surveyed than conducted the war, left in a

short time the management of it to his legate, Plautius, who subdued

without much difficulty those countries which lay to the southward of

the Thames, the best cultivated and most accessible parts of the island.

But the inhabitants of the rough inland countries, the people called

Cattivellauni, made a more strenuous opposition. They were under the

command of Caractacus, a chief of great and just renown amongst all the

British nations. This leader wisely adjusted his conduct of the war to

the circumstances of his savage subjects and his rude country. Plautius

obtained no decisive advantages over him. He opposed Ostorius Scapula,

who succeeded that general, with the same bravery, but with unequal

success; for he was, after various turns of fortune, obliged to abandon

his dominions, which Ostorius at length subdued and disarmed.

This bulwark of the British freedom being overturned, Ostorius was not

afraid to enlarge his plan. Not content with disarming the enemies of

Rome, he proceeded to the same extremities with those nations who had

been always quiet, and who, under the name of an alliance, lay ripening

for subjection. This fierce people, who looked upon their arms as their

only valuable possessions, refused to submit to terms as severe as the

most absolute conquest could impose. They unanimously entered into a

league against the Romans. But their confederacy was either not

sufficiently strong or fortunate to resist so able a commander, and only

afforded him an opportunity, from a more comprehensive victory, to

extend the Roman province a considerable way to the northern and western

parts of the island. The frontiers of this acquisition, which extended

along the rivers Severn and Nen, he secured by a chain of forts and

stations; the inland parts he quieted by the settlement of colonies of

his veteran troops at Maldon and Verulam: and such was the beginning of

those establishments which afterwards became so numerous in Britain.

This commander was the first who traced in this island a plan of

settlement and civil policy to concur with his military operations. For,

after he had settled these colonies, considering with what difficulty

any and especially an uncivilized people are broke into submission to a

foreign government, he imposed it on some of the most powerful of the

British nations in a more indirect manner. He placed them under kings of

their own race; and whilst he paid this compliment to their pride, he

secured their obedience by the interested fidelity of a prince who knew,

that, as he owed the beginning, so he depended for the duration of his

authority wholly upon their favor. Such was the dignity and extent of

the Roman policy, that they could number even royalty itself amongst

their instruments of servitude.

Ostorius did not confine himself within the boundaries of these rivers.

He observed that the Silures, inhabitants of South Wales, one of the

most martial tribes in Britain, were yet unhurt and almost untouched by

the war. He could expect to make no progress to the northward, whilst an

enemy of such importance hung upon his rear,--especially as they were

now commanded by Caractacus, who preserved the spirit of a prince,

though he had lost his dominions, and fled from nation to nation,

wherever he could find a banner erected against the Romans. His

character obtained him reception and command.

[Sidenote: A.D. 51]

Though the Silures, thus headed, did everything that became their

martial reputation, both in the choice and defence of their posts, the

Romans, by their discipline and the weight and excellence of their arms,

prevailed over the naked bravery of this gallant people, and defeated

them in a great battle. Caractacus was soon after betrayed into their

hands, and conveyed to Rome. The merit of the prisoner was the sole

ornament of a triumph celebrated over an indigent people headed by a

gallant chief. The Romans crowded eagerly to behold the man who, with

inferior forces, and in an obscure corner of the world, had so many

years stood up against the weight of their empire.

As the arts of adulation improved in proportion as the real grandeur of

Rome declined, this advantage was compared to the greatest conquests in

the most flourishing times of the Republic: and so far as regarded the

personal merit of Caractacus, it could not be too highly rated. Being

brought before the emperor, he behaved with such manly fortitude, and

spoke of his former actions and his present condition with so much plain

sense and unaffected dignity, that he moved the compassion of the

emperor, who remitted much of that severity which the Romans formerly

exercised upon their captives. Rome was now a monarchy, and that fierce

republican spirit was abated which had neither feeling nor respect for

the character of unfortunate sovereigns.

The Silures were not reduced by the loss of Caractacus, and the great

defeat they had suffered. They resisted every measure of force or

artifice that could be employed against them, with the most generous

obstinacy: a resolution in which they were confirmed by some imprudent

words of the legate, threatening to extirpate, or, what appeared to them

scarcely less dreadful, to transplant their nation. Their natural

bravery thus hardened into despair, and inhabiting a country very

difficult of access, they presented an impenetrable barrier to the

progress of that commander; insomuch that, wasted with continual cares,

and with the mortification to find the end of his affairs so little

answerable to the splendor of their beginning, Ostorius died of grief,

and left all things in confusion.

The legates who succeeded to his charge did little more for about sixty

years than secure the frontiers of the Roman province. But in the

beginning of Nero's reign the command in Britain was devolved on

Suetonius Paulinus, a soldier of merit and experience, who, when he

came to view the theatre of his future operations, and had well

considered the nature of the country, discerned evidently that the war

must of necessity be protracted to a great length, if he should be

obliged to penetrate into every fastness to which the enemy retired, and

to combat their flying parties one by one. He therefore resolved to make

such a blow at the head as must of course disable all the inferior

members.

The island then called Mona, now Anglesey, at that time was the

principal residence of the Druids. Here their councils were held, and

their commands from hence were dispersed among all the British nations.

Paulinus proposed, in reducing this their favorite and sacred seat, to

destroy, or at least greatly to weaken, the body of the Druids, and

thereby to extinguish the great actuating principle of all the Celtic

people, and that which was alone capable of communicating order and

energy to their operations.

Whilst the Roman troops were passing that strait which divides this

island from the continent of Britain, they halted on a sudden,--not

checked by the resistance of the enemy, but suspended by a spectacle of

an unusual and altogether surprising nature. On every side of the

British army were seen bands of Druids in their most sacred habits

surrounding the troops, lifting their hands to heaven, devoting to death

their enemies, and animating their disciples to religious frenzy by the

uncouth ceremonies of a savage ritual, and the horrid mysteries of a

superstition familiar with blood. The female Druids also moved about in

a troubled order, their hair dishevelled, their garments torn, torches

in their hands, and, with an horror increased by the perverted softness

of their sex, howled out the same curses and incantations with greater

clamor.[15] Astonished at this sight, the Romans for some time neither

advanced nor returned the darts of the enemy. But at length, rousing

from their trance, and animating each other with the shame of yielding

to the impotence of female and fanatical fury, they found the resistance

by no means proportioned to the horror and solemnity of the

preparations. These overstrained efforts had, as frequently happens,

exhausted the spirits of the men, and stifled that ardor they were

intended to kindle. The Britons were defeated; and Paulinus, pretending

to detest the barbarity of their superstition, in reality from the

cruelty of his own nature, and that he might cut off the occasion of

future disturbances, exercised the most unjustifiable severities on this

unfortunate people. He burned the Druids in their own fires; and that no

retreat might be afforded to that order, their consecrated woods were

everywhere destroyed. Whilst he was occupied in this service, a general

rebellion broke out, which his severity to the Druids served rather to

inflame than allay.

From the manners of the republic a custom had been ingrafted into the

monarchy of Rome altogether unsuitable to that mode of government. In

the time of the Commonwealth, those who lived in a dependent and

cliental relation on the great men used frequently to show marks of

their acknowledgment by considerable bequests at their death. But when

all the scattered powers of that state became united in the emperor,

these legacies followed the general current, and flowed in upon the

common patron. In the will of every considerable person he inherited

with the children and relations, and such devises formed no

inconsiderable part of his revenue: a monstrous practice, which let an

absolute sovereign into all the private concerns of his subjects, and

which, by giving the prince a prospect of one day sharing in all the

great estates, whenever he was urged by avarice or necessity, naturally

pointed out a resource by an anticipation always in his power. This

practice extended into the provinces. A king of the Iceni[16] had

devised a considerable part of his substance to the emperor. But the

Roman procurator, not satisfied with entering into his master's portion,

seized upon the rest,--and pursuing his injustice to the most horrible

outrages, publicly scourged Boadicea, queen to the deceased prince, and

violated his daughters. These cruelties, aggravated by the shame and

scorn that attended them,--the general severity of the government,--the

taxes, (new to a barbarous people,) laid on without discretion, extorted

without mercy, and, even when respited, made utterly ruinous by

exorbitant usury,--the farther mischiefs they had to dread, when more

completely reduced,--all these, with, the absence of the legate and the

army on a remote expedition, provoked all the tribes of the Britons,

provincials, allies, enemies, to a general insurrection. The command of

this confederacy was conferred on Boadicea, as the first in rank, and

resentment of injuries. They began by cutting off a Roman legion; then

they fell upon the colonies of Camelodunum and Verulam, and with a

barbarous fury butchered the Romans and their adherents to the number of

seventy thousand.

An end had been now put to the Roman power in this island, if Paulinus,

with unexampled vigor and prudence, had not conducted his army through

the midst of the enemy's country from Anglesey to London. There uniting

the soldiers that remained dispersed in different garrisons, he formed

an army of ten thousand men, and marched to attack the enemy in the

height of their success and security. The army of the Britons is said to

have amounted to two hundred and thirty thousand; but it was ill

composed, and without choice or order,--women, boys, old men,

priests,--full of presumption, tumult, and confusion. Boadicea was at

their head,--a woman of masculine spirit, but precipitant, and without

any military knowledge.

The event was such as might have been expected. Paulinus, having chosen

a situation favorable to the smallness of his numbers, and encouraged

his troops not to dread a multitude whose weight was dangerous only to

themselves, piercing into the midst of that disorderly crowd, after a

blind and furious resistance, obtained a complete victory. Eighty

thousand Britons fell in this battle.

[Sidenote: A.D. 61] Paulinus improved the terror this slaughter had

produced by the unparalleled severities which he exercised. This method

would probably have succeeded to subdue, but at the same time to

depopulate the nation, if such loud complaints had not been made at Rome

of the legate's cruelty as procured his recall.

Three successive legates carried on the affairs of Britain during the

latter part of Nero's reign, and during the troubles occasioned by the

disputed succession. But they were all of an inactive character. The

victory obtained by Paulinus had disabled the Britons from any new

attempt. Content, therefore, with recovering the Roman province, these

generals compounded, as it were, with the enemy for the rest of the

island. They caressed the troops; they indulged them in their

licentiousness; and not being of a character to repress the seditions

that continually arose, they submitted to preserve their ease and some

shadow of authority by sacrificing the most material parts of it. And

thus they continued, soldiers and commanders, by a sort of compact, in a

common neglect of all duty on the frontiers of the Empire, in the face

of a bold and incensed enemy.

[Sidenote: A.D. 69]

[Sidenote: A.D. 71]

But when Vespasian arrived to the head of affairs, he caused the vigor

of his government to be felt in Britain, as he had done in all the other

parts of the Empire. He was not afraid to receive great services. His

legates, Cerealis and Frontinus, reduced the Silures and Brigantes,--one

the most warlike, the other the most numerous people in the island. But

its final reduction and perfect settlement were reserved for Julius

Agricola, a man by whom, it was a happiness for the Britons to be

conquered. He was endued with all those bold and popular virtues which

would have given him the first place in the times of the free Republic;

and he joined to them all that reserve and moderation which enabled him

to fill great offices with safety, and made him a good subject under a

jealous despotism.

[Sidenote: A.D. 84.]

Though the summer was almost spent when he arrived in Britain, knowing

how much the vigor and success of the first stroke influences all

subsequent measures, he entered immediately into action. After reducing

some tribes, Mona became the principal object of his attention. The

cruel ravages of Paulinus had not entirely effaced the idea of sanctity

which the Britons by a long course of hereditary reverence had annexed

to that island: it became once more a place of consideration by the

return of the Druids. Here Agricola observed a conduct very different

from that of his predecessor, Paulinus: the island, when he had reduced

it, was treated with great lenity. Agricola was a man of humanity and

virtue: he pitied the condition and respected the prejudices of the

conquered. This behavior facilitated the progress of his arms, insomuch

that in less than two campaigns all the British nations comprehended in

what we now call England yielded themselves to the Roman government, as

soon as they found that peace was no longer to be considered as a

dubious blessing. Agricola carefully secured the obedience of the

conquered people by building forts and stations in the most important

and commanding places. Having taken these precautions for securing his

rear, he advanced northwards, and, penetrating into Caledonia as far as

the river Tay, he there built a _prætentura_, or line of forts, between

the two friths, which are in that place no more than twenty miles

asunder. The enemy, says Tacitus, was removed as it were into another

island. And this line Agricola seems to have destined as the boundary

of the Empire. For though in the following year he carried his arms

further, and, as it is thought, to the foot of the Grampian Mountains,

and there defeated a confederate army of the Caledonians, headed by

Galgacus, one of their most famous chiefs, yet he built no fort to the

northward of this line: a measure which he never omitted, when he

intended to preserve his conquests. The expedition of that summer was

probably designed only to disable the Caledonians from attempting

anything against this barrier. But he left them their mountains, their

arms, and their liberty: a policy, perhaps, not altogether worthy of so

able a commander. He might the more easily have completed the conquest

of the whole island by means of the fleet which he equipped to coöperate

with his land forces in that expedition. This fleet sailed quite round

Britain, which had not been before, by any certain proof, known to be an

island: a circumnavigation, in that immature state of naval skill, of

little less fame than a voyage round the globe in the present age.

In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great

labors of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the

legislator, and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honorable

which is only an introduction to tyranny. His first care was the

regulation of his household, which under former legates had been always

full of faction and intrigue, lay heavy on the province, and was as

difficult to govern. He never suffered his private partialities to

intrude into the conduct of public business, nor in appointing to

employments did he permit solicitation to supply the place of merit,

wisely sensible that a proper choice of officers is almost the whole of

government. He eased the tribute of the province, not so much by

reducing it in quantity as by cutting off all those vexatious practices

which attended the levying of it, far more grievous than the imposition

itself. Every step in securing the subjection of the conquered country

was attended with the utmost care in providing for its peace and

internal order. Agricola reconciled the Britons to the Roman government

by reconciling them to the Roman manners. He moulded that fierce nation

by degrees to soft and social customs, leading them imperceptibly into a

fondness for baths, for gardens, for grand houses, and all the

commodious elegancies of a cultivated life. He diffused a grace and

dignity over this new luxury by the introduction of literature. He

invited instructors in all the arts and sciences from Rome; and he sent

the principal youth of Britain to that city to be educated at his own

expense. In short, he subdued the Britons by civilizing them, and made

them exchange a savage liberty for a polite and easy subjection. His

conduct is the most perfect model for those employed in the unhappy, but

sometimes necessary task, of subduing a rude and free people.

Thus was Britain, after a struggle of fifty-four years, entirely bent

under the yoke, and moulded into the Roman Empire. How so stubborn an

opposition, could have been so long maintained against the greatest

power on earth by a people ill armed, worse united, without revenues,

without discipline, has justly been deemed an object of wonder. Authors

are generally contented with attributing it to the extraordinary bravery

of the ancient Britons. But certainly the Britons fought with armies as

brave as the world ever saw, with superior discipline, and more

plentiful resources.

To account for this opposition, we must have recourse to the general

character of the Roman politics at this time. War, during this period,

was carried on upon principles very different from, those that actuated

the Republic. Then one uniform spirit animated one body through whole

ages. With whatever state they were engaged, the war was so prosecuted

as if the republic could not subsist, unless that particular enemy were

totally destroyed. But when the Roman dominion had arrived to as great

an extent as could well be managed, and that the ruling power had more

to fear from disaffection to the government than from enmity to the

Empire, with regard to foreign affairs common rules and a moderate

policy took place. War became no more than a sort of exercise for the

Roman forces.[17] Even whilst they were declaring war they looked

towards an accommodation, and were satisfied with reasonable terms when

they concluded it. Their politics were more like those of the present

powers of Europe, where kingdoms seek rather to spread their influence

than to extend their dominion, to awe and weaken rather than to destroy.

Under unactive and jealous princes the Roman legates seldom dared to

push the advantages they had gained far enough to produce a dangerous

reputation.[18] They wisely stopped, when they came to the verge of

popularity. And these emperors fearing as much from the generals as

their generals from them, such frequent changes were made in the

command that the war was never systematically carried on. Besides, the

change of emperors (and their reigns were not long) almost always

brought on a change of measures; and the councils even of the same reign

were continually fluctuating, as opposite court factions happened to

prevail. Add to this, that during the commotions which followed the

death of Nero the contest for the purple turned the eyes of the world

from every other object. All persons of consequence interested

themselves in the success of some of the contending parties; and the

legates in Britain, suspended in expectation of the issue of such mighty

quarrels, remained unactive till it could be determined for what master

they were to conquer.

On the side of the Roman government these seem to have been some of the

causes which so long protracted the fate of Britain. Others arose from

the nature of the country itself, and from the manners of its

inhabitants. The country was then extremely woody and full of morasses.

There were originally no roads. The motion of armies was therefore

difficult, and communication in many cases impracticable. There were no

cities, no towns, no places of cantonment for soldiers; so that the

Roman forces were obliged to come into the field late and to leave it

early in the season. They had no means to awe the enemy, and to prevent

their machinations during the winter. Every campaign they had nearly the

same work to begin. When a civilized nation suffers some great defeat,

and loses some place critically situated, such is the mutual dependence

of the several parts by commerce, and by the orders of a well-regulated

community, that the whole is easily secured. A long-continued state of

war is unnatural to such a nation. They abound with artisans, with

traders, and a number of settled and unwarlike people, who are less

disturbed in their ordinary course by submitting to almost any power

than in a long opposition; and as this character diffuses itself through

the whole nation, they find it impossible to carry on a war, when they

are deprived of the usual resources. But in a country like ancient

Britain there are as many soldiers as inhabitants. They unite and

disperse with ease. They require no pay nor formal subsistence; and the

hardships of an irregular war are not very remote from their ordinary

course of life. Victories are easily obtained over such a rude people,

but they are rarely decisive; and the final conquest becomes a work of

time and patience. All that can be done is to facilitate communication

by roads, and to secure the principal avenues and the most remarkable

posts on the navigable rivers by forts and stations. To conquer the

people, you must subdue the nature of the country. The Romans at length

effected this; but until this was done, they never were able to make a

perfect conquest.

I shall now add something concerning the government the Romans settled

here, and of those methods which they used to preserve the conquered

people under an entire subjection. Those nations who had either

passively permitted or had been instrumental in the conquest of their

fellow-Britons were dignified with the title of allies, and thereby

preserved their possessions, laws, and magistrates: they were subject to

no kind of charge or tribute. But as their league was not equal, and

that they were under the protection, of a superior power, they were

entirely divested of the right of war and peace; and in many cases an

appeal lay to Rome in consequence of their subordinate and dependent

situation. This was the lightest species of subjection; and it was

generally no more than a step preparatory to a stricter government.

The condition of those towns and communities called _municipia_, by

their being more closely united to the greater state, seemed to partake

a degree less of independence. They were adopted citizens of Rome; but

whatever was detracted from their ancient liberty was compensated by a

more or less complete possession of the privileges which constituted a

Roman city, according to the merits which had procured their adoption.

These cities were models of Rome in little; their courts and magistrates

were the same; and though they were at liberty to retain their old laws,

and to make new at their pleasure, they commonly conformed to those of

Rome. The _municipia_ were not subject to tribute.

When a whole people had resisted the Roman power with great obstinacy,

had displayed a readiness to revolt upon every occasion, and had

frequently broken their faith, they were reduced into what the Romans

called the form of a province: that is, they lost their laws, their

liberties, their magistrates; they forfeited the greatest part of their

lands; and they paid a heavy tribute for what they were permitted to

retain.

In these provinces the supreme government was in the prætor sent by the

senate, who commanded the army, and in his own person exercised the

judicial power. Where the sphere of his government was large, he deputed

his legates to that employment, who judged according to the standing

laws of the republic, aided by those occasional declarations of law

called the prætorial edicts. The care of the revenue was in the quæstor.

He was appointed to that office in Rome; but when he acted in a judicial

capacity, it was always by commission from the prætor of the

province.[19] Between these magistrates and all others who had any share

in the provincial government the Roman manners had established a kind of

sacred relation, as inviolable as that of blood.[20] All the officers

were taught to look up to the prætor as their father, and to regard each

other as brethren: a firm and useful bond of concord in a virtuous

administration; a dangerous and oppressive combination in a bad one.

But, like all the Roman institutions, it operated strongly towards its

principal purpose, the security of dominion, which is by nothing so much

exposed as the factions and competitions of the officers, when the

governing party itself gives the first example of disobedience.

On the overthrow of the Commonwealth, a remarkable revolution ensued in

the power and the subordination of these magistrates. For, as the prince

came alone to possess all that was by a proper title either imperial or

prætorial authority, the ancient prætors dwindled into his legates, by

which the splendor and importance of that dignity were much diminished.

The business of the quæstor at this time seems to have been transferred

to the emperor's procurator. The whole of the public revenue became part

of the fisc, and was considered as the private estate of the prince. But

the old office under this new appellation rose in proportion as the

prætorship had declined. For the procurator seems to have drawn to

himself the cognizance of all civil, while capital cases alone were

reserved for the judgment of the legate.[21] And though his power was at

first restrained within narrow bounds, and all his judgments were

subject to a review and reversal by the prætor and the senate, he

gradually grew into independence of both, and was at length by Claudius

invested with a jurisdiction absolutely uncontrollable. Two causes, I

imagine, joined to produce this change: first, the sword was in the

hands of the legate; the policy of the emperors, in order to balance

this dangerous authority, thought too much weight could not be thrown

into the scale of the procurator: secondly, as the government was now

entirely despotical, a connection between the inferior officers of the

empire and the senate[22] was found to shock the reason of that absolute

mode of government, which extends the sovereign power in all its fulness

to every officer in his own district, and renders him accountable to his

master alone for the abuse of it.

The veteran soldiers were always thought entitled to a settlement in the

country which had been subdued by their valor. The whole legion, with

the tribunes, the centurions, and all the subordinate officers, were

seated on an allotted portion of the conquered lands, which were

distributed among them according to their rank. These colonies were

disposed throughout the conquered country, so as to sustain each other,

to surround the possessions that were left to the conquered, to mix with

the _municipia_ or free towns, and to overawe the allies. Rome extended

herself by her colonies into every part of her empire, and was

everywhere present. I speak here only of the military colonies, because

no other, I imagine, were ever settled in Britain.

There were few countries of any considerable extent in which all these

different modes of government and different shades and gradations of

servitude did not exist together. There were allies, _municipia_,

provinces, and colonies in this island, as elsewhere; and those

dissimilar parts, far from being discordant, united to make a firm and

compact body, the motion of any member of which could only serve to

confirm and establish the whole; and when time was given to this

structure to coalesce and settle, it was found impossible to break any

part of it from the Empire.

By degrees the several parts blended and softened into one another. And

as the remembrance of enmity, on the one hand, wore away by time, so, on

the other, the privileges of the Roman citizens at length became less

valuable. When, nothing throughout so vast an extent of the globe was of

consideration but a single man, there was no reason to make any

distinction amongst his subjects. Claudius first gave the full rights of

the city to all the Gauls. Under Antoninus Rome opened her gates still

wider. All the subjects of the Empire were made partakers of the same

common rights. The provincials flocked in; even slaves were no sooner

enfranchised than they were advanced to the highest posts; and the plan

of comprehension, which had overturned the republic, strengthened the

monarchy.

Before the partitions were thus broken down, in order to support the

Empire, and to prevent commotions, they had a custom of sending spies

into all the provinces, where, if they discovered any provincial laying

himself out for popularity, they were sure of finding means, for they

scrupled none, to repress him. It was not only the prætor, with his

train of lictors and apparitors, the rods and the axes, and all the

insolent parade of a conqueror's jurisdiction; every private Roman

seemed a kind of magistrate: they took cognizance of all their words and

actions, and hourly reminded them of that jealous and stern authority,

so vigilant to discover and so severe to punish the slightest deviations

from obedience.

As they had framed the action _de pecuniis repetundis_ against the

avarice and rapacity of the provincial governors, they made at length a

law[23] which, one may say, was against their virtues. For they

prohibited them from receiving addresses of thanks on their

administration, or any other public mark of acknowledgment, lest they

should come to think that their merit or demerit consisted in the good

or ill opinion of the people over whom they ruled. They dreaded either a

relaxation of government, or a dangerous influence in the legate, from

the exertion of an humanity too popular.

These are some of the civil and political methods by which the Romans

held their dominion over conquered nations; but even in peace they kept

up a great military establishment. They looked upon the interior country

to be sufficiently secured by the colonies; their forces were therefore

generally quartered on the frontiers. There they had their _stativa_, or

stations, which were strong intrenched camps, many of them fitted even

for a winter residence. The communication between these camps, the

colonies, and the municipal towns was formed by great roads, which they

called military ways. The two principal of these ran in almost straight

lines, the whole length of England, from north to south. Two others

intersected them from east to west. The remains show them to have been

in their perfection noble works, in all respects worthy the Roman

military prudence and the majesty of the Empire. The Anglo-Saxons called

them streets.[24] Of all the Roman works, they respected and kept up

these alone. They regarded them, with a sort of sacred reverence,

granting them a peculiar protection and great immunities. Those who

travelled on them were privileged from arrests in all civil suits.

As the general character of the Roman government was hard and austere,

it was particularly so in what regarded the revenue. This revenue was

either fixed or occasional. The fixed consisted, first, of an annual tax

on persons and lands, but in what proportion to the fortunes of the one

or the value of the other I have not been able to ascertain. Next was

the imposition called _decuma_, which consisted of a tenth, and often a

greater portion of the corn of the province, which was generally

delivered in kind. Of all other products a fifth was paid. After this

tenth had been exacted on the corn, they were obliged to sell another

tenth, or a more considerable part, to the prætor, at a price estimated

by himself. Even what remained was still subject to be bought up in the

some manner, and at the pleasure of the same magistrate, who,

independent of these taxes and purchases, received for the use of his

household a large portion of the corn of the province. The most valuable

of the pasture grounds were also reserved to the public, and a

considerable revenue was thence derived, which they called _scriptura_.

The state made a monopoly of almost the whole produce of the land, which

paid several taxes, and was further enhanced by passing through several

hands before it came to popular consumption.

The third great branch of the Roman revenue was the _portorium_, which

did not differ from those impositions which we now call customs and

duties of export and import.

This was the ordinary revenue; besides which there were occasional

impositions for shipping, for military stores and provisions, and for

defraying the expense of the prætor and his legates on the various

circuits they made for the administration of the province. This last

charge became frequently a means of great oppression, and several ways

were from time to time attempted, but with little effect, to confine it

within reasonable bounds.[25] Amongst the extraordinary impositions must

be reckoned the obligation they laid on the provincials to labor at the

public works, after the manner of what the French call the _corvée_, and

we term statute-labor.

As the provinces, burdened by the ordinary charges, were often in no

condition of levying these occasional taxes, they were obliged to borrow

at interest. Interest was then to communities at the same exorbitant

rate as to individuals. No province was free from a most onerous public

debt; and that debt was far from operating like the same engagement

contracted in modern states, by which, as the creditor is thrown into

the power of the debtor, they often add considerably to their strength,

and to the number and attachment of their dependants. The prince in this

latter case borrows from a subject or from a stranger. The one becomes

more the subject, and the other less a stranger. But in the Roman

provinces the subject borrowed from his master, and he thereby doubled

his slavery. The overgrown favorites and wealthy nobility of Rome

advanced money to the provincials; and they were in a condition both to

prescribe the terms of the loan and to enforce the payment. The

provinces groaned at once under all the severity of public imposition

and the rapaciousness of private usury. They were overrun by publicans,

farmers of the taxes, agents, confiscators, usurers, bankers, those

numerous and insatiable bodies which always flourish in a burdened and

complicated revenue. In a word, the taxes in the Roman Empire were so

heavy, and in many respects so injudiciously laid on, that they have

been not improperly considered as one cause of its decay and ruin. The

Roman government, to the very last, carried something of the spirit of

conquest in it; and this system of taxes seems rather calculated for the

utter impoverishment of nations, in whom a long subjection had not worn

away the remembrance of enmity, than for the support of a just

commonwealth.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] There is a curious instance of a ceremony not unlike this in a

fragment of an ancient Runic history, which it may not be disagreeable

to compare with this part of the British manners. "Ne vero regent ex

improviso adoriretur Ulafus, admoto sacculo suo, eundem quatere

cœpit, carmen simul magicum obmurmurans, hac verborum formula:

Duriter increpetur cum tonitru; stringant Cyclopia tela; injiciant manum

Parcæ; ... acriter excipient monticolæ genii plurimi, atque gigantes ...

contundent; quatient; procellæ ..., disrumpent lapides navigium

ejus...."--Hickesii Thesaur. Vol. II. p. 140.

[16] Inhabitants of Norfolk and Suffolk.

[17] Rem Romanam huc satietate gloriæ provectam, ut externis quoque

gentibus quietem velit.--Tacit. Annal. XII. 11.

[18] Nam duces, ubi impetrando triumphalium insigni sufficere res suas

crediderant, hostam omittebant.--Tacit. Annal. IV. 23.

[19] Sigonii de Antiquo Jure Provinciarum, Lib. 1 and 2.

[20] Cic. in Verrem, I.

[21] Duobus insuper inserviendum tyrannis; quorum legatus in sanguinem,

procurator in bona sæviret--Tacit. Annal. XII. 60.

[22] Ne vim principatus resolveret cuncta ad senatum vocando, eam

conditionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si uni

reddatur.--Tacit. Annal. I. 6.

[23] Tacit. Annal. XV. 21, 22.

[24] The four roads they called Watling Street, Ikenild Street, Ermin

Street, and the Fosseway.

[25] Cod. lib. XII. Tit. lxii.

CHAPTER IV.

THE FALL OF THE ROMAN POWER IN BRITAIN.

[Sidenote: A.D. 117.]

After the period which we have just closed, no mention is made of the

affairs of Britain until the reign of Adrian. At that time was wrought

the first remarkable change in the exterior policy of Rome. Although

some of the emperors contented themselves with those limits which they

found at their accession, none before this prince had actually

contracted the bounds of the Empire: for, being more perfectly

acquainted with all the countries that composed it than any of his

predecessors, what was strong and what weak, and having formed to

himself a plan wholly defensive, he purposely abandoned several large

tracts of territory, that he might render what remained more solid and

compact.

[Sidenote: A.D. 121.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 140.]

This plan particularly affected Britain. All the conquests of Agricola

to the northward of the Tyne were relinquished, and a strong rampart was

built from the mouth of that river, on the east, to Solway Frith, on the

Irish Sea, a length of about eighty miles. But in the reign of his

successor, Antoninus Pius, other reasonings prevailed, and other

measures were pursued. The legate who then commanded in Britain,

concluding that the Caledonians would construe the defensive policy of

Adrian into fear, that they would naturally grow more numerous in a

larger territory, and more haughty when they saw it abandoned to them,

the frontier was again advanced to Agricola's second line, which

extended between the Friths of Forth and Clyde, and the stations which

had been established by that general were connected with a continued

wall.

[Sidenote: A.D. 207]

[Sidenote: A.D. 208]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209]

From this time those walls become the principal object in the British

history. The Caledonians, or (as they are called) the Picts, made very

frequent and sometimes successful attempts upon this barrier, taking

advantage more particularly of every change in government, whilst the

soldiery throughout the Empire were more intent upon the choice of a

master than the motions of an enemy. In this dubious state of unquiet

peace and unprosecuted war the province continued until Severus came to

the purple, who, finding that Britain had grown into one of the most

considerable provinces of the Empire, and was at the same time in a

dangerous situation, resolved to visit that island in person, and to

provide for its security. He led a vast army into the wilds of

Caledonia, and was the first of the Romans who penetrated to the most

northern boundary of this island. The natives, defeated in some

engagements, and wholly unable to resist so great and determined a

power, were obliged to submit to such a peace as the emperor thought

proper to impose. Contenting himself with a submission, always cheaply

won from a barbarous people, and never long regarded, Severus made no

sort of military establishment in that country. On the contrary, he

abandoned the advanced work which had been raised in the reign of

Antoninus, and, limiting himself by the plan of Adrian, he either built

a new wall near the former, or he added to the work of that emperor such

considerable improvements and repairs that it has since been called the

Wall of Severus.

Severus with great labor and charge terrified the Caledonians; but he

did not subdue them. He neglected those easy and assured means of

subjection which the nature of that part of Britain affords to a power

master of the sea, by the bays, friths, and lakes with which it is

everywhere pierced, and in some places almost cut through. A few

garrisons at the necks of land, and a fleet to connect them and to awe

the coast, must at any time have been sufficient irrecoverably to subdue

that part of Britain. This was a neglect in Agricola occasioned probably

by a limited command; and it was not rectified by boundless authority in

Severus. The Caledonians again resumed their arms, and renewed their

ravages on the Roman frontier. Severus died before he could take any new

measures; and from his death there is an almost total silence concerning

the affairs of Britain until the division of the Empire.

Had the unwieldy mass of that overgrown dominion been effectively

divided, and divided into large portions, each forming a state, separate

and absolutely independent, the scheme had been far more perfect. Though

the Empire had perished, these states might have subsisted; and they

might have made a far better opposition to the inroads of the barbarians

even than the whole united; since each nation would have its own

strength solely employed in resisting its own particular enemies. For,

notwithstanding the resources which might have been expected from the

entireness of so great a body, it is clear from history that the Romans

were never able to employ with effect and at the same time above two

armies, and that on the whole they were very unequal to the defence of a

frontier of many thousand miles in circuit.

But the scheme which was pursued, the scheme of joint emperors, holding

by a common title, each governing his proper territory, but not wholly

without authority in the other portions, this formed a species of

government of which it is hard to conceive any just idea. It was a

government in continual fluctuation from one to many, and from many

again to a single hand. Each state did not subsist long enough

independent to fall into those orders and connected classes of men that

are necessary to a regular commonwealth; nor had they time to grow into

those virtuous partialities from which nations derive the first

principle of their stability.

The events which follow sufficiently illustrate these reflections, and

will show the reason of introducing them in this place, with regard to

the Empire in general, and to Britain more particularly.

In the division which Diocletian first made of the Roman territory, the

western provinces, in which Britain was included, fell to Maximian. It

was during his reign that Britain, by an extraordinary revolution, was

for some time entirely separated from the body of the Empire. Carausius,

a man of obscure birth, and a barbarian, (for now not only the army, but

the senate, was filled with foreigners,) had obtained the government of

Boulogne. He was also intrusted with the command of a fleet stationed in

that part to oppose the Saxon pirates, who then began cruelly to infest

the northwest parts of Gaul and the opposite shore of Britain. But

Carausius made use of the power with which he had been intrusted, not so

much to suppress the pirates as to aggrandize himself. He even permitted

their depredations, that he might intercept them on their return, and

enrich himself with the retaken plunder. By such methods he acquired

immense wealth, which he distributed with so politic a bounty among the

seamen of his fleet and the legions in Britain that by degrees he

disposed both the one and the other to a revolt in his favor.

[Sidenote: A.D. 286]

[Sidenote: A.D. 290]

[Sidenote: A.D. 293]

As there were then no settled principles either of succession or

election in the Empire, and all depended on the uncertain faith of the

army, Carausius made his attempt, perhaps, with the less guilt, and

found the less difficulty in prevailing upon the provincial Britons to

submit to a sovereignty which seemed to reflect a sort of dignity on

themselves. In this island he established the seat of his new dominion;

but he kept up and augmented his fleet, by which he preserved his

communication with his old government, and commanded the intermediate

seas. He entered into a close alliance with the Saxons and Frisians, by

which he at once preserved his own island from their depredations and

rendered his maritime power irresistible. He humbled the Picts by

several defeats; he repaired the frontier wall, and supplied it with

good garrisons. He made several roads equal to the works of the greatest

emperors. He cut canals, with vast labor and expense, through all the

low eastern parts of Britain, at the same time draining those fenny

countries, and promoting communication and commerce. On these canals he

built several cities. Whilst he thus labored to promote the internal

strength and happiness of his kingdom, he contended with so much success

against his former masters that they were at length obliged not only to

relinquish their right to his acquisition, but to admit him to a

participation of the imperial titles. He reigned after this for seven

years prosperously and with great glory, because he wisely set bounds to

his ambition, and contented himself with the possession of a great

country, detached from the rest of the world, and therefore easily

defended. Had he lived long enough, and pursued this plan with

consistency, Britain, in all probability, might then have become, and

might have afterwards been, an independent and powerful kingdom,

instructed in the Roman arts, and freed from their dominion. But the

same distemper of the state which had raised Carausius to power did not

suffer him long to enjoy it. The Roman soldiery at that time was wholly

destitute of military principle. That religious regard to their oath,

the great bond of ancient discipline, had been long worn out; and the

want of it was not supplied by that punctilio of honor and loyalty which

is the support of modern armies. Carausius was assassinated, and

succeeded in his kingdom by Allectus, the captain of his guards. But the

murderer, who did not possess abilities to support the power he had

acquired by his crimes, was in a short time defeated, and in his turn

put to death, by Constantius Chlorus. In about three years from the

death of Carausius, Britain, after a short experiment of independency,

was again united to the body of the Empire.

[Sidenote: A.D. 304]

Constantius, after he came to the purple, chose this island for his

residence. Many authors affirm that his wife Helena was a Briton. It is

more certain that his son Constantine the Great was born here, and

enabled to succeed his father principally by the helps which he derived

from Britain.

[Sidenote: A.D. 306.]

Under the reign of this great prince there was an almost total

revolution in the internal policy of the Empire. This was the third

remarkable change in the Roman government since the dissolution of the

Commonwealth. The first was that by which Antoninus had taken away the

distinctions of the _municipium_, province, and colony, communicating to

every part of the Empire those privileges which had formerly

distinguished a citizen of Rome. Thus the whole government was cast into

a more uniform and simple frame, and every mark of conquest was finally

effaced. The second alteration was the division of the Empire by

Diocletian. The third was the change made in the great offices of the

state, and the revolution in religion, under Constantine.

The _præfecti prætorio_, who, like the commanders of the janizaries of

the Porte, by their ambition and turbulence had kept the government in

continual ferment, were reduced by the happiest art imaginable. Their

number, only two originally, was increased to four, by which their power

was balanced and broken. Their authority was not lessened, but its

nature was totally changed: for it became from that time a dignity and

office merely civil. The whole Empire was divided into four departments

under these four officers. The subordinate districts were governed by

their _vicarii_; and Britain, accordingly, was under a vicar, subject to

the _præfectus prætorio_ of Gaul. The military was divided nearly in the

same manner; and it was placed under officers also of a new creation,

the _magistri militiæ_. Immediately under these were the _duces_, and

under those the _comites_, dukes and counts, titles unknown in the time

of the Republic or in the higher Empire; but afterwards they extended

beyond the Roman territory, and having been conferred by the Northern

nations upon their leaders, they subsist to this day, and contribute to

the dignity of the modern courts of Europe.

But Constantine made a much greater change with regard to religion by

the establishment of Christianity. At what time the Gospel was first

preached in this island I believe it impossible to ascertain, as it came

in gradually, and without, or rather contrary to, public authority. It

was most probably first introduced among the legionary soldiers; for we

find St. Alban, the first British martyr, to have been of that body. As

it was introduced privately, so its growth was for a long time

insensible; but it shot up at length with great vigor, and spread itself

widely, at first under the favor of Constantius and the protection of

Helena, and at length under the establishment of Constantine. From this

time it is to be considered as the ruling religion; though heathenism

subsisted long after, and at last expired imperceptibly, and with as

little noise as Christianity had been at first introduced.

[Sidenote: A.D. 368.]

In this state, with regard to the civil, military, and religious

establishment, Britain, remained without any change, and at intervals in

a tolerable state of repose, until the reign of Valentinian. Then it was

attacked all at once with incredible fury and success, and as it were in

concert, by a number of barbarous nations. The principal of these were

the Scots, a people of ancient settlement in Ireland, and who had thence

been transplanted into the northern part of Britain, which afterwards

derived its name from that colony. The Scots of both nations united with

the Picts to fall upon the Roman province. To these were added the

piratical Saxons, who issued from the mouths of the Rhine. For some

years they met but slight resistance, and made a most miserable havoc,

until the famous Count Theodosius was sent to the relief of

Britain,--who, by an admirable conduct in war, and as vigorous

application to the cure of domestic disorders, for a time freed the

country from its enemies and oppressors, and having driven the Picts and

Scots into the barren extremity of the island, he shut and barred them

in with a new wall, advanced as far as the remotest of the former, and,

what had hitherto been imprudently neglected, he erected the

intermediate space into a Roman province, and a regular government,

under the name of Valentia. But this was only a momentary relief. The

Empire was perishing by the vices of its constitution.

[Sidenote: A.D. 388.]

Each province was then possessed by the inconsiderate ambition of

appointing a head to the whole; although, when the end was obtained, the

victorious province always returned to its ancient insignificance, and

was lost in the common slavery. A great army of Britons followed the

fortune of Maximus, whom they had raised to the imperial titles, into

Gaul. They were there defeated; and from their defeat, as it is said,

arose a new people. They are supposed to have settled in Armorica, which

was then, like many other parts of the sickly Empire, become a mere

desert; and that country, from this accident, has been since called

Bretagne.

The Roman province thus weakened afforded opportunity and encouragement

to the barbarians again to invade and ravage it. Stilicho, indeed during

the minority of Honorius, obtained some advantages over them, which

procured a short intermission of their hostilities. But as the Empire on

the continent was now attacked on all sides, and staggered under the

innumerable shocks which, it received, that minister ventured to recall

the Roman forces from Britain, in order to sustain those parts which he

judged of more importance and in greater danger.

[Sidenote: A.D. 411.]

On the intelligence of this desertion, their barbarous enemies break in

upon the Britons, and are no longer resisted. Their ancient protection

withdrawn, the people became stupefied with terror and despair. They

petition the emperor for succor in the most moving terms. The emperor,

protesting his weakness, commits them to their own defence, absolves

them from, their allegiance, and confers on them a freedom which they

have no longer the sense to value nor the virtue to defend. The princes

whom after this desertion they raised and deposed with a stupid

inconstancy were styled Emperors. So hard it is to change ideas to which

men have been long accustomed, especially in government, that the

Britons had no notion of a sovereign who was not to be emperor, nor of

an emperor who was not to be master of the Western world. This single

idea ruined Britain. Constantine, a native of this island, one of those

shadows of imperial majesty, no sooner found himself established at home

than, fatally for himself and his country, he turned his eyes towards

the continent. Thither he carried the flower of the British youth,--all

who were any ways eminent for birth, for courage, for their skill in the

military or mechanic arts; but his success was not equal to his hopes or

his forces. The remains of his routed army joined their countrymen in

Armorica, and a baffled attempt upon the Empire a second time recruited

Gaul and exhausted Britain.

The Scots and Picts, attentive to every advantage, rushed with redoubled

violence into this vacuity. The Britons, who could find no protection

but in slavery, again implore the assistance of their former masters. At

that time Aëtius commanded the imperial forces in Gaul, and with the

virtue and military skill of the ancient Romans supported the Empire,

tottering with age and weakness. Though he was then hard pressed by the

vast armies of Attila, which like a deluge had overspread Gaul, he

afforded them a small and temporary succor. This detachment of Romans

repelled the Scots; they repaired the walls; and animating the Britons

by their example and instructions to maintain their freedom, they

departed. But the Scots easily perceived and took advantage of their

departure. Whilst they ravaged the country, the Britons renewed their

supplications to Aëtius. They once more obtained a reinforcement, which

again reëstablished their affairs. They were, however, given to

understand that this was to be their last relief. The Roman auxiliaries

were recalled, and the Britons abandoned to their own fortune forever.

[Sidenote: A.D. 432.]

When the Romans deserted this island, they left a country, with regard

to the arts of war or government, in a manner barbarous, but destitute

of that spirit or those advantages with which sometimes a state of

barbarism is attended. They carried out of each province its proper and

natural strength, and supplied it by that of some other, which had no

connection with the country. The troops raised in Britain often served

in Egypt; and those which were employed for the protection of this

island were sometimes from Batavia or Germany, sometimes from provinces

far to the east. Whenever the strangers were withdrawn, as they were

very easily, the province was left in the hands of men wholly

unpractised in war. After a peaceable possession of more than three

hundred years, the Britons derived but very few benefits from their

subjection to the conquerors and civilizers of mankind. Neither does it

appear that the Roman people were at any time extremely numerous in this

island, or had spread themselves, their manners, or their language as

extensively in Britain as they had done in the other parts of their

Empire. The Welsh and the Anglo-Saxon languages retain much less of

Latin than the French, the Spanish, or the Italian. The Romans subdued

Britain at a later period, at a time when Italy herself was not

sufficiently populous to supply so remote a province: she was rather

supplied from her provinces. The military colonies, though in some

respects they were admirably fitted for their purposes, had, however,

one essential defect: the lands granted to the soldiers did not pass to

their posterity; so that the Roman people must have multiplied poorly in

this island, when their increase principally depended on a succession of

superannuated soldiers. From this defect the colonies were continually

falling to decay. They had also in many respects degenerated from their

primitive institution.[26] We must add, that in the decline of the

Empire a great part of the troops in Britain were barbarians, Batavians

or Germans. Thus, at the close of this period, this unhappy country,

desolated of its inhabitants, abandoned by its masters, stripped of its

artisans, and deprived of all its spirit, was in a condition the most

wretched and forlorn.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Neque conjugiis suscipiendis neque alendis liberis sueti, orbas

sine posteris domos relinquebant. Non enim, ut olim, universæ legiones

deducebantur cum tribunis et centurionibus et suis cujusque ordinis

militibus, ut consensu et caritate rempublicam efficerent, sed ignoti

inter se, diversis manipulis, sine rectore, sine affectibus mutuis,

quasi ex alio genere mortalium repente in unum collecti, numerus magis

quam colonia--Tacit. Annal. XIV. 27.

BOOK II

CHAPTER I.

THE ENTRY AND SETTLEMENT OF THE SAXONS, AND THEIR CONVERSION TO

CHRISTIANITY.

[Sidenote: A.D. 447.]

After having been so long subject to a foreign dominion, there was among

the Britons no royal family, no respected order in the state, none of

those titles to government, confirmed by opinion and long use, more

efficacious than the wisest schemes for the settlement of the nation.

Mere personal merit was then the only pretence to power. But this

circumstance only added to the misfortunes of a people who had no

orderly method of election, and little experience of merit in any of the

candidates. During this anarchy, whilst they suffered the most dreadful

calamities from the fury of barbarous nations which invaded them, they

fell into that disregard of religion, and those loose, disorderly

manners, which are sometimes the consequence of desperate and hardened

wretchedness, as well as the common distempers of ease and prosperity.

At length, after frequent elections and deposings, rather wearied out by

their own inconstancy than, fixed by the merit of their choice, they

suffered Vortigern to reign over them. This leader had made some figure

in the conduct of their wars and factious. But he was no sooner settled

on the throne than he showed himself rather like a prince born of an

exhausted stock of royalty in the decline of empire than one of those

bold and active spirits whose manly talents obtain them the first place

in their country, and stamp upon it that character of vigor essential to

the prosperity of a new commonwealth. However, the mere settlement, in

spite of the ill administration of government, procured the Britons some

internal repose, and some temporary advantages over their enemies, the

Picts. But having been long habituated to defeats, neither relying on

their king nor on themselves, and fatigued with the obstinate attacks of

an enemy whom they sometimes checked, but could never remove, in one of

their national assemblies it was resolved to call in the mercenary aid

of the Saxons, a powerful nation of Germany, which had been long by

their piratical incursions terrible not only to them, but to all the

adjacent countries. This resolution has been generally condemned. It has

been said, that they seem to have through mere cowardice distrusted a

strength not yet worn down, and a fortune sufficiently prosperous. But

as it was taken by general counsel and consent, we must believe that the

necessity of such a step was felt, though the event was dubious. The

event, indeed, might be dubious: in a state radically weak, every

measure vigorous enough for its protection must endanger its existence.

There is an unquestioned tradition among the Northern nations of Europe,

importing that all that part of the world had suffered a great and

general revolution by a migration from Asiatic Tartary of a people whom

they call Asers. These everywhere expelled or subdued the ancient

inhabitants of the Celtic and Cimbric original. The leader of this

Asiatic army was called Odin or Wodin: first their general, afterwards

their tutelar deity. The time of this great change is lost in the

imperfection of traditionary history, and the attempts to supply it by

fable. It is, however, certain, that the Saxon nation believed

themselves the descendants of those conquerors: and they had as good a

title to that descent as any other of the Northern tribes; for they used

the same language which then was and is still spoken, with small

variation of the dialects, in all the countries which extend from the

polar circle to the Danube. This people most probably derived their

name, as well as their origin, from, the Sacæ, a nation of the Asiatic

Scythia. At the time of which we write they had seated themselves in the

Cimbric Chersonesus, or Jutland, in the countries of Holstein and

Sleswick, and thence extended along the Elbe and Weser to the coast of

the German Ocean, as far as the mouths of the Rhine. In that tract they

lived in a sort of loose military commonwealth of the ordinary German

model, under several leaders, the most eminent of whom was Hengist,

descended from Odin, the great conductor of the Asiatic colonies. It was

to this chief that the Britons applied themselves. They invited him by a

promise of ample pay for his troops, a large share of their common

plunder, and the Isle of Thanet for a settlement.

The army which came over under Hengist did not exceed fifteen hundred

men. The opinion which the Britons had entertained of the Saxon prowess

was well founded; for they had the principal share in a decisive victory

which was obtained over the Picts soon after their arrival, a victory

which forever freed the Britons from all terror of the Picts and Scots,

but in the same moment exposed them to an enemy no less dangerous.

Hengist and his Saxons, who had obtained by the free vote of the Britons

that introduction into this island they had so long in vain attempted by

arms, saw that by being necessary they were superior to their allies.

They discovered the character of the king; they were eye-witnesses of

the internal weakness and distraction of the kingdom. This state of

Britain was represented with so much effect to the Saxons in Germany,

that another and much greater embarkation followed the first; new bodies

daily crowded in. As soon as the Saxons began to be sensible of their

strength, they found it their interest to be discontented; they

complained of breaches of a contract, which they construed according to

their own designs; and then fell rudely upon their unprepared and feeble

allies, who, as they had not been able to resist the Picts and Scots,

were still less in a condition to oppose that force by which they had

been protected against those enemies, when turned unexpectedly upon

themselves. Hengist, with very little opposition, subdued the province

of Kent, and there laid the foundation of the first Saxon kingdom. Every

battle the Britons fought only prepared them for a new defeat, by

weakening their strength and displaying the inferiority of their

courage. Vortigern, instead of a steady and regular resistance, opposed

a mixture of timid war and unable negotiation. In one of their meetings,

wherein the business, according to the German mode, was carried on

amidst feasting and riot, Vortigern was struck with the beauty of a

Saxon virgin, a kinswoman of Hengist, and entirely under his influence.

Having married her, he delivered himself over to her counsels.

[Sidenote: A.D. 452]

His people, harassed by their enemies, betrayed by their prince, and

indignant at the feeble tyranny that oppressed them, deposed him, and

set his son Vortimer in his place. But the change of the king proved no

remedy for the exhausted state of the nation and the constitutional

infirmity of the government. For even if the Britons could have

supported themselves against the superior abilities and efforts of

Hengist, it might have added to their honor, but would have contributed

little to their safety. The news of his success had roused all Saxony.

Five great bodies of that adventurous people, under different and

independent commanders, very nearly at the same time broke in upon as

many different parts of the island. They came no longer as pirates, but

as invaders. Whilst the Britons contended with one body of their fierce

enemies, another gained ground, and filled with slaughter and desolation

the whole country from sea to sea. A devouring war, a dreadful famine, a

plague, the most wasteful of any recorded in our history, united to

consummate the ruin of Britain. The ecclesiastical writers of that age,

confounded at the view of those complicated calamities, saw nothing but

the arm of God stretched out for the punishment of a sinful and

disobedient nation. And truly, when we set before us in one point of

view the condition of almost all the parts which had lately composed the

Western Empire,--of Britain, of Gaul, of Italy, of Spain, of Africa,--at

once overwhelmed by a resistless inundation of most cruel barbarians,

whose inhuman method of war made but a small part of the miseries with

which these nations were afflicted, we are almost driven out of the

circle of political inquiry: we are in a manner compelled to acknowledge

the hand of God in those immense revolutions by which at certain periods

He so signally asserts His supreme dominion, and brings about that great

system of change which is perhaps as necessary to the moral as it is

found to be in the natural world.

But whatever was the condition of the other parts of Europe, it is

generally agreed that the state of Britain was the worst of all. Some

writers have asserted, that, except those who took refuge in the

mountains of Wales and in Cornwall, or fled into Armorica, the British

race was in a manner destroyed. What is extraordinary, we find England

in a very tolerable state of population in less than two centuries after

the first invasion of the Saxons; and it is hard to imagine either the

transplantation or the increase of that single people to have been in so

short a time sufficient for the settlement of so great an extent of

country. Others speak of the Britons, not as extirpated, but as reduced

to a state of slavery; and here these writers fix the origin of personal

and predial servitude in England.

I shall lay fairly before the reader all I have been able to discover

concerning the existence or condition of this unhappy people. That they

were much more broken and reduced than any other nation which had fallen

under the German power I think may be inferred from two considerations.

First, that in all other parts of Europe the ancient language subsisted

after the conquest, and at length incorporated with that of the

conquerors; whereas in England the Saxon language received little or no

tincture from the Welsh; and it seems, even among the lowest people, to

have continued a dialect of pure Teutonic to the time in which it was

itself blended with the Norman. Secondly, that on the continent the

Christian religion, after the Northern irruptions, not only remained,

but flourished. It was very early and universally adopted by the ruling

people. In England it was so entirely extinguished, that, when Augustin

undertook his mission, it does not appear that among all the Saxons

there was a single person professing Christianity.

[Sidenote: A.D. 500]

The sudden extinction of the ancient religion, and language appears

sufficient to show that Britain must have suffered more than any of the

neighboring nations on the continent. But it must not be concealed that

there are likewise proofs that the British race, though much diminished,

was not wholly extirpated, and that those who remained were not, merely

as Britons, reduced to servitude. For they are mentioned as existing in

some of the earlier Saxon laws. In these laws they are allowed a

compensation on the footing of the meaner kind of English; and they are

even permitted, as well as the English, to emerge out of that low rank

into a more liberal condition. This is degradation, but not slavery.[27]

The affairs of that whole period are, however, covered with an obscurity

not to be dissipated. The Britons had little leisure or ability to write

a just account of a war by which they were ruined; and the Anglo-Saxons

who succeeded them, attentive only to arms, were, until their

conversion, ignorant of the use of letters.

It is on this darkened theatre that some old writers have introduced

those characters and actions which have afforded such ample matter to

poets and so much perplexity to historians. This is the fabulous and

heroic age of our nation. After the natural and just representations of

the Roman scene, the stage is again crowded with enchanters, giants, and

all the extravagant images of the wildest and most remote antiquity. No

personage makes so conspicuous a figure in these stories as King Arthur:

a prince whether of British or Roman origin, whether born on this island

or in Amorica, is uncertain; but it appears that he opposed the Saxons

with remarkable virtue and no small degree of success, which has

rendered him and his exploits so large an argument of romance that both

are almost disclaimed by history. Light scarce begins to dawn until the

introduction of Christianity, which, bringing with it the use of letters

and the arts of civil life, affords at once a juster account of things

and facts that are more worthy of relation: nor is there, indeed, any

revolution so remarkable in the English story.

The bishops of Rome had for some time meditated the conversion of the

Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory, who is surnamed the Great, affected that

pious design with an uncommon zeal; and he at length found a

circumstance highly favorable to it in the marriage of a daughter of

Charibert, a king of the Franks, to the reigning monarch of Kent. This

opportunity induced Pope Gregory to commission Augustin, a monk of

Rheims, and a man of distinguished piety, to undertake this arduous

enterprise.

[Sidenote: A.D. 600]

It was in the year of Christ 600, and 150 years after the coming of the

first Saxon colonies into England, that Ethelbert, king of Kent,

received intelligence of the arrival in his dominions of a number of

men in a foreign garb, practising several strange and unusual

ceremonies, who desired to be conducted to the king's presence,

declaring that they had things to communicate to him and to his people

of the utmost importance to their eternal welfare. This was Augustin,

with forty of the associates of his mission, who now landed in the Isle

of Thanet, the same place by which the Saxons had before entered, when

they extirpated Christianity.

The king heard them in the open air, in order to defeat,[28] upon a

principle of Druidical superstition, the effects of their enchantments.

Augustin spoke by a Frankish interpreter. The Franks and Saxons were of

the same origin, and used at that time the same language. He was

favorably received; and a place in the city of Canterbury, the capital

of Kent, was allotted for the residence of him and his companions. They

entered Canterbury in procession, preceded by two persons who bore a

silver cross and the figure of Christ painted on a board, singing, as

they went, litanies to avert the wrath of God from that city and people.

The king was among their first converts. Tho principal of his nobility,

as usual, followed that example, moved, as it is related, by many signal

miracles, but undoubtedly by the extraordinary zeal of the missionaries,

and the pious austerity of their lives. The new religion, by the

protection of so respected a prince, who held under his dominion or

influence all the countries to the southward of the Humber, spread

itself with great rapidity. Paganism, after a faint resistance,

everywhere gave way. And, indeed, the chief difficulties which

Christianity had to encounter did not arise so much from the struggles

of opposite religious prejudices as from the gross and licentious

manners of a barbarous people. One of the Saxon princes expelled the

Christians from his territory because the priest refused to give him

some of that white bread which he saw distributed to his congregation.

It is probable that the order of Druids either did not at all subsist

amongst the Anglo-Saxons, or that at this time it had declined not a

little from its ancient authority and reputation; else it is not easy to

conceive how they admitted so readily a new system, which at one stroke

cut off from their character its whole importance. We even find some

chiefs of the Pagan priesthood amongst the foremost in submitting to the

new doctrine. On the first preaching of the Gospel in Northumberland,

the heathen pontiff of that territory immediately mounted a horse, which

to those of his order was unlawful, and, breaking into the sacred

inclosure, hewed to pieces the idol he had so long served.[29]

If the order of the Druids did not subsist amongst the Saxons, yet the

chief objects of their religion appear to have been derived from that

fountain. They, indeed, worshipped several idols under various forms of

men and beasts; and those gods to whom they dedicated the days of the

week bore in their attributes, and in the particular days that were

consecrated to them, though not in their names, a near resemblance to

the divinities of ancient Rome. But still the great and capital objects

of their worship were taken from Druidism,--trees, stones, the elements,

and the heavenly bodies.[30] These were their principal devotions, laid

the strongest hold upon their minds, and resisted the progress of the

Christian religion with the greatest obstinacy: for we find these

superstitions forbidden amongst the latest Saxon laws. A worship which

stands in need of the memorial of images or books to support it may

perish when these are destroyed; but when a superstition is established

upon those great objects of Nature which continually solicit the senses,

it is extremely difficult to turn the mind from things that in

themselves are striking, and that are always present. Amongst the

objects of this class must be reckoned the goddess Eostre, who, from the

etymology of the name, as well as from the season sacred to her, was

probably that beautiful planet which the Greeks and Romans worshipped

under the names of Lucifer and Venus. It is from this goddess that in

England the paschal festival has been called Easter.[31] To these they

joined the reverence of various subordinate genii, or demons, fairies,

and goblins,--fantastical ideas, which, in a state of uninstructed

Nature, grow spontaneously out of the wild fancies or fears of men.

Thus, they worshipped a sort of goddess, whom they called Mara, formed

from those frightful appearances that oppress men in their sleep; and

the name is still retained among us.[32]

As to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, they were such as might be

expected in a rude people,--fierce, and of a gross simplicity. Their

clothes were short. As all barbarians are much taken with exterior

form, and the advantages and distinctions which are conferred by Nature,

the Saxons set an high value on comeliness of person, and studied much

to improve it. It is remarkable that a law of King Ina orders the care

and education of foundlings to be regulated by their beauty.[33] They

cherished their hair to a great length, and were extremely proud and

jealous of this natural ornament. Some of their great men were

distinguished by an appellative taken from the length of their hair.[34]

To pull the hair was punishable;[35] and forcibly to cut or injure it

was considered in the same criminal light with cutting off the nose or

thrusting out the eyes. In the same design of barbarous ornament, their

faces were generally painted and scarred. They were so fond of chains

and bracelets that they have given a surname to some of their kings from

their generosity in bestowing such marks of favor.[36]

Few things discover the state of the arts amongst people more certainly

than the presents that are made to them by foreigners. The Pope, on his

first mission into Northumberland, sent to the queen of that country

some stuffs with ornaments of gold, an ivory comb inlaid with the same

metal, and a silver mirror. A queen's want of such female ornaments and

utensils shows that the arts were at this time little cultivated amongst

the Saxons. These are the sort of presents commonly sent to a barbarous

people.

Thus ignorant in sciences and arts, and unpractised in trade or

manufacture, military exercises, war, and the preparation for war, was

their employment, hunting their pleasure. They dwelt in cottages of

wicker-work plastered with clay and thatched with rushes, where they sat

with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in

the middle of the house. In this manner their greatest princes lived

amidst the ruins of Roman magnificence. But the introduction of

Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such

inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these

rude and fierce manners.

It is by no means impossible, that, for an end so worthy, Providence on

some occasions might directly have interposed. The books which contain

the history of this time and change are little else than a narrative of

miracles,--frequently, however, with such apparent marks of weakness or

design that they afford little encouragement to insist on them. They

were then received with a blind credulity: they have been since rejected

with as undistinguishing a disregard. But as it is not in my design nor

inclination, nor indeed in my power, either to establish or refute these

stories, it is sufficient to observe, that the reality or opinion of

such miracles was the principal cause of the early acceptance and rapid

progress of Christianity in this island. Other causes undoubtedly

concurred; and it will be more to our purpose to consider some of the

human and politic ways by which religion was advanced in this nation,

and those more particularly by which the monastic institution, then

interwoven with Christianity, and making an equal progress with it,

attained to so high a pitch, of property and power, so as, in a time

extremely short, to form a kind of order, and that not the least

considerable, in the state.

FOOTNOTES:

[27] Leges Inæ, 32, De Cambrico Homine Agrum possidente.--Id. 54

[28] "Veteri usus augurio," says Henry of Huntingdon, p. 321.

[29] Bede, Hist. Eccl. Lib. II. c 13.

[30] Deos gentiles, et solem vel lunam, ignem vel fluvium, torrentem vel

saxa, vel alicujus generis arborum ligna.--L. Cnut. 5.--Superstitiosus

ille conventus, qui Frithgear dicitur, circa lapidem, arborem,

fontem.--Leg. Presb. Northumb.

[31] Spelman's Glossary, Tit. eod.

[32] The night-mare.

[33] L. Inæ, 26.

[34] Oslacus ... promissâ cæsarie heros.--Chron. Saxon. 123.

[35] L. Ælfred. 31. L. Cnut. apud Brompt. 27.

[36] Eadgarus nobilibus torquium largitor.--Chron. Sax. 123 Bed. Hist.

Eccl. Lib. IV. c. 29.

CHAPTER II.

ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY--OF MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS--AND OF THEIR

EFFECTS.

The marriage of Ethelbert to a Christian princess was, we have seen, a

means of introducing Christianity into his dominions. The same influence

contributed to extend it in the other kingdoms of the Heptarchy, the

sovereigns of which were generally converted by their wives. Among the

ancient nations of Germany, the female sex was possessed not only of its

natural and common ascendant, but it was believed peculiarly sacred,[37]

and favored with more frequent revelations of the Divine will; women

were therefore heard with an uncommon attention in all deliberations,

and particularly in those that regarded religion. The Pagan superstition

of the North furnished, in this instance, a principle which contributed

to its own destruction.

In the change of religion, care was taken to render the transition from

falsehood to truth as little violent as possible. Though the first

proselytes were kings, it does not appear that there was any

persecution. It was a precept of Pope Gregory, under whose auspices this

mission was conducted, that the heathen temples should not be destroyed,

especially where they were well built,--but that, first removing the

idols, they should be consecrated anew by holier rites and to better

purposes,[38] in order that the prejudices of the people might not be

too rudely shocked by a declared profanation of what they had so long

held sacred, and that, everywhere beholding the same places to which

they had formerly resorted for religious comfort, they might be

gradually reconciled to the new doctrines and ceremonies which, were

there introduced; and as the sacrifices used in the Pagan worship were

always attended with feasting, and consequently were highly grateful to

the multitude, the Pope ordered that oxen, should as usual be

slaughtered near the church, and the people indulged in their ancient

festivity.[39] Whatever popular customs of heathenism were found to be

absolutely not incompatible with Christianity were retained; and some of

them were continued to a very late period. Deer were at a certain season

brought into St. Paul's church in London, and laid on the altar;[40] and

this custom subsisted until the Reformation. The names of some of the

Church festivals were, with a similar design, taken from those of the

heathen which had been celebrated at the same time of the year. Nothing

could have been more prudent than these regulations: they were, indeed,

formed from a perfect understanding of human nature.

Whilst the inferior people were thus insensibly led into a better order,

the example and countenance of the great completed the work. For the

Saxon kings and ruling men embraced religion with so signal, and in

their rank so unusual a zeal, that in many instances they even

sacrificed to its advancement the prime objects of their ambition.

Wulfhere, king of the West Saxons, bestowed the Isle of Wight on the

king of Sussex, to persuade him to embrace Christianity.[41] This zeal

operated in the same manner in favor of their instructors. The greatest

kings and conquerors frequently resigned their crowns and shut

themselves up in monasteries. When kings became monks, a high lustre was

reflected upon the monastic state, and great credit accrued to the power

of their doctrine, which was able to produce such extraordinary effects

upon persons over whom religion has commonly the slightest influence.

The zeal of the missionaries was also much assisted by their superiority

in the arts of civil life. At their first preaching in Sussex, that

country was reduced to the greatest distress from a drought, which had

continued for three years. The barbarous inhabitants, destitute of any

means to alleviate the famine, in an epidemic transport of despair

frequently united forty and fifty in a body, and, joining their hands,

precipitated themselves from the cliffs, and were either drowned or

dashed to pieces on the rocks. Though a maritime people, they knew not

how to fish; and this ignorance probably arose from a remnant of

Druidical superstition, which had forbidden the use of that sort of

diet. In this calamity, Bishop Wilfrid, their first preacher, collecting

nets, at the head of his attendants, plunged into the sea; and having

opened this great resource of food, he reconciled the desperate people

to life, and their minds to the spiritual care of those who had shown

themselves so attentive to their temporal preservation.[42]

The same regard to the welfare of the people appeared in all their

actions. The Christian kings sometimes made donations to the Church of

lands conquered from their heathen enemies. The clergy immediately

baptized and manumitted their new vassals. Thus they endeared to all

sorts of men doctrines and teachers which could mitigate the rigorous

law of conquest; and they rejoiced to see religion and liberty advancing

with, an equal progress. Nor were the monks in this time in anything

more worthy of praise than in their zeal for personal freedom. In the

canon wherein they provided against the alienation of their lands, among

other charitable exceptions to this restraint they particularize the

purchase of liberty[43]. In their transactions with the great the same

point was always strenuously labored. When they imposed penance, they

were remarkably indulgent to persons of that rank; but they always made

them purchase the remission of corporal austerity by acts of

beneficence. They urged their powerful penitents to the enfranchisement

of their own slaves, and to the redemption of those which belonged to

others; they directed them to the repair of highways, and to the

construction of churches, bridges, and other works of general

utility.[44] They extracted the fruits of virtue even from crimes; and

whenever a great man expiated his private offences, he provided in the

same act for the public happiness. The monasteries were then the only

bodies corporate in the kingdom; and if any persons were desirous to

perpetuate their charity by a fund for the relief of the sick or

indigent, there was no other way than to confide this trust to some

monastery. The monks were the sole channel through which the bounty of

the rich could pass in any continued stream to the poor; and the people

turned their eyes towards them in all their distresses. We must observe,

that the monks of that time, especially those from Ireland,[45] who had

a considerable share in the conversion of all the northern parts, did

not show that rapacious desire of riches which long disgraced and

finally ruined their successors. Not only did they not seek, but seemed

even to shun such donations. This prevented that alarm which might have

arisen from an early and declared avarice. At this time the most fervent

and holy anchorites retired to places the furthest that could be found

from human concourse and help, to the most desolate and barren

situations, which even from their horror seemed particularly adapted to

men who had renounced the world. Many persons followed them in order to

partake of their instructions and prayers, or to form themselves upon

their example. An opinion of their miracles after their death drew still

greater numbers. Establishments were gradually made. The monastic life

was frugal, and the government moderate. These causes drew a constant

concourse. Sanctified deserts assumed a new face; the marshes were

drained, and the lands cultivated. And as this revolution seemed rather

the effect of the holiness of the place than of any natural causes, it

increased their credit; and every improvement drew with it a new

donation. In this manner the great abbeys of Croyland and Glastonbury,

and many others, from the most obscure beginnings, were advanced to a

degree of wealth and splendor little less than royal.

In these rude ages government was not yet fixed upon solid principles,

and everything was full of tumult and distraction. As the monasteries

were better secured from violence by their character than any other

places by laws, several great men, and even sovereign princes, were

obliged to take refuge in convents; who, when, by a more happy

revolution in their fortunes, they were reinstated in their former

dignities, thought they could never make a sufficient return for the

safety they had enjoyed under the sacred hospitality of these roofs. Not

content to enrich them with ample possessions, that others also might

partake of the protection they had experienced, they formally erected

into an asylum those monasteries, and their adjacent territory. So that

all thronged to that refuge who were rendered unquiet by their crimes,

their misfortunes, or the severity of their lords; and content to live

under a government to which their minds were subject, they raised the

importance of their masters by their numbers, their labor, and, above

all, by an inviolable attachment.

The monastery was always the place of sepulture for the greatest lords

and kings. This added to the other causes of reverence a sort of

sanctity, which, in universal opinion, always attends the repositories

of the dead: and they acquired also thereby a more particular

protection against the great and powerful; for who would violate the

tomb of his ancestors or his own? It was not an unnatural weakness to

think that some advantage might be derived from lying in holy places and

amongst holy persons: and this superstition was fomented with the

greatest industry and art. The monks of Glastonbury spread a notion that

it was almost impossible any person should be damned whose body lay in

their cemetery. This must be considered as coming in aid of the amplest

of their resources, prayer for the dead.

But there was no part of their policy, of whatever nature, that procured

to them a greater or juster credit than their cultivation of learning

and useful arts: for, if the monks contributed to the fall of science in

the Roman Empire, it is certain that the introduction of learning and

civility into this Northern world is entirely owing to their labors. It

is true that they cultivated letters only in a secondary way, and as

subsidiary to religion. But the scheme of Christianity is such that it

almost necessitates an attention to many kinds of learning. For the

Scripture is by no means an irrelative system of moral and divine

truths; but it stands connected with so many histories, and with the

laws, opinions, and manners of so many various sorts of people, and in

such different times, that it is altogether impossible to arrive to any

tolerable knowledge of it without having recourse to much exterior

inquiry: for which reason the progress of this religion has always been

marked by that of letters. There were two other circumstances at this

time that contributed no less to the revival of learning. The sacred

writings had not been translated into any vernacular language, and even

the ordinary service of the Church was still continued in the Latin

tongue; all, therefore, who formed themselves for the ministry, and

hoped to make any figure in it, were in a manner driven to the study of

the writers of polite antiquity, in order to qualify themselves for

their most ordinary functions. By this means a practice liable in itself

to great objections had a considerable share in preserving the wrecks of

literature, and was one means of conveying down to our times those

inestimable monuments which otherwise, in the tumult of barbarous

confusion on one hand, and untaught piety on the other, must inevitably

have perished. The second circumstance, the pilgrimages of that age, if

considered in itself, was as liable to objection as the former; but it

proved of equal advantage to the cause of literature. A principal object

of these pious journeys was Rome, which contained all the little that

was left in the Western world of ancient learning and taste. The other

great object of those pilgrimages was Jerusalem: this led them into the

Grecian Empire, which still subsisted in the East with great majesty and

power. Here the Greeks had not only not discontinued the ancient

studies, but they added to the stock of arts many inventions of

curiosity and convenience that were unknown to antiquity. When,

afterwards, the Saracens prevailed in that part of the world, the

pilgrims had also by the same means an opportunity of profiting from the

improvements of that laborious people; and however little the majority

of these pious travellers might have had such objects in their view,

something useful must unavoidably have stuck to them; a few certainly

saw with more discernment, and rendered their travels serviceable to

their country by importing other things besides miracles and legends.

Thus a communication was opened between this remote island and countries

of which it otherwise could then scarcely have heard mention made; and

pilgrimages thus preserved that intercourse amongst mankind which is now

formed by politics, commerce, and learned curiosity.

It is not wholly unworthy of observation, that Providence, which

strongly appears to have intended the continual intermixture of mankind,

never leaves the human mind destitute of a principle to effect it. This

purpose is sometimes carried on by a sort of migratory instinct,

sometimes by the spirit of conquest; at one time avarice drives men from

their homes, at another they are actuated by a thirst of knowledge;

where none of these causes can operate, the sanctity of particular

places attracts men from the most distant quarters. It was this motive

which sent thousands in those ages to Jerusalem and Rome, and now, in a

full tide, impels half the world annually to Mecca.

By those voyages the seeds of various kinds of knowledge and improvement

were at different times imported into England. They were cultivated in

the leisure and retirement of monasteries; otherwise they could not have

been cultivated at all: for it was altogether necessary to draw certain

men from the general rude and fierce society, and wholly to set a bar

between them and the barbarous life of the rest of the world, in order

to fit them for study and the cultivation of arts and science.

Accordingly, we find everywhere in the first institutions for the

propagation of knowledge amongst any people, that those who followed it

were set apart and secluded from the mass of the community.

[Sidenote: A.D. 682]

The great ecclesiastical chair of this kingdom, for near a century, was

filled by foreigners. They were nominated by the Popes, who were in that

age just or politic enough to appoint persons of a merit in some degree

adequate to that important charge. Through this series of foreign and

learned prelates, continual accessions were made to the originally

slender stock of English literature. The greatest and most valuable of

these accessions was made in the time and by the care of Theodorus, the

seventh Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a Greek by birth, a man of a

high ambitious spirit, and of a mind more liberal and talents better

cultivated than generally fell to the lot of the Western prelates. He

first introduced the study of his native language into this island. He

brought with him a number of valuable books in many faculties, and

amongst them a magnificent copy of the works of Homer, the most ancient

and best of poets, and the best chosen to inspire a people just

initiated into letters with an ardent love and with a true taste for the

sciences. Under his influence a school was formed at Canterbury; and

thus the other great fountain of knowledge, the Greek tongue, was opened

in England in the year of our Lord 669.

The southern parts of England received their improvements directly

through the channel of Rome. The kingdom of Northumberland, as soon as

it was converted, began to contend with the southern provinces in an

emulation of piety and learning. The ecclesiastics then [there?] also

kept up and profited by their intercourse with Rome; but they found

their principal resources of knowledge from another and a more

extraordinary quarter. The island of Hii, or Columbkill,[46] is a small

and barren rock in the Western Ocean. But in those days it was high in

reputation as the site of a monastery which had acquired great renown

for the rigor of its studies and the severity of its ascetic discipline.

Its authority was extended over all the northern parts of Britain and

Ireland; and the monks of Hii even exercised episcopal jurisdiction over

all those regions. They had a considerable share both in the religious

and literate institution of the Northumbrians. Another island, of still

less importance, in the mouth of the Tees [Tweed?], and called

Lindisfarne, was about this time sanctified by the austerities of an

hermit called Cuthbert. It soon became also a very celebrated monastery.

It was, from a dread of the ravages of pirates, removed first to the

adjacent part of the continent, and on the same account finally to

Durham. The heads of this monastery omitted nothing which could

contribute to the glory of their founder and to the dignity of their

house, which became, in a very short time, by their assiduous endeavors,

the most considerable school perhaps in Europe.

The great and justest boast of this monastery is the Venerable Beda, who

was educated and spent his whole life there. An account of his writings

is an account of the English learning in that age, taken in its most

advantageous view. Many of his works remain, and he wrote both in prose

and verse, and upon all sorts of subjects. His theology forms the most

considerable part of his writings. He wrote comments upon almost the

whole Scripture, and several homilies on the principal festivals of the

Church. Both the comments and sermons are generally allegorical in the

construction of the text, and simply moral in the application. In these

discourses several things seem strained and fanciful; but herein he

followed entirely the manner of the earlier fathers, from whom the

greatest part of his divinity is not so much imitated as extracted. The

systematic and logical method, which seems to have been first introduced

into theology by John of Damascus, and which after wards was known by

the name of School Divinity, was not then in use, at least in the

Western Church, though soon after it made an amazing progress. In this

scheme the allegorical gave way to the literal explication, the

imagination had less scope, and the affections were less touched. But it

prevailed by an appearance more solid and philosophical, by an order

more scientific, and by a readiness of application either for the

solution or the exciting of doubts and difficulties.

They also cultivated in this monastery the study of natural philosophy

and astronomy. There remain of Beda one entire book and some scattered

essays on these subjects. This book, _De Rerum Natura_, is concise and

methodical, and contains no very contemptible abstract of the physics

which were taught in the decline of the Roman Empire. It was somewhat

unfortunate that the infancy of English learning was supported by the

dotage of the Roman, and that even the spring-head from whence they drew

their instructions was itself corrupted. However, the works of the great

masters of the ancient science still remained; but in natural philosophy

the worst was the most fashionable. The Epicurean physics, the most

approaching to rational, had long lost all credit by being made the

support of an impious theology and a loose morality. The fine visions of

Plato fell into some discredit by the abuse which heretics had made of

them; and the writings of Aristotle seem to have been then the only ones

much regarded, even in natural philosophy, in which branch of science

alone they are unworthy of him. Beda entirely follows his system. The

appearances of Nature are explained by matter and form, and by the four

vulgar elements, acted upon by the four supposed qualities of hot, dry,

moist, and cold. His astronomy is on the common system of the ancients,

sufficient for the few purposes to which they applied it, but otherwise

imperfect and grossly erroneous. He makes the moon larger than the

earth; though a reflection on the nature of eclipses, which he

understood, might have satisfied him of the contrary. But he had so much

to copy that he had little time to examine. These speculations, however

erroneous, were still useful; for, though men err in assigning the

causes of natural operations, the works of Nature are by this means

brought under their consideration, which cannot be done without

enlarging the mind. The science may be false or frivolous; the

improvement will be real. It may here be remarked, that soon afterwards

the monks began to apply themselves to astronomy and chronology, from

the disputes, which were carried on with so much heat and so little

effect, concerning the proper time of celebrating Easter; and the

English owed the cultivation of these noble sciences to one of the most

trivial controversies of ecclesiastic discipline.

Beda did not confine his attention to those superior sciences. He

treated of music, and of rhetoric, of grammar, and the art of

versification, and of arithmetic, both by letters and on the fingers;

and his work on this last subject is the only one in which that piece

of antique curiosity has been preserved to us. All these are short

pieces; some of them are in the catechetical method, and seem designed

for the immediate use of the pupils in his monastery, in order to

furnish them with some leading ideas in the rudiments of these arts,

then newly introduced into his country. He likewise made, and probably

for the same purpose, a very ample and valuable collection of short

philosophical, political, and moral maxims, from Aristotle, Plato,

Seneca, and other sages of heathen antiquity. He made a separate book of

shining commonplaces and remarkable passages extracted from the works of

Cicero, of whom he was a great admirer, though he seems to have been not

an happy or diligent imitator in his style. From a view of these pieces

we may form an idea of what stock in the science the English at that

time possessed, and what advances they had made. That work of Beda which

is the best known and most esteemed is the Ecclesiastical History of the

English nation. Disgraced by a want of choice and frequently by a

confused ill disposition of his matter, and blemished with a degree of

credulity next to infantine, it is still a valuable, and for the time a

surprising performance. The book opens with a description of this island

which would not have disgraced a classical author; and he has prefixed

to it a chronological abridgment of sacred and profane history

connected, from the beginning of the world, which, though not critically

adapted to his main design, is of far more intrinsic value, and indeed

displays a vast fund of historical erudition. On the whole, though this

father of the English learning seems to have been but a genius of the

middle class, neither elevated nor subtile, and one who wrote in a low

style, simple, but not elegant, yet, when we reflect upon the time in

which he lived, the place in which he spent his whole life, within the

walls of a monastery, in so remote and wild a country, it is impossible

to refuse him the praise of an incredible industry and a generous thirst

of knowledge.

That a nation who not fifty years before had but just begun to emerge

from a barbarism so perfect that they were unfurnished even with an

alphabet should in so short a time have established so flourishing a

seminary of learning, and have produced so eminent a teacher, is a

circumstance which I imagine no other nation besides England can boast.

Hitherto we have spoken only of their Latin and Greek literature. They

cultivated also their native language, which, according to the opinions

of the most adequate judges, was deficient neither in energy nor beauty,

and was possessed of such an happy flexibility as to be capable of

expressing with grace and effect every new technical idea introduced

either by theology or science. They were fond of poetry; they sung at

all their feasts; and it was counted extremely disgraceful not to be

able to take a part in these performances, even when they challenged

each other to a sudden exertion of the poetic spirit. Cædmon, afterwards

one of the most eminent of their poets, was disgraced in this manner

into an exertion of a latent genius. He was desired in his turn to sing,

but, being ignorant and full of natural sensibility, retired in

confusion from the company, and by instant and strenuous application

soon became a distinguished proficient in the art.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Inesse quinetiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant; nec aut

consilia carum aspernantur aut responsa negligunt.--Tacit. de Mor. Ger.

c. 8.

[38] Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib. I. c. 30.

[39] Id. c. cod.

[40] Dugdale's History of St. Paul's.

[41] Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib. IV. c. 13.

[42] Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib IV. c. 13.

[43] Spelm. Concil. p. 329.

[44] Instauret etiam Dei ecclesiam; ... et instauret vias publicas

pontibus super aquas profundas et super cænosas vias; ... manumittat

servos suos proprios, et redimat ab aliis hominibus servos suos ad

libertatem.--L Eccl. Edgari, 14.

[45] Aidanus, Finan, Colmannus miræ sanctitatis fuerunt et

parsimoniæ.... Adeo autem sacerdotes erant illius temporis ab avaritia

immunes, ut nec territoria nisi coacti acciperent.--Hen. Huntingd. Lib.

III. p. 333. Bed. Hist. Eccl. Lib. III c. 26.

[46] Icolmkill, or Iona.

CHAPTER III.

SERIES OF ANGLO-SAXON KINGS FROM ETHELBERT TO ALFRED: WITH THE INVASION

OF THE DANES.

[Sidenote: A.D. 799]

The Christian religion, having once taken root in Kent, spread itself

with great rapidity throughout all the other Saxon kingdoms in England.

The manners of the Saxons underwent a notable alteration by this change

in their religion: their ferocity was much abated; they became more mild

and sociable; and their laws began to partake of the softness of their

manners, everywhere recommending mercy and a tenderness for Christian

blood. There never was any people who embraced religion with a more

fervent zeal than the Anglo-Saxons, nor with more simplicity of spirit.

Their history for a long time shows us a remarkable conflict between

their dispositions and their principles. This conflict produced no

medium, because they were absolutely contrary, and both operated with

almost equal violence. Great crimes and extravagant penances, rapine and

an entire resignation of worldly goods, rapes and vows of perpetual

chastity, succeeded each other in the same persons. There was nothing

which the violence of their passions could not induce them to commit;

nothing to which they did not submit to atone for their offences, when

reflection gave an opportunity to repent. But by degrees the sanctions

of religion began to preponderate; and as the monks at this time

attracted all the religious veneration, religion everywhere began to

relish of the cloister: an inactive spirit, and a spirit of scruples

prevailed; they dreaded to put the greatest criminal to death; they

scrupled to engage in any worldly functions. A king of the Saxons

dreaded that God would call him to an account for the time which he

spent in his temporal affairs and had stolen from prayer. It was

frequent for kings to go on pilgrimages to Rome or to Jerusalem, on

foot, and under circumstances of great hardship. Several kings resigned

their crowns to devote themselves to religious contemplation in

monasteries,--more at that time and in this nation than in all other

nations and in all times. This, as it introduced great mildness into the

tempers of the people, made them less warlike, and consequently prepared

the way to their forming one body under Egbert, and for the other

changes which followed.

The kingdom of Wessex, by the wisdom and courage of King Ina, the

greatest legislator and politician of those times, had swallowed up

Cornwall, for a while a refuge for some of the old Britons, together

with the little kingdom of the South Saxons. By this augmentation it

stretched from the Land's End to the borders of Kent, the Thames flowing

on the north, the ocean washing it on the south. By their situation the

people of Wessex naturally came to engross the little trade which then

fed the revenues of England; and their minds were somewhat opened by a

foreign communication, by which they became more civilized and better

acquainted with the arts of war and of government. Such was the

condition of the kingdom of Wessex, when Egbert was called to the throne

of his ancestors. The civil commotions which for some time prevailed had

driven this prince early in life into an useful banishment. He was

honorably received at the court of Charlemagne, where he had an

opportunity of studying government in the best school, and of forming

himself after the most perfect model. Whilst Charlemagne was reducing

the continent of Europe into one empire, Egbert reduced England into one

kingdom. The state of his own dominions, perfectly united under him,

with the other advantages which we have just mentioned, and the state of

the neighboring Saxon governments, made this reduction less difficult.

Besides Wessex, there were but two kingdoms of consideration in

England,--Mercia and Northumberland. They were powerful enough in the

advantages of Nature, but reduced to great weakness by their divisions.

As there is nothing of more moment to any country than to settle the

succession of its government on clear and invariable principles, the

Saxon monarchies, which were supported by no such principles, were

continually tottering. The right of government sometimes was considered

as in the eldest son, sometimes in all; sometimes the will of the

deceased prince disposed of the crown, sometimes a popular election

bestowed it. The consequence of this was the frequent division and

frequent reunion of the same territory, which were productive of

infinite mischief; many various principles of succession gave titles to

some, pretensions to more; and plots, cabals, and crimes could not be

wanting to all the pretenders. Thus was Mercia torn to pieces; and the

kingdom of Northumberland, assaulted on one side by the Scots, and

ravaged on the other by the Danish incursions, could not recover from a

long anarchy into which its intestine divisions had plunged it. Egbert

knew how to make advantage of these divisions: fomenting them by his

policy at first, and quelling them afterwards by his sword, he reduced

these two kingdoms under his government. The same power which conquered

Mercia and Northumberland made the reduction of Kent and Essex

easy,--the people on all hands the more readily submitting, because

there was no change made in their laws, manners, or the form of their

government.

[Sidenote: Egbert A.D. 827.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 832]

Egbert, when he had brought all England under his dominion, made the

Welsh tributary, and carried his arms with success into Scotland,

assumed the title of Monarch of all Britain.[47] The southern part of

the island was now for the first time authentically known by the name of

England, and by every appearance promised to have arrived at the

fortunate moment for forming a permanent and splendid monarchy. But

Egbert had not reigned seven years in peace, when the Danes, who had

before showed themselves in some scattered parties, and made some

inconsiderable descents, entered the kingdom in a formidable body. This

people came from the same place whence the English themselves were

derived, and they differed from them in little else than that they still

retained their original barbarity and heathenism. These, assisted by the

Norwegians, and other people of Scandinavia, were the last torrent of

the Northern ravagers which overflowed Europe. What is remarkable, they

attacked England and France when these two kingdoms were in the height

of their grandeur,--France under Charlemagne, England united by Egbert.

The good fortune of Egbert met its first check from these people, who

defeated his forces with great slaughter near Charmouth in Dorsetshire.

It generally happens that a new nation, with a new method of making

war, succeeds against a people only exercised in arms by their own civil

dissensions. Besides, England, newly united, was not without those

jealousies and that disaffection which give such great advantage to an

invader. But the vigilance and courage of Egbert repaired this defeat;

he repulsed the Danes; and died soon after at Winchester, full of years

and glory.

[Sidenote: Ethelwolf A.D. 838]

He left a great, but an endangered succession, to his son Ethelwolf, who

was a mild and virtuous prince, full of a timid piety, which utterly

disqualifies for government; and he began to govern at a time when the

greatest capacity was wanted. The Danes pour in upon every side; the

king rouses from his lethargy; battles are fought with various success,

which it were useless and tedious to recount. The event seems to have

been, that in some corners of the kingdom the Danes gained a few

inconsiderable settlements; the rest of the kingdom, after being

terribly ravaged, was left a little time to recover, in order to be

plundered anew. But the weak prince took no advantage of this time to

concert a regular plan of defence, or to rouse a proper spirit in his

people. Yielding himself wholly to speculative devotion, he entirely

neglected his affairs, and, to complete the ruin of his kingdom,

abandoned it, in such critical circumstances, to make a pilgrimage to

Rome. At Rome he behaved in the manner that suited his little genius, in

making charitable foundations, and in extending the Rome-scot or

Peter-pence, which the folly of some princes of the Heptarchy had

granted for their particular dominions, over the whole Kingdom. His

shameful desertion of his country raised so general a discontent, that

in his absence his own son, with the principal of his nobility and

bishops, conspired against him. At his return, he found, however, that

several still adhered to him; but here, too, incapable of acting with

rigor, he agreed to an accommodation, which placed the crown on the head

of his rebellious son, and only left to himself a sphere of government

as narrow as his genius,--the district of Kent, whither he retired to

enjoy an inglorious privacy with a wife whom he had married in France.

[Sidenote: Ethelred, A.D. 866]

On his death, his son Ethelred still held the crown, which he had

preoccupied by his rebellion, and which he polluted with a new stain. He

married his father's widow. The confused history of these times

furnishes no clear account either of the successions of the kings or of

their actions. During the reign of this prince and his successors

Ethelbert and Ethelred, the people in several parts of England seem to

have withdrawn from the kingdom of Wessex, and to have revived their

former independency. This, added to the weakness of the government, made

way for new swarms of Danes, who burst in upon this ill-governed and

divided people, ravaging the whole country in a terrible manner, but

principally directing their fury against every monument of civility or

piety. They had now formed a regular establishment in Northumberland,

and gained a very considerable footing in Mercia and East Anglia; they

hovered over every part of the kingdom with their fleets; and being

established in many places in the heart of the country, nothing seemed

able to resist them.

FOOTNOTES:

[47] No Saxon monarch until Athelstan.

CHAPTER IV.

REIGN OF KING ALFRED.

[Sidenote: A.D. 871]

[Sidenote: A.D. 875]

It was in the midst of these distractions that Alfred succeeded to a

sceptre which, was threatened every moment to be wrenched from his

hands. He was then only twenty-two years of age, but exercised from his

infancy in troubles and in wars that formed and displayed his virtue.

Some of its best provinces were torn from his kingdom, which was shrunk

to the ancient bounds of Wessex; and what remained was weakened by

dissension, by a long war, by a raging pestilence, and surrounded by

enemies whose numbers seemed inexhaustible, and whose fury was equally

increased by victories or defeats. All these difficulties served only to

increase the vigor of his mind. He took the field without delay; but he

was defeated with considerable loss. This ominous defeat displayed more

fully the greatness of his courage and capacity, which found in

desperate hopes and a ruined kingdom such powerful resources. In a short

time after he was in a condition to be respected: but he was not led

away by the ambition of a young warrior. He neglected no measures to

procure peace for his country, which wanted a respite from the

calamities which had long oppressed it. A peace was concluded for

Wessex. Then the Danes turned their faces once more towards Mercia and

East Anglia. They had before stripped the inhabitants of all their

movable substance, and now they proceeded without resistance to seize

upon their lands. Their success encouraged new swarms of Danes to crowd

over, who, finding all the northern parts of England possessed by their

friends, rushed into Wessex. They were adventurers under different and

independent leaders; and a peace little regarded by the particular party

that made it had no influence at all upon the others. Alfred opposed

this shock with so much firmness that the barbarians had recourse to a

stratagem: they pretended to treat; but taking advantage of the truce,

they routed a body of the West Saxon cavalry that were off their guard,

mounted their horses, and, crossing the country with amazing celerity,

surprised the city of Exeter. This was an acquisition of infinite

advantage to their affairs, as it secured them a port in the midst of

Wessex.

Alfred, mortified at this series of misfortunes, perceived clearly that

nothing could dislodge the Danes, or redress their continual incursions,

but a powerful fleet which might intercept them at sea. The want of

this, principally, gave rise to the success of that people. They used

suddenly to land and ravage a part of the country; when a force opposed

them, they retired to their ships, and passed to some other part, which

in a like manner they ravaged, and then retired as before, until the

country, entirely harassed, pillaged, and wasted by these incursions,

was no longer able to resist them. Then they ventured safely to enter a

desolated and disheartened country, and to establish themselves in it.

These considerations made Alfred resolve upon equipping a fleet. In this

enterprise nothing but difficulties presented themselves: his revenue

was scanty, and his subjects altogether unskilled in maritime affairs,

either as to the construction or the navigation of ships. He did not

therefore despair. With great promises attending a little money, he

engaged in his service a number of Frisian seamen, neighbors to the

Danes, and pirates, as they were. He brought, by the same means,

shipwrights from the continent. He was himself present to everything;

and having performed the part of a king in drawing together supplies of

every kind, he descended with no less dignity into the

artist,--improving on the construction, inventing new machines, and

supplying by the greatness of his genius the defects and imperfections

of the arts in that rude period. By his indefatigable application the

first English navy was in a very short time in readiness to put to sea.

At that time the Danish fleet of one hundred and twenty-five ships stood

with full sail for Exeter; they met; but, with an omen prosperous to the

new naval power, the Danish fleet was entirely vanquished and dispersed.

This success drew on the surrendry of Exeter, and a peace, which Alfred

much wanted to put the affairs of his kingdom in order.

This peace, however, did not last long. As the Danes were continually

pouring into some part of England, they found most parts already in

Danish hands; so that all these parties naturally directed their course

to the only English kingdom. All the Danes conspired to put them in

possession of it, and bursting unexpectedly with the united force of

their whole body upon Wessex, Alfred was entirely overwhelmed, and

obliged to drive before the storm of his fortune. He fled in disguise

into a fastness in the Isle of Athelney, where he remained four months

in the lowest state of indigence, supported by an heroic humility, and

that spirit of piety which neither adverse fortune nor prosperity could

overcome. It is much to be lamented that a character so formed to

interest all men, involved in reverses of fortune that make the most

agreeable and useful part of history, should be only celebrated by pens

so little suitable to the dignity of the subject. These revolutions are

so little prepared, that we neither can perceive distinctly the causes

which sunk him nor those which again raised him to power. A few naked

facts are all our stock. From these we see Alfred, assisted by the

casual success of one of his nobles, issuing from his retreat; he heads

a powerful army once more, defeats the Danes, drives them out of Wessex,

follows his blow, expels them from Mercia, subdues them in

Northumberland, and makes them tributary in Bast Anglia; and thus

established by a number of victories in a full peace, he is presented to

us in that character which makes him venerable to posterity. It is a

refreshment, in the midst of such a gloomy waste of barbarism and

desolation, to fall upon so fair and cultivated a spot.

[Sidenote: A.D. 880.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 896.]

When Alfred had once more reunited the kingdoms of his ancestors, he

found the whole face of things in the most desperate condition: there

was no observance of law and order; religion had no force; there was no

honest industry; the most squalid poverty and the grossest ignorance had

overspread the whole kingdom. Alfred at once enterprised the cure of all

these evils. To remedy the disorders in the government, he revived,

improved, and digested all the Saxon institutions, insomuch that he is

generally honored as the founder of our laws and Constitution.[48]

The shire he divided into hundreds, the hundreds into tithings; every

freeman was obliged to be entered into some tithing, the members of

which were mutually bound for each other, for the preservation of the

peace, and the avoiding theft and rapine. For securing the liberty of

the subject, he introduced the method of giving bail, the most certain

fence against the abuses of power. It has been observed that the reigns

of weak princes are times favorable to liberty; but the wisest and

bravest of all the English princes is the father of their freedom. This

great man was even jealous of the privileges of his subjects; and as his

whole life was spent in protecting them, his last will breathes the same

spirit, declaring that he had left his people as free as their own

thoughts. He not only collected with great care a complete body of laws,

but he wrote comments on them for the instruction of his judges, who

were in general, by the misfortune of the time, ignorant. And if he

took care to correct their ignorance, he was rigorous towards their

corruption. He inquired strictly into their conduct, he heard appeals in

person; he held his Wittenagemotes, or Parliaments, frequently; and kept

every part of his government in health and vigor.

Nor was he less solicitous for the defence than he had shown himself for

the regulation of his kingdom. He nourished with particular care the new

naval strength which he had established; he built forts and castles in

the most important posts; he settled beacons to spread an alarm on the

arrival of an enemy; and ordered his militia in such a manner that there

was always a great power in readiness to march, well appointed and well

disciplined. But that a suitable revenue might not be wanting for the

support of his fleets and fortifications, he gave great encouragement to

trade, which, by the piracies on the coasts, and the rapine and

injustice exercised by the people within, had long become a stranger to

this island.

In the midst of these various and important cares, he gave a peculiar

attention to learning, which by the rage of the late wars had been

entirely extinguished in his kingdom. "Very few there were" (says this

monarch) "on this side the Humber that understood their ordinary

prayers, or that were able to translate any Latin book into English,--so

few, that I do not remember even one qualified to the southward of the

Thames when I began my reign." To cure this deplorable ignorance, he was

indefatigable in his endeavors to bring into England men of learning in

all branches from every part of Europe, and unbounded in his liberality

to them. He enacted by a law that every person possessed of two hides

of land should send their children to school until sixteen. Wisely

considering where to put a stop to his love even of the liberal arts,

which are only suited to a liberal condition, he enterprised yet a

greater design than that of forming the growing generation,--to instruct

even the grown: enjoining all his earldormen and sheriffs immediately to

apply themselves to learning, or to quit their offices. To facilitate

these great purposes, he made a regular foundation of an university,

which with great reason is believed to have been at Oxford. Whatever

trouble he took to extend the benefits of learning amongst his subjects,

he showed the example himself, and applied to the cultivation of his

mind with unparalleled diligence and success. He could neither read nor

write at twelve years old; but he improved his time in such a manner

that he became one of the most knowing men of his age, in geometry, in

philosophy, in architecture, and in music. He applied himself to the

improvement of his native language; he translated several valuable works

from Latin; and wrote a vast number of poems in the Saxon tongue with a

wonderful facility and happiness. He not only excelled in the theory of

the arts and sciences, but possessed a great mechanical genius for the

executive part; he improved the manner of ship-building, introduced a

more beautiful and commodious architecture, and even taught his

countrymen the art of making bricks,--most of the buildings having been

of wood before his time. In a word, he comprehended in the greatness of

his mind the whole of government and all its parts at once, and, what is

most difficult to human frailty, was at the same time sublime and

minute.

Religion, which in Alfred's father was so prejudicial to affairs,

without being in him at all inferior in its zeal and fervor, was of a

more enlarged and noble kind; far from being a prejudice to his

government, it seems to have been the principle that supported him in so

many fatigues, and fed like an abundant source his civil and military

virtues. To his religious exercises and studies he devoted a full third

part of his time. It is pleasant to trace a genius even in its smallest

exertions,--in measuring and allotting his time for the variety of

business he was engaged in. According to his severe and methodical

custom, he had a sort of wax candles made of different colors in

different proportions, according to the time he allotted to each

particular affair; as he carried these about with him wherever he went,

to make them burn evenly he invented horn lanterns. One cannot help

being amazed that a prince, who lived in such turbulent times, who

commanded personally in fifty-four pitched battles, who had so

disordered a province to regulate, who was not only a legislator, but a

judge, and who was continually superintending his armies, his navies,

the traffic of his kingdom, his revenues, and the conduct of all his

officers, could have bestowed so much of his time on religious exercises

and speculative knowledge; but the exertion of all his faculties and

virtues seemed to have given a mutual strength to all of them. Thus all

historians speak of this prince, whose whole history was one panegyric;

and whatever dark spots of human frailty may have adhered to such a

character, they are entirely hid in the splendor of his many shining

qualities and grand virtues, that throw a glory over the obscure period

in which he lived, and which is for no other reason worthy of our

knowledge.

[Sidenote: A.D. 897.]

The latter part of his reign was molested with new and formidable

attempts from the Danes: but they no longer found the country in its

former condition; their fleets were attacked; and those that landed

found a strong and regular opposition. There were now fortresses which

restrained their ravages, and armies well appointed to oppose them in

the field; they were defeated in a pitched battle; and after several

desperate marches from one part of the country to the other, everywhere

harassed and hunted, they were glad to return with half their number,

and to leave Alfred in quiet to accomplish the great things he had

projected. This prince reigned twenty-seven, years, and died at last of

a disorder in his bowels, which had afflicted him, without interrupting

his designs or souring his temper, during the greatest part of his life.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] Historians, copying after one another, and examining little, have

attributed to this monarch the institution of juries, an institution

which certainly did never prevail amongst the Saxons. They have likewise

attributed to him the distribution of England into shires, hundreds, and

tithings, and of appointing officers over these divisions. But it is

very obvious that the shires were never settled upon any regular plan,

nor are they the result of any single design. But these reports, however

ill imagined, are a strong proof of the high veneration in which this

excellent prince has always been held; as it has been thought that the

attributing these regulations to him would endear them to the nation. Be

probably settled them in such an order, and made such reformations in

his government, that some of the institutions themselves which he

improved have been attributed to him: and, indeed, there was one work of

his which serves to furnish us with a higher idea of the political

capacity of that great man than any of these fictions. He made a general

survey and register of all the property in the kingdom, who held it, and

what it was distinctly: a vast work for an age of ignorance and time of

confusion, which has been neglected in more civilized nations and

settled times. It was called the Roll of Winton, and served as a model

of a work of the same kind made by William the Conqueror.

CHAPTER V.

SUCCESSION OF KINGS FROM ALFRED TO HAROLD.

[Sidenote: Edward, A.D. 900.]

[Sidenote: Athelstan A.D. 925.]

[Sidenote: Edmund, A.D. 942.]

[Sidenote: Edred, A.D. 947.]

[Sidenote: Edwin, A.D. 957.]

His son Edward succeeded. Though of less learning than his father, he

equalled him in his political virtues. He made war with success on the

Welsh, the Scots, and the Danes, and left his kingdom strongly

fortified, and exercised, not weakened, with the enterprises of a

vigorous reign. Because his son Edmund was under age, the crown was set

on the head of his illegitimate offspring, Athelstan. His, like the

reigns of all the princes of this time, was molested by the continual

incursions of the Danes; and nothing but a succession of men of spirit,

capacity, and love of their country, which providentially happened at

this time, could ward off the ruin of the kingdom. Such Athelstan was;

and such was his brother Edmund, who reigned five years with great

reputation, but was at length, by an obscure ruffian, assassinated in

his own palace. Edred, his brother, succeeded to the late monarchy:

though he had left two sons, Edwin and Edgar, both were passed by on

account of their minority. But on this prince's death, which happened

after a troublesome reign of ten years, valiantly supported against

continual inroads of the Danes; the crown devolved on Edwin; of whom

little can be said, because his reign was short, and he was so embroiled

with his clergy that we can take his character only from the monks, who

in such a case are suspicious authority.

[Sidenote: Edgar, A.D. 959.]

Edgar, the second son of King Edmund, came young to the throne; but he

had the happiness to have his youth formed and his kingdom ruled by men

of experience, virtue, and authority. The celebrated Dunstan was his

first minister, and had a mighty influence over all his actions. This

prelate had been educated abroad, and had seen the world to advantage.

As he had great power at court by the superior wisdom of his counsels,

so by the sanctity of his life he had great credit with the people,

which gave a firmness to the government of his master, whose private

character was in many respects extremely exceptionable. It was in his

reign, and chiefly by the means of his minister, Dunstan, that the

monks, who had long prevailed in the opinion of the generality of the

people, gave a total overthrow to their rivals, the secular clergy. The

secular clergy were at this time for the most part married, and were

therefore too near the common modes of mankind to draw a great deal of

their respect; their character was supported by a very small portion of

learning, and their lives were not such as people wish to see in the

clergy. But the monks were unmarried, austere in their lives, regular in

their duties, possessed of the learning of the times, well united under

a proper subordination, full of art, and implacable towards their

enemies. These circumstances, concurring with the dispositions of the

king and the designs of Dunstan, prevailed so far that it was agreed in

a council convened for that purpose to expel the secular clergy from

their livings, and to supply their places with monks, throughout the

kingdom. Although the partisans of the secular priests were not a few,

nor of the lowest class, yet they were unable to withstand the current

of the popular desire, strengthened by the authority of a potent and

respected monarch. However, there was a seed of discontent sown on this

occasion, which grew up afterwards to the mutual destruction of all the

parties. During the whole reign of Edgar, as he had secured the most

popular part of the clergy, and with them the people, in his interests,

there was no internal disturbance; there was no foreign war, because

this prince was always ready for war. But he principally owed his

security to the care he took of his naval power, which was much greater

and better regulated than that of any English monarch before him. He had

three fleets always equipped, one of which annually sailed round the

island. Thus the Danes, the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh were kept

in awe. He assumed the title of King of all Albion. His court was

magnificent, and much frequented by strangers. His revenues were in

excellent order, and no prince of his time supported the royal character

with more dignity.

[Sidenote: Edward, A.D. 975.]

[Sidenote: Ethelred, A.D. 979.]

Edgar had two wives, Elfleda and Elfrida. By the first he had a son

called Edward; the second bore him one called Ethelred. On Edgar's

death, Edward, in the usual order of succession, was called to the

throne; but Elfrida caballed in favor of her son, and finding it

impossible to set him up in the life of his brother, she murdered him

with her own hands in her castle of Corfe, whither he had retired to

refresh himself, wearied with hunting. Ethelred, who by the crimes of

his mother ascended a throne sprinkled with his brother's blood, had a

part to act which exceeded the capacity that could be expected in one of

his youth and inexperience. The partisans of the secular clergy, who

were kept down by the vigor of Edgar's government, thought this a fit

time to renew their pretensions. The monks defended themselves in their

possession; there was no moderation on either side, and the whole nation

joined in these parties. The murder of Edward threw an odious stain on

the king, though he was wholly innocent of that crime. There was a

general discontent, and every corner was full of murmurs and cabals. In

this state of the kingdom, it was equally dangerous to exert the fulness

of the sovereign authority or to suffer it to relax. The temper of the

king was most inclined to the latter method, which is of all things the

worst. A weak government, too easy, suffers evils to grow which often

make the most rigorous and illegal proceedings necessary. Through an

extreme lenity it is on some occasions tyrannical. This was the

condition of Ethelred's nobility, who, by being permitted everything,

were never contented.

Thus all the principal men held a sort of factious and independent

authority; they despised the king, they oppressed the people, and they

hated one another. The Danes, in every part of England but Wessex as

numerous as the English themselves, and in many parts more numerous,

were ready to take advantage of these disorders, and waited with

impatience some new attempt from abroad, that they might rise in favor

of the invaders. They were not long without such an occasion; the Danes

pour in almost upon every part at once, and distract the defence which

the weak prince was preparing to make.

In those days of wretchedness and ignorance, when all the maritime parts

of Europe were attacked by these formidable enemies at once, they never

thought of entering into any alliance against them; they equally

neglected the other obvious method to prevent their incursions, which

was, to carry the war into the invaders' country.

[Sidenote: A.D. 987.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 991.]

What aggravated these calamities, the nobility, mostly disaffected to

the king, and entertaining very little regard to their country, made,

some of them, a weak and cowardly opposition to the enemy; some actually

betrayed their trust; some even were found who undertook the trade of

piracy themselves. It was in this condition, that Edric, Duke of Mercia,

a man of some ability, but light, inconstant, and utterly devoid of all

principle, proposed to buy a peace from the Danes. The general weakness

and consternation disposed the king and people to take this pernicious

advice. At first 10,000_l._ was given to the Danes, who retired with

this money and the rest of their plunder. The English were now, for the

first time, taxed to supply this payment. The imposition was called

Danegelt, not more burdensome in the thing than scandalous in the name.

The scheme of purchasing peace not only gave rise to many internal

hardships, but, whilst it weakened the kingdom, it inspired such a

desire of invading it to the enemy, that Sweyn, King of Denmark, came in

person soon after with a prodigious fleet and army. The English, having

once found the method of diverting the storm by an inglorious bargain,

could not bear to think of any other way of resistance. A greater sum,

48,000_l._, was now paid, which the Danes accepted with pleasure, as

they could by this means exhaust their enemies and enrich themselves

with little danger or trouble. With very short intermissions they still

returned, continually increasing in their demands. In a few years they

extorted upwards of 160,000_l._ from the English, besides an annual

tribute of 48,000_l._ The country was wholly exhausted both of money and

spirit. The Danes in England, under the protection of the foreign Danes,

committed a thousand insolencies; and so infatuated with stupidity and

baseness were the English at this time, that they employed hardly any

other soldiers for their defence.

[Sidenote: A.D. 1002]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1003]

In this state of shame and misery, their sufferings suggested to them a

design rather desperate than brave. They resolved on a massacre of the

Danes. Some authors say, that in one night the whole race was cut off.

Many, probably all the military men, were so destroyed. But this

massacre, injudicious as it was cruel, was certainly not universal; nor

did it serve any other or better end than to exasperate those of the

same nation abroad, who the next year landed in England with a powerful

army to revenge it, and committed outrages even beyond the usual tenor

of the Danish cruelty. There was in England no money left to purchase a

peace, nor courage to wage a successful war; and the King of Denmark,

Sweyn, a prince of capacity, at the head of a large body of brave and

enterprising men, soon mastered the whole kingdom, except London.

Ethelred, abandoned by fortune and his subjects, was forced to fly into

Normandy.

[Sidenote: Edmund Ironside, A.D. 1016.]

As there was no good order in the English affairs, though continually

alarmed, they were always surprised; they were only roused to arms by

the cruelty of the enemy, and they were only formed into a body by being

driven from their homes: so that they never made a resistance until they

seemed to be entirely conquered. This may serve to account for the

frequent sudden reductions of the island, and the frequent renewals of

their fortune when it seemed the most desperate. Sweyn, in the midst of

his victories, dies, and, though succeeded by his son Canute, who

inherited his father's resolution, their affairs were thrown into some

disorder by this accident. The English were encouraged by it. Ethelred

was recalled, and the Danes retired out of the kingdom; but it was only

to return the nest year with a greater and better appointed force.

Nothing seemed able to oppose them. The king dies. A great part of the

land was surrendered, without resistance, to Canute. Edmund, the eldest

son of Ethelred, supported, however, the declining hopes of the English

for some time; in three months he fought three victorious battles; he

attempted a fourth, but lost it by the base desertion of Edric, the

principal author of all these troubles. It is common with the conquered

side to attribute all their misfortunes to the treachery of their own

party. They choose to be thought subdued by the treachery of their

friends rather than the superior bravery of their enemies. All the old

historians talk in this strain; and it must be acknowledged that all

adherents to a declining party have many temptations to infidelity.

Edmund, defeated, but not discouraged, retreated to the Severn, where he

recruited his forces. Canute followed at his heels. And now the two

armies were drawn up which were to decide the fate of England, when it

was proposed to determine the war by a single combat between the two

kings. Neither was unwilling; the Isle of Alney in the Severn was chosen

for the lists. Edmund had the advantage by the greatness of his

strength, Canute by his address; for when Edmund had so far prevailed as

to disarm him, he proposed a parley, in which he persuaded Edmund to a

peace, and to a division of the kingdom. Their armies accepted the

agreement, and both kings departed in a seeming friendship. But Edmund

died soon after, with a probable suspicion of being murdered by the

instruments of his associate in the empire.

[Sidenote: The Danish race.

Canute.]

[Sidenote: Harold I., A.D. 1035.]

[Sidenote: Hardicanute, A.D. 1035]

[Sidenote: The Saxon line restored.]

Canute, on this event, assembled the states of the kingdom, by whom he

was acknowledged King of all England. He was a prince truly great; for,

having acquired the kingdom by his valor, he maintained and improved it

by his justice and clemency. Choosing rather to rule by the inclination

of his subjects than the right of conquest, he dismissed his Danish

army, and committed his safety to the laws. He reëstablished the order

and tranquillity which so long a series of bloody wars had banished. He

revived the ancient statutes of the Saxon princes, and governed through

his whole reign with such steadiness and moderation that the English

were much happier under this foreign prince than they had been under

their natural kings. Canute, though the beginning of his life was

stained with those marks of violence and injustice which attend

conquest, was remarkable in his latter end for his piety. According to

the mode of that time, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, with a view to

expiate the crimes which paved his way to the throne; but he made a good

use of this peregrination, and returned full of the observations he had

made in the country through which he passed, which he turned to the

benefit of his extensive dominions. They comprehended England, Denmark,

Norway, and many of the countries which lie upon the Baltic. Those he

left, established in peace and security, to his children. The fate of

his Northern possessions is not of this place. England fell to his son

Harold, though not without much competition in favor of the sons of

Edmund Ironside, while some contended for the right of the sons of

Ethelred, Alfred and Edward. Harold inherited none of the virtues of

Canute; he banished his mother Emma, murdered his half-brother Alfred,

and died without issue after a short reign, full of violence, weakness,

and cruelty. His brother Hardicanute, who succeeded him, resembled him

in his character; he committed new cruelties and injustices in revenging

those which his brother had committed, and he died after a yet shorter

reign. The Danish power, established with so much blood, expired of

itself; and Edward, the only surviving son of Ethelred, then an exile in

Normandy, was called to the throne by the unanimous voice of the

kingdom.

[Sidenote: Edward the Confessor, A.D. 1041.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1053]

[Sidenote: A.D. 1066.]

This prince was educated in a monastery, where he learned piety,

continence, and humility, but nothing of the art of government. He was

innocent and artless, but his views were narrow, and his genius

contemptible. The character of such a prince is not, therefore, what

influences the government, any further than as it puts it in the hands

of others. When he came to the throne, Godwin, Earl of Kent, was the

most popular man in England; he possessed a very great estate, an

enterprising disposition, and an eloquence beyond the age he lived in;

he was arrogant, imperious, assuming, and of a conscience which never

put itself in the way of his interest. He had a considerable share in

restoring Edward to the throne of his ancestors; and by this merit,

joined to his popularity, he for some time directed everything according

to his pleasure. He intended to fortify his interest by giving in

marriage to the king his daughter, a lady of great beauty, great virtue,

and an education beyond her sex. Godwin had, however, powerful rivals in

the king's favor. This monarch, who possessed many of the private

virtues, had a grateful remembrance of his favorable reception in

Normandy; he caressed the people of that country, and promoted several

to the first places, ecclesiastical and civil, in his kingdom. This

begot an uneasiness in all the English; but Earl Godwin was

particularly offended. The Normans, on the other hand, accused Godwin of

a design on the crown, the justice of which imputation the whole tenor

of his conduct evinced sufficiently. But as his cabals began to break

into action before they were in perfect ripeness for it, the Norman

party prevailed, and Godwin was banished. This man was not only very

popular at home by his generosity and address, but he found means to

engage even, foreigners in his interests. Baldwin, Earl of Flanders,

gave him a very kind reception. By his assistance Godwin fitted out a

fleet, hired a competent force, sailed to England, and having near

Sandwich deceived the king's navy, he presented himself at London before

he was expected. The king made ready as great a force as the time would

admit to oppose him. The galleys of Edward and Godwin met on the Thames;

but such was the general favor to Godwin, such the popularity of his

cause, that the king's men threw down their arms, and refused to fight

against their countrymen in favor of strangers. Edward was obliged to

treat with his own subjects, and in consequence of this treaty to

dismiss the Normans, whom he believed to be the best attached to his

interests. Godwin used the power to which he was restored to gratify his

personal revenge, showing no mercy to his enemies. Some of his sons

behaved in the most tyrannical manner. The great lords of the kingdom

envied and hated a greatness which annihilated the royal authority,

eclipsed them, and oppressed the people; but Godwin's death soon after

quieted for a while their murmurs. The king, who had the least share in

the transactions of his own reign, and who was of a temper not to

perceive his own insignificance, begun in his old age to think of a

successor. He had no children: for some weak reasons of religion or

personal dislike, he had never cohabited with his wife. He sent for his

nephew Edward, the son of Edmund Ironside, out of Hungary, where he had

taken refuge; but he died soon after he came to England, leaving a son

called Edgar Atheling. The king himself irresolute in so momentous an

affair, died without making any settlement. His reign was properly that

of his great men, or rather of their factions. All of it that was his

own was good. He was careful of the privileges of his subjects, and took

care to have a body of the Saxon laws, very favorable to them, digested

and enforced. He remitted the heavy imposition called Danegelt,

amounting to 40,000_l._ a year, which had been constantly collected

after the occasion had ceased; he even repaid to his subjects what he

found in the treasury at his accession. In short, there is little in his

life that can call his title to sanctity in question, though he can

never be reckoned among the great kings.

CHAPTER VI.

HAROLD II.--INVASION OF THE NORMANS.--ACCOUNT OF THAT PEOPLE, AND OF THE

STATE OF ENGLAND AT THE TIME OF THE INVASION.

[Sidenote: Harold II., A.D. 1066.]

Though Edgar Atheling had the best title to the succession, yet Harold,

the son of Earl Godwin, on account of the credit of his father, and his

own great qualities, which supported and extended the interest of his

family, was by the general voice set upon the throne. The right of

Edgar, young, and discovering no great capacity, gave him little

disturbance in comparison of the violence of his own brother Tosti, whom

for his infamous oppression he had found himself obliged to banish. This

man, who was a tyrant at home and a traitor abroad, insulted the

maritime parts with a piratical fleet, whilst he incited all the

neighboring princes to fall upon his country. Harold Harfager, King of

Norway, after the conquest of the Orkneys, with a powerful navy hung

over the coasts of England. But nothing troubled Harold so much as the

pretensions and the formidable preparation of William, Duke of Normandy,

one of the most able, ambitious, and enterprising men of that age. We

have mentioned the partiality of King Edward to the Normans, and the

hatred he bore to Godwin, and his family. The Duke of Normandy, to whom

Edward had personal obligations, had taken a tour into England, and

neglected no means to improve these dispositions to his own advantage.

It is said that he then received the fullest assurances of being

appointed to the succession, and that Harold himself had been sent soon

after into Normandy to settle whatever related to it. This is an obscure

transaction, and would, if it could be cleared up, convey but little

instruction. So that whether we believe or not that William had engaged

Harold by a solemn oath to secure him the kingdom, we know that he

afterwards set up a will of King Edward in his favor, which, however, he

never produced, and probably never had to produce. In these delicate

circumstances Harold was not wanting to himself. By the most equitable

laws and the most popular behavior he sought to secure the affections of

his subjects; and he succeeded so well, that, when he marched against

the King of Norway, who had invaded his kingdom and taken York, without

difficulty he raised a numerous army of gallant men, zealous for his

cause and their country. He obtained a signal and decisive victory over

the Norwegians. The King Harfager, and the traitor Tosti, who had joined

him, were slain in the battle, and the Norwegians were forced to

evacuate the country. Harold had, however, but little time to enjoy the

fruits of his victory.

Scarce had the Norwegians departed, when William, Duke of Normandy,

landed in the southern part of the kingdom with an army of sixty

thousand chosen men, and struck a general terror through all the nation,

which was well acquainted with the character of the commander and the

courage and discipline of his troops.

The Normans were the posterity of those Danes who had so long and so

cruelly harassed the British islands and the shore of the adjoining

continent. In, the days of King Alfred, a body of these adventurers,

under their leader, Rollo, made an attempt upon England; but so well did

they find every spot defended by the vigilance and bravery of that great

monarch that they were compelled to retire. Beaten from these shores,

the stream of their impetuosity bore towards the northern parts of

France, which had been reduced to the most deplorable condition by their

former ravages. Charles the Simple then sat on the throne of that

kingdom; unable to resist this torrent of barbarians, he was obliged to

yield to it; he agreed to give up to Rollo the large and fertile

province of Neustria, to hold of him as his feudatory. This province,

from the new inhabitants, was called Normandy. Five princes succeeded

Rollo, who maintained with great bravery and cultivated with equal

wisdom his conquests. The ancient ferocity of this people was a little

softened by their settlement; but the bravery which, had made the Danes

so formidable was not extinguished in the Normans, nor the spirit of

enterprise. Not long before this period, a private gentleman of

Normandy, by his personal bravery, had acquired the kingdom of Naples.

Several others followed his fortunes, who added Sicily to it. From one

end of Europe to the other the Norman name was known, respected, and

feared. Robert, the sixth Duke of Normandy, to expiate some crime which

lay heavy upon his conscience, resolved, according to the ideas of that

time, upon a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It was in vain that his nobility,

whom he had assembled to notify this resolution to them, represented to

him the miserable state to which his country would be reduced, abandoned

by its prince, and uncertain of a legal successor. The Duke was not to

be moved from his resolution, which appeared but the more meritorious

from the difficulties which attended it. He presented to the states

William, then an infant, born of an obscure woman, whom,

notwithstanding, he doubted not to be his son; him he appointed to

succeed; him he recommended to their virtue and loyalty; and then,

solemnly resigning the government in his favor, he departed on the

pilgrimage, from whence he never returned. The states, hesitating some

time between, the mischiefs that attend the allowing an illegitimate

succession, and those which might arise from admitting foreign

pretensions, thought the former the least prejudicial, and accordingly

swore allegiance to William. But this oath was not sufficient to

establish a right so doubtful. The Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, as

well as several Norman noblemen, had specious titles. The endeavors of

all these disquieted the reign of the young prince with perpetual

troubles. In these troubles he was formed early in life to vigilance,

activity, secrecy, and a conquest over all those passions, whether bad

or good, which obstruct the way to greatness. He had to contend with all

the neighboring princes, with the seditions of a turbulent and

unfaithful nobility, and the treacherous protection of his feudal lord,

the King of France. All of these in their turns, sometimes all of these

together, distressed him. But with the most unparalleled good fortune

and conduct he overcame all opposition, and triumphed over every enemy,

raising his power and reputation above that of all his ancestors, as

much as he was exalted by his bravery above the princes of his own time.

Such was the prince who, on a pretended claim from the will of King

Edward, supported by the common and popular pretence of punishing

offenders and redressing grievances, landed at Pevensey in Sussex, to

contest the crown with Harold. Harold had no sooner advice of his

landing than he advanced to meet him with all possible diligence; but

there did not appear in his army, upon this occasion, the same unanimity

and satisfaction which animated it on its march against the Norwegians.

An ill-timed economy in Harold, which made him refuse to his soldiers

the plunder of the Norwegian camp, had created a general discontent.

Several deserted; and the soldiers who remained followed heavily a

leader under whom there was no hope of plunder, the greatest incitement

of the soldiery. Notwithstanding this ill disposition, Harold still

urged forward, and by forced marches advanced within seven miles of the

enemy. The Norman, on his landing, is said to have sent away his ships,

that his army might have no way of safety but in conquest; yet had he

fortified his camp, and taken every prudent precaution, that so

considerable an enterprise should not be reduced to a single effort of

despair. When the armies, charged with the decision of so mighty a

contest, had approached each other, Harold paused awhile. A great deal

depended on his conduct at this critical time. The most experienced in

the council of war, who knew the condition of their troops, were of

opinion that the engagement ought to be deferred,--that the country

ought to be wasted,--that, as the winter approached, the Normans would

in all probability be obliged to retire of themselves,--that, if this

should not happen, the Norman army was without resources, whilst the

English would be every day considerably augmented, and might attack

their enemy at a time and manner which might make their success certain.

To all these reasons nothing was opposed but a false point of honor and

a mistaken courage in Harold, who urged his fate, and resolved on an

engagement. The Norman, as soon as he perceived that the English, were

determined on a battle, left his camp to post himself in an advantageous

situation, in which his whole army remained the night which preceded the

action.

This night was spent in a manner which prognosticated the event of the

following day. On the part of the Normans it was spent in prayer, and

in a cool and steady preparation for the engagement; on the side of the

English, in riot and a vain confidence that neglected all the necessary

preparations. The two armies met in the morning; from seven to five the

battle was fought with equal vigor, until at last the Norman army

pretending to break in confusion, a stratagem to which they had been

regularly formed, the English, elated with success, suffered that firm

order in which their security consisted to dissipate, which when William

observed, he gave the signal to his men to regain their former

disposition, and fall upon the English, broken and dispersed. Harold in

this emergency did everything which became him, everything possible to

collect his troops and to renew the engagement; but whilst he flew from

place to place, and in all places restored the battle, an arrow pierced

his brain, and he died a king, in a manner worthy of a warrior. The

English immediately fled; the rout was total, and the slaughter

prodigious.

The consternation which this defeat and the death of Harold produced

over the kingdom was more fatal than the defeat itself. If William had

marched directly to London, all contest had probably been at an end; but

he judged it more prudent to secure the sea-coast, to make way for

reinforcements, distrusting his fortune in his success more than he had

done in his first attempts. He marched to Dover, where the effect of his

victory was such that the strong castle there surrendered without

resistance. Had this fortress made any tolerable defence, the English

would have had leisure to rouse from their consternation, and plan some

rational method for continuing the war; but now the conqueror was on

full march to London, whilst the English were debating concerning the

measures they should take, and doubtful in what manner they should fill

the vacant throne. However, in this emergency it was necessary to take

some resolution. The party of Edgar Atheling prevailed, and he was owned

king by the city of London, which even at this time was exceedingly

powerful, and by the greatest part of the nobility then present. But his

reign was of a short duration. William advanced by hasty marches, and,

as he approached, the perplexity of the English redoubled: they had done

nothing for the defence of the city; they had no reliance on their new

king; they suspected one another; there was no authority, no order, no

counsel; a confused and ill-sorted assembly of unwarlike people, of

priests, burghers, and nobles confounded with them in the general panic,

struck down by the consternation of the late defeat, and trembling under

the bolts of the Papal excommunication, were unable to plan any method

of defence: insomuch that, when he had passed the Thames and drew near

to London, the clergy, the citizens, and the greater part of the nobles,

who had so lately set the crown on the head of Edgar, went out to meet

him; they submitted to him, and having brought him in triumph to

Westminster, he was there solemnly crowned King of England. The whole

nation followed the example of London; and one battle gave England to

the Normans, which had cost the Romans, the Saxons, and Danes so much

time and blood to acquire.

At first view it is very difficult to conceive how this could have

happened to a powerful nation, in which it does not appear that the

conqueror had one partisan. It stands a single event in history, unless,

perhaps, we may compare it with the reduction of Ireland, some time

after, by Henry the Second. An attentive consideration of the state of

the kingdom at that critical time may, perhaps, in some measure, lay

open to us the cause of this extraordinary revolution. The nobility of

England, in which its strength consisted, was much decayed. Wars and

confiscations, but above all the custom of gavelkind, had reduced that

body very low. At the same time some few families had been, raised to a

degree of power unknown in the ancient Saxon times, and dangerous in

all. Large possessions, and a larger authority, were annexed to the

offices of the Saxon magistrates, whom they called Aldermen. This

authority, in their long and bloody wars with the Danes, it was found

necessary to increase, and often to increase beyond the ancient limits.

Aldermen were created for life; they were then frequently made

hereditary; some were vested with a power over others; and at this

period we begin to hear of dukes who governed over several shires, and

had many aldermen subject to them. These officers found means to turn

the royal bounty into an instrument of becoming independent of its

authority. Too great to obey, and too little to protect, they were a

dead weight upon the country. They began to cast an eye on the crown,

and distracted the nation by cabals to compass their designs. At the

same time they nourished the most terrible feuds amongst themselves. The

feeble government of Edward established these abuses. He could find no

method of humbling one subject grown too great, but by aggrandizing in

the same excessive degree some others. Thus, he endeavored to balance

the power of Earl Godwin by exalting Leofric, Duke of Mercia, and

Siward, Duke of Northumberland, to an extravagant greatness. The

consequence was this: he did not humble Godwin, but raised him potent

rivals. When, therefore, this prince died, the lawful successor to the

crown, who had nothing but right in his favor, was totally eclipsed by

the splendor of the great men who had adorned themselves with the spoils

of royalty. The throne was now the prize of faction; and Harold, the son

of Godwin, having the strongest faction, carried it. By this success the

opposite parties were inflamed with a new occasion of rancor and

animosity, and an incurable discontent was raised in the minds of Edwin

and Morcar, the sons of Duke Leofric, who inherited their father's power

and popularity: but this animosity operated nothing in favor of the

legitimate heir, though it weakened the hands of the governing prince.

The death of Harold was far from putting an end to these evils; it

rather unfolded more at large the fatal consequences of the ill measures

which had been pursued. Edwin and Morcar set on foot once more their

practices to obtain the crown; and when they found themselves baffled,

they retired in discontent from the councils of the nation, withdrawing

thereby a very large part of its strength and authority. The council of

the nation, which was formed of the clashing factions of a few great

men, (for the rest were nothing,) divided, disheartened, weakened,

without head, without direction, dismayed by a terrible defeat,

submitted, because they saw no other course, to a conqueror whose valor

they had experienced, and who had hitherto behaved with great

appearances of equity and moderation. As for the grandees, they were

contented rather to submit to this foreign prince than to those whom

they regarded as their equals and enemies.

With these causes other strong ones concurred. For near two centuries

the continual and bloody wars with the Danes had exhausted the nation;

the peace, which for a long time they were obliged to buy dearly,

exhausted it yet more; and it had not sufficient leisure nor sufficient

means of acquiring wealth to yield at this time any extraordinary

resources. The new people, which after so long a struggle had mixed with

the English, had not yet so thoroughly incorporated with the ancient

inhabitants that a perfect union might be expected between them, or that

any strong, uniform, national effort might have resulted from it.

Besides, the people of England were the most backward in Europe in all

improvements, whether in military or in civil life. Their towns were

meanly built, and more meanly fortified; there was scarcely anything

that deserved the name of a strong place in the kingdom; there was no

fortress which, by retarding the progress of a conqueror, might give the

people an opportunity of recalling their spirits and collecting their

strength. To these we may add, that the Pope's approbation of William's

pretensions gave them great weight, especially amongst the clergy, and

that this disposed and reconciled to submission a people whom the

circumstances we have mentioned had before driven to it.

CHAPTER VII.

OF THE LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE SAXONS.

Before we begin to consider the laws and constitutions of the Saxons,

let us take a view of the state of the country from whence they are

derived, as it is portrayed in ancient writers. This view will be the

best comment on their institutions. Let us represent to ourselves a

people without learning, without arts, without industry, solely pleased

and occupied with war, neglecting agriculture, abhorring cities, and

seeking their livelihood only from pasturage and hunting through a

boundless range of morasses and forests. Such a people must necessarily

be united to each other by very feeble bonds; their ideas of government

will necessarily be imperfect, their freedom and their love of freedom

great. From these dispositions it must happen, of course, that the

intention of investing one person or a few with the whole powers of

government, and the notion of deputed authority or representation, are

ideas that never could have entered their imaginations. When, therefore,

amongst such a people any resolution of consequence was to be taken,

there was no way of effecting it but by bringing together the whole body

of the nation, that every individual might consent to the law, and each

reciprocally bind the other to the observation of it. This polity, if so

it may be called, subsists still in all its simplicity in Poland.

But as in such a society as we have mentioned the people cannot be

classed according to any political regulations, great talents have a

more ample sphere in which to exert themselves than in a close and

better formed society. These talents must therefore have attracted a

great share of the public veneration, and drawn a numerous train after

the person distinguished by them, of those who sought his protection, or

feared his power, or admired his qualifications, or wished to form

themselves after his example, or, in fine, of whoever desired to partake

of his importance by being mentioned along with him. These the ancient

Gauls, who nearly resembled the Germans in their customs, called

Ambacti; the Romans called them Comites. Over these their chief had a

considerable power, and the more considerable because it depended upon

influence rather than institution: influence among so free a people

being the principal source of power. But this authority, great as it

was, never could by its very nature be stretched to despotism; because

any despotic act would have shocked the only principle by which that

authority was supported, the general good opinion. On the other hand, it

could not have been bounded by any positive laws, because laws can

hardly subsist amongst a people who have not the use of letters. It was

a species of arbitrary power, softened by the popularity from whence it

arose. It came from popular opinion, and by popular opinion it was

corrected.

If people so barbarous as the Germans have no laws, they have yet

customs that serve in their room; and these customs operate amongst them

better than laws, because they become a sort of Nature both to the

governors and the governed. This circumstance in some measure removed

all fear of the abuse of authority, and induced the Germans to permit

their chiefs[49] to decide upon matters of lesser moment, their private

differences,--for so Tacitus explains the _minores res_. These chiefs

were a sort of judges, but not legislators; nor do they appear to have

had a share in the superior branches of the executive part of

government,--the business of peace and war, and everything of a public

nature, being determined, as we have before remarked, by the whole body

of the people, according to a maxim general among the Germans, that what

concerned all ought to be handled by all. Thus were delineated the faint

and incorrect outlines of our Constitution, which has since been so

nobly fashioned and so highly finished. This fine system, says

Montesquieu, was invented in the woods; but whilst it remained in the

woods, and for a long time after, it was far from being a fine one,--no

more, indeed, than a very imperfect attempt at government, a system for

a rude and barbarous people, calculated to maintain them in their

barbarity.

The ancient state of the Germans was military: so that the orders into

which they were distributed, their subordination, their courts, and

every part of their government, must be deduced from an attention to a

military principle.

The ancient German people, as all the other Northern tribes, consisted

of freemen and slaves: the freemen professed arms, the slaves cultivated

the ground. But men were not allowed to profess arms at their own will,

nor until they were admitted to that dignity by an established order,

which at a certain age separated the boys from men. For when a young man

approached to virility,[50] he was not yet admitted as a member of the

state, which was quite military, until he had been invested with a

spear in the public assembly of his tribe; and then he was adjudged

proper to carry arms, and also to assist in the public deliberations,

which were always held armed.[51] This spear he generally received from

the hand of some old and respected chief, under whom he commonly entered

himself, and was admitted among his followers.[52] No man could stand

out as an independent individual, but must have enlisted in one of these

military fraternities; and as soon as he had so enlisted, immediately he

became bound to his leader in the strictest dependence, which was

confirmed by an oath,[53] and to his brethren in a common vow for their

mutual support in all dangers, and for the advancement and the honor of

their common chief. This chief was styled Senior, Lord, and the like

terms, which marked out a superiority in age and merit; the followers

were called Ambacti, Comites, Leudes, Vassals, and other terms, marking

submission and dependence. This was the very first origin of civil, or

rather, military government, amongst the ancient people of Europe; and

it arose from the connection that necessarily was created between the

person who gave the arms, or knighted the young man, and him that

received them; which implied that they were to be occupied in his

service who originally gave them. These principles it is necessary

strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole

course both of government and real property, wherever the German

nations obtained a settlement: the whole of their government depending

for the most part upon two principles in our nature,--ambition, that

makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead

amongst others,--and admiration, which makes others equally desirous of

following him, from the mere pleasure of admiration, and a sort of

secondary ambition, one of the most universal passions among men. These

two principles, strong, both of them, in our nature, create a voluntary

inequality and dependence. But amongst equals in condition there could

be no such bond, and this was supplied by confederacy; and as the first

of these principles created the senior and the knight, the second

produced the _conjurati fratres_, which, sometimes as a more extensive,

sometimes as a stricter bond, are perpetually mentioned in the old laws

and histories.

The relation between the lord and the vassal produced another

effect,--that the leader was obliged to find sustenance for his

followers, and to maintain them at his table, or give them some

equivalent in order to their maintenance. It is plain from these

principles, that this service on one hand, and this obligation to

support on the other, could not have originally been hereditary, but

must have been entirely in the free choice of the parties.

But it is impossible that such a polity could long have subsisted by

election alone. For, in the first place, that natural love which every

man has to his own kindred would make the chief willing to perpetuate

the power and dignity he acquired in his own blood,--and for that

purpose, even during his own life, would raise his son, if grown up, or

his collaterals, to such a rank as they should find it only necessary to

continue their possession upon his death. On the other hand, if a

follower was cut off in war, or fell by natural course, leaving his

offspring destitute, the lord could not so far forget the services of

his vassal as not to continue his allowance to his children; and these

again growing up, from reason and gratitude, could only take their

knighthood at his hands from whom they had received their education; and

thus, as it could seldom happen but that the bond, either on the side of

the lord or dependant, was perpetuated, some families must have been

distinguished by a long continuance of this relation, and have been

therefore looked upon in an honorable light, from that only circumstance

from whence honor was derived in the Northern world. Thus nobility was

seen in Germany; and in the earliest Anglo-Saxon times some families

were distinguished by the title of Ethelings, or of noble descent. But

this nobility of birth was rather a qualification for the dignities of

the state than an actual designation to them. The Saxon ranks are

chiefly designed to ascertain the quantity of the composition for

personal injuries against them.

But though this hereditary relation was created very early, it must not

be mistaken for such a regular inheritance as we see at this day: it was

an inheritance only according to the principles from whence it was

derived; by them it was modified. It was originally a military

connection; and if a father loft his son under a military age, so as

that he could neither lead nor judge his people, nor qualify the young

men who came up under him to take arms,--in order to continue the

cliental bond, and not to break up an old and strong confederacy, and

thereby disperse the tribe, who should be pitched upon to head the

whole, but the worthiest of blood of the deceased leader, he that ranked

next to him in his life?[54] And this is Tanistry, which is a succession

made up of inheritance and election, a succession in which blood is

inviolably regarded, so far as it was consistent with military purposes.

It was thus that our kings succeeded to the throne throughout the whole

time of the Anglo-Saxon, empire. The first kings of the Franks succeeded

in the same manner, and without all doubt the succession of all the

inferior chieftains was regulated by a similar law. Very frequent

examples occur in the Saxon times, where the son of the deceased king,

if under age, was entirely passed over, and his uncle, or some remoter

relation, raised to the crown; but there is not a single instance where

the election has carried it out of the blood. So that, in truth, the

controversy, which has been managed with such heat, whether in the Saxon

times the crown was hereditary or elective, must be determined in some

degree favorably for the litigants on either side; for it was certainly

both hereditary and elective within the bounds, which we have mentioned.

This order prevailed in Ireland, where the Northern customs were

retained some hundreds of years after the rest of Europe had in a great

measure receded from them. Tanistry continued in force there until the

beginning of the last century. And we have greatly to regret the narrow

notions of our lawyers, who abolished the authority of the Brehon law,

and at the same time kept no monuments of it,--which if they had done,

there is no doubt but many things of great value towards determining

many questions relative to the laws, antiquities, and manners of this

and other countries had been preserved. But it is clear, though it has

not been, I think, observed, that the ascending collateral branch was

much regarded amongst the ancient Germans, and even preferred to that of

the immediate possessor, as being, in case of an accident arriving to

the chief, the presumptive heir, and him on whom the hope of the family

was fixed: and this is upon the principles of Tanistry. And the rule

seems to have taken such deep root as to have much influenced a

considerable article of our feudal law: for, what is very singular, and,

I take it, otherwise unaccountable, a collateral warranty bound, even

without any descending assets, where the lineal did not, unless

something descended; and this subsisted invariably in the law until this

century.

Thus we have seen the foundation of the Northern government and the

orders of their people, which consisted of dependence and confederacy:

that the principal end of both was military; that protection and

maintenance were due on the part of the chief, obedience on that of the

follower; that the followers should be bound to each other as well as to

the chief; that this headship was not at first hereditary, but that it

continued in the blood by an order of its own, called Tanistry.

All these unconnected and independent parts were only linked together by

a common council: and here religion interposed. Their priests, the

Druids, having a connection throughout each state, united it. They

called the assembly of the people: and here their general resolutions

were taken; and the whole might rather be called a general confederacy

than a government. In no other bonds, I conceive, were they united

before they quitted Germany. In this ancient state we know them from

Tacitus. Then follows an immense gap, in which undoubtedly some changes

were made by time; and we hear little more of them until we find them

Christians, and makers of written laws. In this interval of time the

origin of kings may be traced out. When the Saxons left their own

country in search of new habitations, it must be supposed that they

followed their leaders, whom they so much venerated at home; but as the

wars which made way for their establishment continued for a long time,

military obedience made them familiar with a stricter authority. A

subordination, too, became necessary among the leaders of each band of

adventurers: and being habituated to yield an obedience to a single

person in the field, the lustre of his command and the utility of the

institution easily prevailed upon them to suffer him to form the band of

their union in time of peace, under the name of King. But the leader

neither knew the extent of the power he received, nor the people of that

which they bestowed. Equally unresolved were they about the method of

perpetuating it,--sometimes filling the vacant throne by election,

without regard to, but more frequently regarding, the blood of the

deceased prince; but it was late before they fell into any regular plan

of succession, if ever the Anglo-Saxons attained it. Thus their polity

was formed slowly; the prospect clears up by little and little; and this

species of an irregular republic we see turned into a monarchy as

irregular. It is no wonder that the advocates for the several parties

among us find something to favor their several notions in the Saxon

government, which was never supported by any fixed or uniform principle.

To comprehend the other parts of the government of our ancestors, we

must take notice of the orders into winch they were classed. As well as

we can judge in so obscure a matter, they were divided into nobles or

gentlemen, freeholders, freemen that were not freeholders, and slaves.

Of these last we have little to say, as they were nothing in the state.

The nobles were called Thanes, or servants. It must be remembered that

the German chiefs were raised to that honorable rank by those

qualifications which drew after them a numerous train of followers and

dependants.[55] If it was honorable to be followed by a numerous train,

so it was honorable in a secondary degree to be a follower of a man of

consideration; and this honor was the greater in proportion to the

quality of the chief, and to the nearness of the attendance on his

person. When a monarchy was formed, the splendor of the crown naturally

drowned all the inferior honors; and the attendants on the person of the

king were considered as the first in rank, and derived their dignity

from their service. Yet as the Saxon government had still a large

mixture of the popular, it was likewise requisite, in order to raise a

man to the first rank of thanes, that he should have a suitable

attendance and sway amongst the people. To support him in both of these,

it was necessary that he should have a competent estate. Therefore in

this service of the king, this attendance on himself, and this estate to

support both, the dignity of a thane consisted. I understand here a

thane of the first order.

[Sidenote: Hallmote, or Court-Baron.]

Every thane, in the distribution of his lands, had two objects in view:

the support of his family, and the maintenance of his dignity. He

therefore retained in his own hands a parcel of land near his house,

which in the Saxon times was called inland, and afterwards his demesne,

which served to keep up his hospitality: and this land was cultivated

either by slaves, or by the poorer sort of people, who held lands of him

by the performance of this service. The other portion of his estate he

either gave for life or lives to his followers, men of a liberal

condition, who served the greater thane, as he himself served the king.

They were called Under Thanes, or, according to the language of that

time, Theoden.[56] They served their lord in all public business; they

followed him in war; and they sought justice in his court in all their

private differences. These may be considered as freeholders of the

better sort, or indeed a sort of lesser gentry therefore, as they were

not the absolute dependants, but in some measure the peers of their

lord, when they sued in his court, they claimed the privilege of all the

German freemen, the right of judging one another: the lord's steward was

only the register. This domestic court, which continued in full vigor

for many ages, the Saxons called Hall mote, from the place in which it

was held; the Normans, who adopted it, named it a Court-Baron. This

court had another department, in which the power of the lord was more

absolute. From the most ancient times the German nobility considered

themselves as the natural judges of those who were employed in the

cultivation of their lands, looking on husbandmen with contempt, and

only as a parcel of the soil which they tilled: to these the Saxons

commonly allotted some part of their outlands to hold as tenants at

will, and to perform very low services for them. The differences of

these inferior tenants were decided in the lord's court, in which his

steward sat as judge; and this manner of tenure probably gave an origin

to copyholders.[57] Their estates were at will, but their persons were

free: nor can we suppose that villains, if we consider villains as

synonymous to slaves, could ever by any natural course have risen to

copyholders; because the servile condition of the villain's person would

always have prevented that stable tenure in the lands which the

copyholders came to in very early times. The merely servile part of the

nation seems never to have been known by the name of Villains or

Ceorles, but by those of Bordars, Esnes, and Theowes.

[Sidenote: Tithing Court.]

As there were large tracts throughout the country not subject to the

jurisdiction of any thane, the inhabitants of which were probably some

remains of the ancient Britons not reduced to absolute slavery, and such

Saxons as had not attached themselves to the fortunes of any leading

man, it was proper to find some method of uniting and governing these

detached parts of the nation, which had not been brought into order by

any private dependence. To answer this end, the whole kingdom was

divided into Shires, these into Hundreds, and the Hundreds into

Tithings.[58] This division was not made, as it is generally imagined,

by King Alfred, though he might have introduced better regulations

concerning it; it prevailed on the continent, wherever the Northern

nations had obtained a settlement; and it is a species of order

extremely obvious to all who use the decimal notation: when for the

purposes of government they divide a county, tens and hundreds are the

first modes of division which occur. The Tithing, which was the smallest

of these divisions, consisted of ten heads of families, free, and of

some consideration. These held a court every fortnight, which they

called the Folkmote, or Leet, and there became reciprocally bound to

each other and to the public for their own peaceable behavior and that

of their families and dependants. Every man in the kingdom, except those

who belonged to the seigneurial courts we have mentioned, was obliged to

enter himself into some tithing: to this he was inseparably attached;

nor could he by any means quit it without license from the head of the

tithing; because, if he was guilty of any misdemeanor, his district was

obliged to produce him or pay his fine. In this manner was the whole

nation, as it were, held under sureties: a species of regulation

undoubtedly very wise with regard to the preservation of peace and

order, but equally prejudicial to all improvement in the minds or the

fortunes of the people, who, fixed invariably to the spot, were

depressed with all the ideas of their original littleness, and by all

that envy which is sure to arise in those who see their equals

attempting to mount over them. This rigid order deadened by degrees the

spirit of the English, and narrowed their conceptions. Everything was

new to them, and therefore everything was terrible; all activity,

boldness, enterprise, and invention died away. There may be a danger in

straining too strongly the bonds of government. As a life of absolute

license tends to turn men into savages, the other extreme of constraint

operates much in the same manner: it reduces them to the same ignorance,

but leaves them nothing of the savage spirit. These regulations helped

to keep the people of England the most backward in Europe; for though

the division into shires and hundreds and tithings was common to them

with the neighboring nations, yet the _frankpledge_ seems to be a

peculiarity in the English Constitution; and for good reasons they have

fallen into disuse, though still some traces of them are to be found in

our laws.

[Sidenote: Hundred Court.]

Ten of these tithings made an Hundred. Here in ordinary course they held

a monthly court for the centenary, when all the suitors of the

subordinate tithings attended. Here were determined causes concerning

breaches of the peace, small debts, and such matters as rather required

a speedy than a refined justice.

[Sidenote: County Court.]

[Sidenote: Ealdorman and Bishop.]

There was in the Saxon Constitution a great simplicity. The higher order

of courts were but the transcript of the lower, somewhat more extended

in their objects and in their power; and their power over the inferior

courts proceeded only from their being a collection of them all. The

County or Shire Court was the great resort for justice (for the four

great courts of record did not then exist). It served to unite all the

inferior districts with one another, and those with the private

jurisdiction of the thanes. This court had no fixed place. The alderman

of the shire appointed it. Hither came to account for their own conduct,

and that of those beneath them, the bailiffs of hundreds and tithings

and boroughs, with their people,--the thanes of either rank, with their

dependants,--a vast concourse of the clergy of all orders: in a word, of

all who sought or distributed justice. In this mixed assembly the

obligations contracted in the inferior courts were renewed, a general

oath of allegiance to the king was taken, and all debates between the

several inferior coördinate jurisdictions, as well as the causes of too

much weight for them, finally determined. In this court presided (for in

strict signification he does not seem to have been a judge) an officer

of great consideration in those times, called the Ealdorman of the

Shire. With him sat the bishop, to decide in whatever related to the

Church, and to mitigate the rigor of the law by the interposition of

equity, according to the species of mild justice that suited the

ecclesiastical character. It appears by the ancient Saxon laws, that the

bishop was the chief acting person in this court. The reverence in which

the clergy were then held, the superior learning of the bishop, his

succeeding to the power and jurisdiction of the Druid, all contributed

to raise him far above the ealdorman, and to render it in reality his

court. And this was probably the reason of the extreme lenity of the

Saxon laws. The canons forbade the bishops to meddle in cases of blood.

Amongst the ancient Gauls and Germans the Druid could alone condemn to

death; so that on the introduction of Christianity there was none who

could, in ordinary course, sentence a man to capital punishment:

necessity alone forced it in a few cases.

Concerning the right of appointing the Alderman of the Shire there is

some uncertainty. That he was anciently elected by his county is

indisputable; that an alderman of the shire was appointed by the crown

seems equally clear from the writings of King Alfred. A conjecture of

Spelman throws some light upon this affair. He conceives that there were

two aldermen with concurrent jurisdiction, one of whom was elected by

the people, the other appointed by the king. This is very probable, and

very correspondent to the nature of the Saxon Constitution, which was a

species of democracy poised and held together by a degree of monarchical

power. If the king had no officer to represent him in the county court,

wherein all the ordinary business of the nation was then transacted, the

state would have hardly differed from a pure democracy. Besides, as the

king had in every county large landed possessions, either in his

demesne, or to reward and pay his officers, he would have been in a much

worse condition than any of his subjects, if he had been destitute of a

magistrate to take care of his rights and to do justice to his numerous

vassals. It appears, as well as we can judge in so obscure a matter,

that the popular alderman was elected for a year only, and that the

royal alderman held his place at the king's pleasure. This latter

office, however, in process of time, was granted for life; and it grew

afterwards to be hereditary in many shires.

[Sidenote: The Sheriff.]

[Sidenote: Sheriff's Tourn.]

We cannot pretend to say when the Sheriff came to be substituted in the

place of the Ealdorman: some authors think King Alfred the contriver of

this regulation. It might have arisen from the nature of the thing

itself. As several persons of consequence enough to obtain by their

interest or power the place of alderman were not sufficiently qualified

to perform the duty of the office, they contented themselves with the

honorary part, and left the judicial province to their substitute.[59]

The business of the robe to a rude martial people was contemptible and

disgusting. The thanes, in their private jurisdictions, had delegated

their power of judging to their reeves, or stewards; and the earl, or

alderman, who was in the shire what the thane was in his manor, for the

same reasons officiated by his deputy, the shire-reeve. This is the

origin of the Sheriff's Tourn, which decided in all affairs, civil and

criminal, of whatever importance, and from which there lay no appeal but

to the Witenagemote. Now there scarce remains the shadow of a body

formerly so great: the judge being reduced almost wholly to a

ministerial officer; and to the court there being left nothing more

than the cognizance of pleas under forty shillings, unless by a

particular writ or special commission. But by what steps such a

revolution came on it will be our business hereafter to inquire.

[Sidenote: Witenagemote.]

The Witenagemote or Saxon Parliament, the supreme court, had authority

over all the rest, not upon any principle of subordination, but because

it was formed of all the rest. In this assembly, which was held

annually, and sometimes twice a year, sat the earls and bishops and

greater thanes, with the other officers of the crown.[60] So far as we

can judge by the style of the Saxon laws, none but the thanes, or

nobility, were considered as necessary constituent parts of this

assembly, at least whilst it acted deliberatively. It is true that great

numbers of all ranks of people attended its session, and gave by their

attendance, and their approbation of what was done, a sanction to the

laws; but when they consented to anything, it was rather in the way of

acclamation than by the exercise of a deliberate voice, or a regular

assent or negative. This may be explained by considering the analogy of

the inferior assemblies. All persons, of whatever rank, attended at the

county courts; but they did not go there as judges, they went to sue for

justice,--to be informed of their duty, and to be bound to the

performance of it. Thus all sorts of people attended at the

Witenagemotes, not to make laws, but to attend at the promulgation of

the laws;[61] as among so free a people every institution must have

wanted much of its necessary authority, if not confirmed by the general

approbation. Lambard is of opinion that in these early times the commons

sat, as they do at this day, by representation from shires and boroughs;

and he supports his opinion by very plausible reasons. A notion of this

kind, so contrary to the simplicity of the Saxon ideas of government,

and to the genius of that people, who held the arts and commerce in so

much contempt, must be founded on such appearances as no other

explanation can account for.

To the reign of Henry the Second, the citizens and burgesses were little

removed from absolute slaves. They might be taxed individually at what

sum the king thought fit to demand; or they might be discharged by

offering the king a sum, from which, if he accepted it, the citizens

were not at liberty to recede; and in either case the demand was exacted

with severity, and even cruelty. A great difference is made between

taxing them and those who cultivate lands: because, says my author,

their property is easily concealed; they live penuriously, are intent by

all methods to increase their substance, and their immense wealth is not

easily exhausted. Such was their barbarous notion of trade and its

importance. The same author, speaking of the severe taxation, and

violent method of extorting it, observes that it is a very proper

method,--and that it is very just that a degenerate officer, or other

freeman, rejecting his condition for sordid gain, should be punished

beyond the common law of freemen.

I take it that those who held by ancient demesne did not prescribe

simply not to contribute to the expenses of the knight of the shire; but

they prescribed, as they did in all cases, upon a general principle, to

pay no tax, nor to attend any duty of whatever species, because they

were the king's villains. The argument is drawn from the poverty of the

boroughs, which ever since the Conquest have been of no consideration,

and yet send members to Parliament; which they could not do, but by some

privileges inherent in them, on account of a practice of the same kind

in the Saxon times, when they were of more repute. It is certain that

many places now called boroughs were formerly towns or villages in

ancient demesne of the king, and had, as such, writs directed to them to

appear in Parliament, that they might make a free gift or benevolence,

as the boroughs did; and from thence arose the custom of summoning them.

This appears by sufficient records. And it appears by records also, that

it was much at the discretion of the sheriff what boroughs he should

return; a general writ was directed to him to return for all the

boroughs in a shire; sometimes boroughs which had formerly sent members

to Parliament were quite passed over, and others, never considered as

such before, were returned. What is called the prescription on this

occasion was rather a sort of rule to direct the sheriff in the

execution of his general power than a right inherent in any boroughs.

But this was long after the time of which we speak. In whatever manner

we consider it, we must own that this subject during the Saxon times is

extremely dark. One thing, however, is, I think, clear from the whole

tenor of their government, and even from the tenor of the Norman

Constitution long after: that their Witenagemotes or Parliaments were

unformed, and that the rights by which the members held their seats

were far from being exactly ascertained. The _Judicia Civitatis

Londoniæ_ afford a tolerable insight into the Saxon method of making and

executing laws. First, the king called together his bishops, and such

other persons _as he thought proper_. This council, or Witenagemote,

having made such laws as seemed convenient, they then swore to the

observance of them. The king sent a notification of these proceedings to

each Burgmote, where the people of that court also swore to the

observance of them, and confederated, by means of mutual strength and

common charge, to prosecute delinquents against them. Nor did there at

that time seem to be any other method of enforcing new laws or old. For

as the very form of their government subsisted by a confederacy

continually renewed, so, when a law was made, it was necessary for its

execution to have again recourse to confederacy, which was the great,

and I should almost say the only, principle of the Anglo-Saxon

government.

What rights the king had in this assembly is a matter of equal

uncertainty.[62] The laws generally run in his name, with the assent of

his wise men, &c. But considering the low estimation of royalty in those

days, this may rather be considered as the voice of the executive

magistrate, of the person who compiled the law and propounded it to the

Witenagemote for their consent, than of a legislator dictating from his

own proper authority. For then, it seems, the law was digested by the

king or his council for the assent of the general assembly. That order

is now reversed. All these things are, I think, sufficient to show of

what a visionary nature those systems are which would settle the ancient

Constitution in the most remote times exactly in the same form in which

we enjoy it at this day,--not considering that such mighty changes in

manners, during so many ages, always must produce a considerable change

in laws, and in the forms as well as the powers of all governments.

We shall next consider the nature of the laws passed in these

assemblies, and the judicious manner of proceeding in these several

courts which we have described.

[Sidenote: Saxon laws.]

The Anglo-Saxons trusted more to the strictness of their police, and to

the simple manners of their people, for the preservation of peace and

order, than to accuracy or exquisite digestion of their laws, or to the

severity of the punishments which they inflicted.[63] The laws which

remain to us of that people seem almost to regard two points only: the

suppressing of riots and affrays,--and the regulation of the several

ranks of men, in order to adjust the fines for delinquencies according

to the dignity of the person offended, or to the quantity of the

offence. In all other respects their laws seem very imperfect. They

often speak in the style of counsel as well as that of command. In the

collection of laws attributed to Alfred we have the Decalogue

transcribed, with no small part of the Levitical law; in the same code

are inserted many of the Saxon institutions, though these two laws were

in all respects as opposite as could possibly be imagined. These

indisputable monuments of our ancient rudeness are a very sufficient

confutation of the panegyrical declamations in which some persons would

persuade us that the crude institutions of an unlettered people had

attained an height which the united efforts of necessity, learning,

inquiry, and experience can hardly reach to in many ages. We must add,

that, although as one people under one head there was some resemblance

in the laws and customs of our Saxon ancestors throughput the kingdom,

yet there was a considerable difference, in many material points,

between the customs of the several shires: nay, that in different manors

subsisted a variety of laws not reconcilable with each other, some of

which custom, that caused them, has abrogated; others have been

overruled by laws or public judgment to the contrary; not a few subsist

to this time.

[Sidenote: Purgation by oath.]

[Sidenote: By ordeal.]

The Saxon laws, imperfect and various as they were, served in some

tolerable degree a people who had by their Constitution an eye on each

other's concerns, and decided almost all matters of any doubt amongst

them by methods which, however inadequate, were extremely simple. They

judged every controversy either by the conscience of the parties, or by

the country's opinion of it, or what they judged an appeal to

Providence. They were unwilling to submit to the trouble of weighing

contradictory testimonies; and they were destitute of those critical

rules by which evidence is sifted, the true distinguished from the

false, the certain from the uncertain. Originally, therefore, the

defendant in the suit was put to his oath, and if on oath he denied the

debt or the crime with which he was charged, he was of course acquitted.

But when the first fervors of religion began to decay, and fraud and the

temptations to fraud to increase, they trusted no longer to the

conscience of the party. They cited him to an higher tribunal,--the

immediate judgment of God. Their trials were so many conjurations, and

the magical ceremonies of barbarity and heathenism entered into law and

religion. This supernatural method of process they called God's Dome; it

is generally known by the name of _Ordeal_, which in the Saxon language

signifies the Great Trial. This trial was made either by fire or water:

that by fire was principally reserved for persons of rank; that by water

decided the fate of the vulgar; sometimes it was at the choice of the

party. A piece of iron, kept with a religious veneration in some

monastery, which claimed this privilege as an honor, was brought forth

into the church upon the day of trial; and it was there again

consecrated to this awful purpose by a form of service still extant. A

solemn mass was performed; and then the party accused appeared,

surrounded by the clergy, by his judges, and a vast concourse of people,

suspended and anxious for the event; all that assisted purified

themselves by a fast of three days; and the accused, who had undergone

the same fast, and received the sacrament, took the consecrated iron, of

about a pound weight, heated red, in his naked hand, and in that manner

carried it nine feet. This done, the hand was wrapped up and sealed in

the presence of the whole assembly. Three nights being passed, the

seals were opened before all the people: if the hand was found without

any sore inflicted by the fire, the party was cleared with universal

acclamation; if on the contrary a raw sore appeared, the party,

condemned by the judgment of Heaven, had no further plea or appeal.

Sometimes the accused walked over nine hot irons: sometimes boiling

water was used; into this the man dipped his hand to the arm. The

judgment by water was accompanied by the solemnity of the same

ceremonies. The culprit was thrown into a pool of water, in which if he

did not sink, he was adjudged guilty, as though the element (they said)

to which they had committed the trial of his innocency had rejected him.

Both these species of ordeal, though they equally appealed to God, yet

went on different principles. In the fire ordeal a miracle must be

wrought to acquit the party; in the water a miracle was necessary to

convict him. Is there any reason for this extraordinary distinction? or

must we resolve it solely into the irregular caprices of the human mind?

The greatest genius which has enlightened this age seems in this affair

to have been carried by the sharpness of his wit into a subtilty hardly

to be justified by the way of thinking of that unpolished period.

Speaking of the reasons for introducing this method of trial, "_Qui ne

voit_," says he, "_que, chez un peuple exercé à manier des armes, la

peau rude et calleuse ne devoit pas recevoir assez l'impression du fer

chaud, ... pour qu'il y parût trois jours après? Et s'il y paroissoit,

c'étoit une marque que celui qui faisoit l'épreuve étoit un efféminé_."

And this mark of effeminacy, he observes, in those warlike times,

supposed that the man has resisted the principles of his education, that

he is insensible to honor, and regardless of the opinion of his

country. But supposing the effect of hot iron to be so slight even on

the most callous hands, of which, however, there is reason to doubt, yet

we can hardly admit this reasoning, when we consider that women were

subjected to this fire ordeal, and that no other women than those of

condition could be subjected to it. Montesquieu answers the objection,

which he foresaw would be made, by remarking, that women might have

avoided this proof, if they could find a champion to combat in their

favor; and he thinks a just presumption might be formed against a woman

of rank who was so destitute of friends as to find no protector. It must

be owned that the barbarous people all over Europe were much guided by

presumptions in all their judicial proceedings; but how shall we

reconcile all this with the custom of the Anglo-Saxons, among whom the

ordeal was in constant use, and even for women, without the alternative

of the combat, to which it appears this people were entire strangers?

What presumption can arise from the event of the water ordeal, in which

no callosity of hands, no bravery, no skill in arms, could be in any

degree serviceable? The causes of both may with more success be sought

amongst the superstitious ideas of the ancient Northern world. Amongst

the Germans the administration of the law was in the hands of the

priests or Druids.[64] And as the Druid worship paid the highest respect

to the elements of fire and water, it was very natural that they who

abounded with so many conjurations for the discovery of doubtful facts

or future events should make use of these elements in their divination.

It may appear the greater wonder, how the people came to continue so

long, and with, such obstinacy, after the introduction of Christianity,

and in spite of the frequent injunctions of the Pope, whose authority

was then much venerated, in the use of a species of proof the

insufficiency of which a thousand examples might have detected. But this

is perhaps not so unaccountable. Persons were not put to this trial,

unless there was pretty strong evidence against them, something

sufficient to form what is equivalent to a _corpus delicti_; they must

have been actually found guilty by the _duodecemvirale judicium_, before

they could be subjected in any sort to the ordeal. It was in effect

showing the accused an indulgence to give him this chance, even such a

chance as it was, of an acquittal; and it was certainly much milder than

the torture, which is used, with full as little certainty of producing

its end, among the most civilized nations. And the ordeal without

question frequently operated by the mere terror. Many persons, from a

dread of the event, chose to discover rather than to endure the trial.

Of those that did endure it, many must certainly have been guilty. The

innocency of some who suffered could never be known with certainty.

Others by accident might have escaped; and this apparently miraculous

escape had great weight in confirming the authority of this trial. How

long did we continue in punishing innocent people for witchcraft, though

experience might, to thinking persons, have frequently discovered the

injustice of that proceeding! whilst to the generality a thousand

equivocal appearances, confessions from fear or weakness, in fine, the

torrent of popular prejudice rolled down through so many ages, conspired

to support the delusion.

[Sidenote: Compurgation.]

To avoid as much as possible this severe mode of trial, and at the same

time to leave no inlet for perjury, another method of clearing was

devised. The party accused of any crime, or charged in a civil

complaint, appeared in court with some of his neighbors, who were called

his Compurgators; and when on oath he denied the charge, they swore that

they believed his oath to be true.[65] These compurgators were at first

to be three; afterwards five were required; in process of time twelve

became necessary.[66] As a man might be charged by the opinion of the

country, so he might also be discharged by it: twelve men were necessary

to find him guilty, twelve might have acquitted him. If opinion supports

all government, it not only supported in the general sense, but it

directed every minute part in the Saxon polity. A man who did not seem

to have the good opinion of those among whom he lived was judged to be

guilty, or at least capable of being guilty, of every crime. It was upon

this principle that a man who could not find the security of some

tithing or friborg for his behavior,[67] he that was upon account of

this universal desertion called Friendless Man, was by our ancestors

condemned to death,--a punishment which the lenity of the English laws

in that time scarcely inflicted for any crime, however clearly proved: a

circumstance which strongly marks the genius of the Saxon government.

[Sidenote: Trial by the Country.]

On the same principle from which the trial by the oath of compurgators

was derived, was derived also the Trial by the Country, which was the

method of taking the sense of the neighborhood on any dubious fact. If

the matter was of great importance, it was put in the full Shiremote;

and if the general voice acquitted or condemned, decided for one party

or the other, this was final in the cause. But then it was necessary

that all should agree: for it does not appear that our ancestors, in

those days, conceived how any assembly could be supposed to give an

assent to a point concerning which several who composed that assembly

thought differently. They had no idea that a body composed of several

could act by the opinion of a small majority. But experience having

shown that this method of trial was tumultuary and uncertain, they

corrected it by the idea of compurgation. The party concerned was no

longer put to his oath,--he simply pleaded; the compurgators swore as

before in ancient times; therefore the jury were strictly from the

neighborhood, and were supposed to have a personal knowledge of the man

and the fact. They were rather a sort of evidence than judges: and from

hence is derived that singularity in our laws, that most of our

judgments are given upon verdict, and not upon evidence, contrary to the

laws of most other countries. Neither are our juries bound, except by

one particular statute, and in particular cases, to observe any positive

testimony, but are at liberty to judge upon presumptions. These are the

first rude chalkings-out of our jurisprudence. The Saxons were extremely

imperfect in their ideas of law,--the civil institutions of the Romans,

who were the legislators of mankind, having never reached them. The

order of our courts, the discipline of our jury, by which it is become

so elaborate a contrivance, and the introduction of a sort of scientific

reason in the law, have been the work of ages.

As the Saxon laws did not suffer any transaction, whether of the sale of

land or goods, to pass but in the shire and before witnesses, so all

controversies of them were concluded by what they called the _scyre

witness_.[68] This was tried by the oaths of the parties, by _vivâ voce_

testimony, and the producing of charters and records. Then the people,

laity and clergy, whether by plurality of votes or by what other means

is not very certain, affirmed the testimony in favor of one of the

claimants. Then the proceeding was signed, first by those who held the

court, and then by the persons who affirmed the judgment, who also swore

to it in the same manner.[69]

[Sidenote: Punishments.]

The Saxons were extremely moderate in their punishments. Murder and

treason were compounded, and a fine set for every offence. Forfeiture

for felony was incurred only by those that fled. The punishment with

death was very rare,--with torture unknown. In all ancient nations, the

punishment of crimes was in the family injured by them, particularly in

case of murder.[70] This brought deadly feuds amongst the people, which,

in the German nations particularly, subsisted through several

generations. But as a fruitless revenge could answer little purpose to

the parties injured and was ruinous to the public peace, by the

interposal of good offices they were prevailed upon to accept some

composition in lieu of the blood of the aggressor, and peace was

restored. The Saxon government did little more than act the part of

arbitrator between the contending parties, exacted the payment of this

composition, and reduced it to a certainty. However, the king, as the

sovereign of all, and the sheriff, as the judicial officer, had their

share in those fines. This unwillingness to shed blood, which the Saxon

customs gave rise to, the Christian religion confirmed. Yet was it not

altogether so imperfect as to have no punishment adequate to those great

delinquencies which tend entirely to overturn a state, public robbery,

murder of the lord.[71]

[Sidenote: Origin of succession.]

[Sidenote: Annual property.]

As amongst the Anglo-Saxons government depended in some measure upon

land-property, it will not be amiss to say something upon their manner

of holding and inheriting their lands. It must not be forgot that the

Germans were of Scythian original, and had preserved that way of life

and those peculiar manners which distinguished the parent nation. As the

Scythians lived principally by pasturage and hunting, from the nature of

that way of employment they were continually changing their habitations.

But even in this case some small degree of agriculture was carried on,

and therefore some sort of division of property became necessary. This

division was made among each tribe by its proper chief. But their shares

were allotted to the several individuals only for a year, lest they

should come to attach themselves to any certain habitation: a settlement

being wholly contrary to the genius of the Scythian, manners.

Campestres melius Scythæ,

Quorum plaustra vagas rite trahunt domos,

Vivunt, et rigidi Getæ,

Immetata quibus jugera liberas

Fruges et Cererem ferunt,

Nec cultura placet longior annuâ.

[Sidenote: Estates for life.]

[Sidenote: Inheritance.]

[Sidenote: Book-land.]

[Sidenote: Folk-land.]

[Sidenote: Saxon fiefs.]

This custom of an annual property probably continued amongst the Germans

as long as they remained in their own country; but when their conquests

carried them into other parts, another object besides the possession of

the land arose, which obliged them to make a change in this particular.

In the distribution of the conquered lands, the ancient possessors of

them became an object of consideration, and the management of these

became one of the principal branches of their polity. It was expedient

towards holding them in perfect subjection, that they should be

habituated to obey one person, and that a kind of cliental relation

should be created between them; therefore the land, with the slaves, and

the people in a state next to slavery, annexed to it, was bestowed for

life in the general distribution. When life-estates were once granted,

it seemed a natural consequence that inheritances should immediately

supervene. When a durable connection is created between a certain man

and a certain portion of land by a possession for his whole life, and

when his children have grown up and have been supported on that land, it

seems so great an hardship to separate them, and to deprive thereby the

family of all means of subsisting, that nothing could be more generally

desired nor more reasonably allowed than an inheritance; and this

reasonableness was strongly enforced by the great change wrought in

their affairs when life-estates were granted. Whilst according to the

ancient custom lands were only given for a year, there was a rotation so

quick that every family came in its turn to be easily provided for, and

had not long to wait; but the children of a tenant for life, when they

lost the benefit of their father's possession, saw themselves as it

were immured upon every side by the life-estates, and perceived no

reasonable hope of a provision from any new arrangement. These

inheritances began very early in England. By a law of King Alfred it

appears that they were then of a very ancient establishment: and as such

inheritances were intended for great stability, they fortified them by

charters; and therefore they were called Book-land. This was done with

regard to the possession of the better sort: the meaner, who were called

_ceorles_, if they did not live in a dependence on some thane, held

their small portions of land as an inheritance likewise,--not by

charter, but by a sort of prescription. This was called Folk-land. These

estates of inheritance, both the greater and the meaner, were not fiefs;

they were to all purposes allodial, and had hardly a single property of

a feud; they descended equally to all the children, males and females,

according to the custom of gavelkind, a custom absolutely contrary to

the genius of the feudal tenure; and whenever estates were granted in

the later Saxon times by the bounty of the crown with an intent that

they should be inheritable, so far were they from being granted with the

complicated load of all the feudal services annexed, that in all the

charters of that kind which subsist they are bestowed with a full power

of alienation, _et liberi ab omni seculari gravamine_. This was the

general condition of those inheritances which were derived from the

right of original conquest, as well to all the soldiers as to the

leader; and these estates, as it is said, were not even forfeitable, no,

not for felony, as if that were in some sort the necessary consequence

of an inheritable estate. So far were they from resembling a fief. But

there were other possessions which bore a nearer resemblance to fiefs,

at least in their first feeble and infantile state of the tenure, than,

those inheritances which were held by an absolute right in the

proprietor. The great officers who attended the court, commanded armies,

or distributed justice must necessarily be paid and supported; but in

what manner could they be paid? In money they could not, because there

was very little money then in Europe, and scarce any part of that little

came into the prince's coffers. The only method of paying them was by

allotting lands for their subsistence whilst they remained in his

service. For this reason, in the original distribution, vast tracts of

land were left in the hands of the king. If any served the king in a

military command, his land may be said to have been in some sort held by

knight-service. If the tenant was in an office about the king's person,

this gave rise to sergeantry; the persons who cultivated his lands may

be considered as holding by socage. But the long train of services that

made afterwards the learning of the tenures were then not thought of,

because these feuds, if we may so call them, had not then come to be

inheritances,--which circumstance of inheritance gave rise to the whole

feudal system. With the Anglo-Saxons the feuds continued to the last but

a sort of pay or salary of office. The _trinoda necessitas_, so much

spoken of, which was to attend the king in his expeditions, and to

contribute to the building of bridges and repair of highways, never

bound the lands by way of tenure, but as a political regulation, which

equally affected every class and condition of men and every species of

possession.

[Sidenote: Gavelkind.]

The manner of succeeding to lands in England at this period was, as we

have observed, by Gavelkind,--an equal distribution amongst the

children, males and females. The ancient Northern nations had but an

imperfect notion of political power. That the possessor of the land

should be the governor of it was a simple idea; and their schemes

extended but little further. It was not so in the Greek and Italian

commonwealths. In those the property of the land was in all respects

similar to that of goods, and had nothing of jurisdiction annexed to it;

the government there was a merely political institution. Amongst such a

people the custom of distribution could be of no ill consequence,

because it only affected property. But gavelkind amongst the Saxons was

very prejudicial; for, as government was annexed to a certain possession

in land, this possession, which was continually changing, kept the

government in a very fluctuating state: so that their civil polity had

in it an essential evil, which contributed to the sickly condition in

which the Anglo-Saxon state always remained, as well as to its final

dissolution.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] They had no other nobility; yet several families amongst them were

considered as noble.

[50] Arma sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quàm civitas suffecturum

probaverit.--Tacitus de Mor. Germ. 13.

[51] Nihil autem neque publicæ neque privatæ rei nisi armati

agunt.--Tacitus de Mor. Germ. 13.

[52] Cæteri robustioribus ac jam pridem probatis aggregantur.--Id. ibid.

[53] Illum defendere, tueri, sua quoque fortia facta gloriæ ejus as

signare, præcipuum sacramentum est.--Id. 14.

[54] Deputed authority, guardianship, &c, not known to the Northern

nations; they gained this idea by intercourse with the Romans.

[55] Jud. Civ. Lund. apud Wilk. post p. 68.

[56] Spelman of Feuds, ch. 5.

[57] Fuerunt etiam in conquestu liberi homines, qui libere tenuerunt

tenementa sua per libera servitia vel per liberas consuetudines.--For

the original of copyholds, see Bracton, Lib. I. fol. 7.

[58] Ibi debent populi omnes et gentes universæ singulis annis, semel in

anno scilicet, convenire, scilicet in capite Kal. Maii, et se fide et

sacramento non fracto ibi in unam et simul confœderare, et

consolidare sicut conjurati fratres ad defendendum regnum contra

alienigenas et contra inimicos, unâ cum domino suo rege, et terras et

honores illius omni fidelitate cum eo servare, et quod illi ut domino

suo regi intra et extra regnum universum Britanniæ fideles esse

volunt--LL. Ed. Conf. c. 35.--Of Heretoches and their election, vide Id.

eodem.

Probibitum erat etiam in eadem lege, ne quis emeret vivum animal vel

pannum usatum sine plegiis et bonis testibus.--Of other particulars of

buying and selling, vide Leges Ed. Conf. 38.

[59] Sheriff in the Norman times was merely the king's officer, not the

earl's. The earl retained his ancient fee, without jurisdiction; the

sheriff did all the business. The elective sheriff must have disappeared

on the Conquest; for then all land was the king's, either immediately or

mediately, and therefore his officer governed.

[60] How this assembly was composed, or by what right the members sat in

it, I cannot by any means satisfy myself. What is here said is, I

believe, nearest to the truth.

[61] Hence, perhaps, all men are supposed cognizant of the law.

[62] Debet etiam rex omnia rite facere in regno, et per judicium

procerum regni.--Debet ... justitiam per consilium procerum regni sui

tenere.--Leges Ed. 17.

[63] The non-observance of a regulation of police was always heavily

punished by barbarous nations; a slighter punishment was inflicted upon

the commission of crimes. Among the Saxons moat crimes were punished by

fine; wandering from the highway without sounding an horn was death. So

among the Druids,--to enforce exactness in time at their meetings, he

that came last after the time appointed was punished with death.

[64] The Druids judged not as magistrates, but as interpreters of the

will of Heaven. "Ceterum neque animadvertere, neque vincire, neque

verberare quidem, nisi sacerdotibus permissum; non quasi in pœnam,

nec ducis jussu, sed velut Deo imperante," says Tacitus, de Mor. German.

7.

[65] Si quis emendationem oppidorum vel pontium vel profectionem

militarem detrectaverit, compenset regi cxx solidis, ... vel purget se,

et nominentur ei xiv, et eligantur xi.--Leges Cnuti, 62.

[66] Si accusatio sit, et purgatio male succedat, judicet

Episcopus.--Leges Cnuti, 53.

[67] Every man not privileged, whether he be paterfamilias,

(heorthfest,[A]) or pedissequa, (folghere,[B]) must enter into the

hundred and tithing, and all above twelve to swear he will not be a

thief or consenting to a thief.--Leges Cnuti, 19.

[A] Heorthfeste,--the same with Husfastene, i.e. the master of a family,

from the Saxon, Hearthfæst, i.e. fixed to the house or hearth.

[B] The Folgheres, or Folgeres, were the menial servants or followers of

the Husfastene, or Housekeepers.--Bracton, Lib. III., Tract. 2, cap. 10.

Leges Hen. I. cap. 8.

[68] Si quis terram defenderit testimonio provinciæ, &c.--Leges Cnuti,

76: And sethe land gewerod hebbe be scyre gewitnesse.

[69] See, in Madox, the case in Bishop of Bathes Court See also Brady,

272, where the witnesses on one side offer to swear, or join battle with

the other.

[70] Parentibus occisi fiat emendatio, vel guerra eorum portetur; unde

Anglicè proverbium habetur, Bige spere of side, oththe bær; id est, Eme

lanceam a latere, aut fer.--Leges Ed. 12.

The fines on the town or hundred.

Parentes murdrati sex marcas haberent, rex quadraginta. [This different

from the ancient usage, where the king had half.] Si parentes deessent,

dominus ejus reciperet. Si dominum non haberet, felagus ejus, id est,

fide cum eo ligatus.--Leges Ed. 15.

[71] Purveyance. Vide Leges Cnuti, 67.

Si quis intestatus ex hac vita decedat, sive sit per negligentiam ejus,

sive per mortem subitaneam, tunc non assumat sibi dominus plus

possessionis (æhta) ipsius quam justum armamentum; sed post mortem

possessio (æhtgescyft) ejus quam justissime distribuatur uxori et

liberis, et propinquis cognatis, cuilibet pro dignitate quæ ad cum

pertinet.--Leges Cnuti, 68.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE AT THE TIME OF THE NORMAN INVASION.

Before the period of which we are going to treat, England was little

known or considered in Europe. Their situation, their domestic

calamities, and their ignorance circumscribed the views and politics of

the English within the bounds of their own island. But the Norman

conqueror threw down all these barriers. The English laws, manners, and

maxims were suddenly changed; the scene was enlarged; and the

communication with the rest of Europe, being thus opened, has been

preserved ever since in a continued series of wars and negotiations.

That we may, therefore, enter more fully into the matters which lie

before us, it is necessary that we understand the state of the

neighboring continent at the time when this island first came to be

interested in its affairs.

The Northern nations who had overran the Roman Empire were at first

rather actuated by avarice than ambition, and were more intent upon

plunder than conquest; they were carried beyond their original purposes,

when they began, to form regular governments, for which they had been

prepared by no just ideas of legislation. For a long time, therefore,

there was little of order in their affairs or foresight in their

designs. The Goths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Vandals, the Suevi,

after they had prevailed over the Roman Empire, by turns prevailed over

each other in continual wars, which were carried on upon no principles

of a determinate policy, entered into upon motives of brutality and

caprice, and ended as fortune and rude violence chanced to prevail.

Tumult, anarchy, confusion, overspread the face of Europe; and an

obscurity rests upon the transactions of that time which suffers us to

discover nothing but its extreme barbarity.

Before this cloud could be dispersed, the Saracens, another body of

barbarians from the South, animated by a fury not unlike that which gave

strength to the Northern irruptions, but heightened by enthusiasm, and

regulated by subordination and an uniform policy, began to carry their

arms, their manners, and religion, into every part of the universe.

Spain was entirely overwhelmed by the torrent of their armies, Italy and

the islands were harassed by their fleets, and all Europe alarmed by

their vigorous and frequent enterprises. Italy, who had so long sat the

mistress of the world, was by turns the slave of all nations. The

possession of that fine country was hotly disputed between the Greek

Emperor and the Lombards, and it suffered infinitely by that contention.

Germany, the parent of so many nations, was exhausted by the swarms she

had sent abroad.

However, in the midst of this chaos there were principles at work which

reduced things to a certain form, and gradually unfolded a system in

which the chief movers and main springs were the Papal and the Imperial

powers,--the aggrandizement or diminution of which have been the drift

of almost all the politics, intrigues, and wars which have employed and

distracted Europe to this day.

From Rome the whole Western world had received its Christianity; she was

the asylum of what learning had escaped the general desolation; and even

in her ruins she preserved something of the majesty of her ancient

greatness. On these accounts she had a respect and a weight which

increased every day amongst a simple religious people, who looked but a

little way into the consequences of their actions. The rudeness of the

world was very favorable for the establishment of an empire of opinion.

The moderation with which the Popes at first exerted this empire made

its growth unfelt until it could no longer be opposed; and the policy of

later Popes, building on the piety of the first, continually increased

it: and they made use of every instrument but that of force. They

employed equally the virtues and the crimes of the great; they favored

the lust of kings for absolute authority, and the desire of subjects for

liberty; they provoked war, and mediated peace; and took advantage of

every turn in the minds of men, whether of a public or private nature,

to extend their influence, and push their power from ecclesiastical to

civil, from subjection to independency, from independency to empire.

France had many advantages over the other parts of Europe. The Saracens

had no permanent success in that country. The same hand which expelled

those invaders deposed the last of a race of heavy and degenerate

princes, more like Eastern monarchs than German leaders, and who had

neither the force to repel the enemies of their kingdom nor to assert

their own sovereignly. This usurpation placed on the throne princes of

another character, princes who were obliged to supply their want of

title by the vigor of their administration. The French monarch had need

of some great and respected authority to throw a veil over his

usurpation, and to sanctify his newly acquired power by those names and

appearances which are necessary to make it respectable to the people. On

the other hand, the Pope, who hated the Grecian Empire, and equally

feared the success of the Lombards, saw with joy this new star arise in

the North, and gave it the sanction of his authority. Presently after be

called it to his assistance. Pepin passed the Alps, relieved the Pope,

and invested him with the dominion of a large country in the best part

of Italy.

Charlemagne pursued the course which was marked out for him, and put an

end to the Lombard kingdom, weakened by the policy of his father and the

enmity of the Popes, who never willingly saw a strong power in Italy.

Then he received from the hand of the Pope the Imperial crown,

sanctified by the authority of the Holy See, and with it the title of

Emperor of the Romans, a name venerable from the fame of the old Empire,

and which was supposed to carry great and unknown prerogatives; and thus

the Empire rose again out of its ruins in the West, and, what is

remarkable, by means of one of those nations which had helped to destroy

it. If we take in the conquests of Charlemagne, it was also very near as

extensive as formerly; though its constitution was altogether different,

as being entirely on the Northern model of government. From Charlemagne

the Pope received in return an enlargement and a confirmation of his new

territory. Thus the Papal and Imperial powers mutually gave birth, to

each other. They continued for some ages, and in some measure still

continue, closely connected, with a variety of pretensions upon each

other, and on the rest of Europe.

Though, the Imperial power had its origin in France, it was soon divided

into two branches, the Gallic and the German. The latter alone supported

the title of Empire; but the power being weakened by this division, the

Papal pretensions had the greater weight. The Pope, because he first

revived the Imperial dignity, claimed a right of disposing of it, or at

least of giving validity to the election of the Emperor. The Emperor, on

the other hand, remembering the rights of those sovereigns whose title

he bore, and how lately the power which insulted him with such demands

had arisen from the bounty of his predecessors, claimed the same

privileges in the election of a Pope. The claims of both were somewhat

plausible; and they were supported, the one by force of arms, and the

other by ecclesiastical influence, powers which in those days were very

nearly balanced. Italy was the theatre upon which this prize was

disputed. In every city the parties in favor of each of the opponents

were not far from an equality in their numbers and strength. Whilst

these parties disagreed in the choice of a master, by contending for a

choice in their subjection they grew imperceptibly into freedom, and

passed through the medium of faction and anarchy into regular

commonwealths. Thus arose the republics of Venice, of Genoa, of

Florence, Sienna, and Pisa, and several others. These cities,

established in this freedom, turned the frugal and ingenious spirit

contracted in such communities to navigation and traffic; and pursuing

them with skill and vigor, whilst commerce was neglected and despised by

the rustic gentry of the martial governments, they grew to a

considerable degree of wealth, power, and civility.

The Danes, who in this latter time preserved the spirit and the numbers

of the ancient Gothic people, had seated themselves in England, in the

Low Countries, and in Normandy. They passed from thence to the southern

part of Europe, and in this romantic age gave rise in Sicily and Naples

to a new kingdom and a new line of princes.

All the kingdoms on the continent of Europe were governed nearly in the

same form; from whence arose a great similitude in the manners of their

inhabitants. The feodal discipline extended itself everywhere, and

influenced the conduct of the courts and the manners of the people with

its own irregular martial spirit. Subjects, under the complicated laws

of a various and rigorous servitude, exercised all the prerogatives of

sovereign power. They distributed justice, they made war and peace at

pleasure. The sovereign, with great pretensions, had but little power;

he was only a greater lord among great lords, who profited of the

differences of his peers; therefore no steady plan could be well

pursued, either in war or peace. This day a prince seemed irresistible

at the head of his numerous vassals, because their duty obliged them to

war, and they performed this duty with pleasure. The next day saw this

formidable power vanish like a dream, because this fierce undisciplined

people had no patience, and the time of the feudal service was contained

within very narrow limits. It was therefore easy to find a number of

persons at all times ready to follow any standard, but it was hard to

complete a considerable design which required a regular and continued

movement. This enterprising disposition in the gentry was very general,

because they had little occupation or pleasure but in war, and the

greatest rewards did then attend personal valor and prowess. All that

professed arms became in some sort on an equality. A knight was the peer

of a king, and men had been used to see the bravery of private persons

opening a road to that dignity. The temerity of adventurers was much

justified by the ill order of every state, which left it a prey to

almost any who should attack it with sufficient vigor. Thus, little

checked by any superior power, full of fire, impetuosity, and ignorance,

they longed to signalize themselves, wherever an honorable danger called

them; and wherever that invited, they did not weigh very deliberately

the probability of success.

The knowledge of this general disposition in the minds of men will

naturally remove a great deal of our wonder at seeing an attempt founded

on such slender appearances of right, and supported by a power so little

proportioned to the undertaking as that of William, so warmly embraced

and so generally followed, not only by his own subjects, but by all the

neighboring potentates. The Counts of Anjou, Bretagne, Ponthieu,

Boulogne, and Poictou, sovereign princes,--adventurers from every

quarter of France, the Netherlands, and the remotest parts of Germany,

laying aside their jealousies and enmities to one another, as well as to

William, ran with an inconceivable ardor into this enterprise,

captivated with the splendor of the object, which obliterated all

thoughts of the uncertainty of the event. William kept up this fervor

by promises of large territories to all his allies and associates in the

country to be reduced by their united efforts. But after all it became

equally necessary to reconcile to his enterprise the three great powers

of whom we have just spoken, whose disposition must have had the most

influence on his affairs.

His feudal lord, the King of France, was bound by his most obvious

interests to oppose the further aggrandizement of one already too potent

for a vassal. But the King of France was then a minor; and Baldwin, Earl

of Flanders, whose daughter William had married, was regent of the

kingdom. This circumstance rendered the remonstrance of the French

Council against his design of no effect: indeed, the opposition of the

Council itself was faint; the idea of having a king under vassalage to

their crown might have dazzled the more superficial courtiers; whilst

those who thought more deeply were unwilling to discourage an enterprise

which they believed would probably end in the ruin of the undertaker.

The Emperor was in his minority, as well as the King of France; but by

what arts the Duke prevailed upon the Imperial Council to declare in his

favor, whether or no by an idea of creating a balance to the power of

France, if we can imagine that any such idea then subsisted, is

altogether uncertain; but it is certain that he obtained leave for the

vassals of the Empire to engage in his service, and that he made use of

this permission. The Popes consent was obtained with still less

difficulty. William had shown himself in many instances a friend to the

Church and a favorer of the clergy. On this occasion he promised to

improve those happy beginnings in proportion to the means he should

acquire by the favor of the Holy See. It is said that he even proposed

to hold his new kingdom as a fief from Rome. The Pope, therefore,

entered heartily into his interests; he excommunicated all those that

should oppose his enterprise, and sent him, as a means of insuring

success, a consecrated banner.