oftener, if reed be." A prorogation is the continuation of Parliament from one session to another; a dissolution is its civil death, which happens by law at the end of every seven years from its commencement, unless it be previously dissolved, (as is uniformly the case,) by royal proclamation. The powers of the King, as laid down by lawyers and constitutional writers, are of the most extensive description. The whole adininistrative and executive duties of government are performed by him or in his name. He is held to be not the chief only but the sole magistrate of the nation, all the others acting by his commission and in subordination to his authority. The powers of all courts of justice, and of their various functionaries and officers, such as judges, sheriffs, justices of the peace, constables, &c., are derived, mediately or immediately, from him. He is the grand conservator of the public peace, suppressing, by the agency of his officers, all disturbances, and preserving public tranquillity, every violation of which is, consequently, termed a breach of the king's peace. He makes war and peace, negotiates treaties with foreign states, sends ambassadors abroad, and receives them at home. The armed force of the nation, military and civil, is at his sole disposal. He is the fountain of honour and dignity; and it is a fundamental maxim that he can do no wrong, and is responsible to none. (See post, Chap. V. On the Powers and Duties of the King.)

But, though in theory the regal powers are all but unlimited, in practice they are confined within comparatively narrow limits. The King, as such, can do nothing directly, but must, in all cases, operate indirectly through the intervention of his ministers; and though he is not, they are responsible, for every act of the executive government. If the King's ministers do not command the support of both Houses of Parliament, or, at all events, of the Commons, they must resign, and the sovereign has no resource but to choose others, which, though less agreeable to himself, may be more acceptable to the popular representatives. His ministers must be chosen, and his measures framed so as to harmonize with the views and prejudices of the latter. The Commons might, in an extreme case, withhold all supplies till an objectionable or unpopular minister had been dismissed. But such cases no longer occur; the sovereign always selecting his servants from the leading members of the party which happens to have at the time the ascendancy in parliament.*

In tracing the history of the English Constitution, we are naturally carried back to our continental ancestors, in whose rude institutions, as described by Cæsar and Tacitus 1800 years ago, ingenious inquirers have thought they could discern the germs of those principles of civil and political liberty which time and a happy concurrence of circumstances have gradually matured into the government we now enjoy. But it will be sufficient, for our purpose, to commence with the Saxons, who established themselves in England in the fifth and sixth centuries. A succession of invasions from the northern shores of the Germanic continent was followed by the establishment of several independent states,

*Those who wish to learn the circumstances that gave rise to the wide difference between the theoretical and practical powers of the sovereign may consult the learned work of Mr. Allen, On the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative, 8vo. London, 1830.

forming what is usually but inaccurately called the Saxon Heptarchy. In the reign of Egbert, about 827 or 828, these several states were united into one; and from this æra the kingdom of England dates its existence among nations. The precise nature of the government established among the Saxons, between the time of Egbert and the Norman conquest, partially modified by the accession of a Danish dynasty towards the close of that period, cannot be ascertained with certainty. But it may be confidently affirmed that the system of popular control exercised by our Saxon ancestors over the royal authority, through the medium of an independent council, had many features in common with that which has generally prevailed since the Conquest. The Wittenagemote, or council of wise men, was at once a legislative assembly and a supreme court of judicature. It made laws, imposed taxes, tried great criminals, decided questions of property, advised the king on the administration of his government, and occasionally interfered even in the appointment of his ministers. The name, and, perhaps, the composition, of this assembly were changed under the Norman dynasty; but its functions were not materially altered. The constitution of the wittenagemote has been the subject of much dispute; no doubt, however, it comprised the principal men of the country. Earls, bishops, and many of the thanes, (dignities which involved personal influence and large territorial possessions,) had seats in it; but whether any representatives of towns or other bodies were associated with them is very doubtful; not because the practice of representing districts or collections of people by delegates was unknown to the Saxons, but because no distinct evidence has been produced to show that such was the case. * There are, however, good grounds for believing that, previously to the Conquest, some cities were places of strength and importance, occupied by a martial population, and accustomed to act a leading part in the political revolutions of the state: more than one monarch owed his crown to the election of the burghers of London; and Exeter is supposed to have been a free city before the crown of England had any recognised existence.

The Norman Conquest in 1066 is usually referred to as the commencement of a new system of government, including the establishment of the feudal tenure, with its various incidents.

The Normans, as well as the Saxons, were of Teutonic extraction, though from parts considerably further to the north. Their settlement in Normandy was effected about the year 912. It need, therefore, occasion no surprise, should several things be found in common in the institutions of two people descended from the same stock; and it has been shown that the feudal system prevailed, in part at least, in this country before the Conquest. But that system, as modelled under the Norman princes, appears to have been framed in imitation of that which had grown up on the Continent, subsequently to the occupation of England by the Saxons. It was essentially a military institution, and was especially intended to provide for the security of the conquerors, who had overrun the different provinces of the Roman empire,

*The speculations of a learned author on the connection between the parlia ment and the Anglo-Saxon leet, may be seen in the Edinburgh Review, No. 72 Art. 1. See also Palgrave's Commonwealth.

in their newly acquired possessions. In this view the entire lands of a province, or country, were supposed to belong to the chief or king of the conquering tribe, and were assigned, or supposed to be assigned, by him to their occupiers, in consideration of their performing certain services of a military nature. To the performance of these every one bound himself by an oath, taken on being admitted into possession of his fief or estate. If he failed in his duties, his lands were forfeited, and reverted to the crown. The king was termed lord paramount, his tenants barons, crown vassals, and tenants in capite, and their lands feuds or fiefs. The king's immediate tenants again divided their lands to other subtenants, who entered into similar engagements with their lords, and held of them upon the same terms by which they themselves held of the king. The obligations between the lord and vassal were mutual; it being as much the duty of the lord to protect his vassal, as of the vassal to do fealty and service to his lord. The services to be performed by the military tenant were not left to the lord's caprice; every thing was fixed and ascertained; and nothing could be legally required from the vassal, without his own consent, beyond the duties specified in the terms of his tenure. A system of this sort, though liable to the greatest abuse, combined, in its principle, subordination with independence; and was not ill-suited to the period when it was introduced. It provided for the defence and security of the State by converting all landlords and their vassals into a permanent militia, paid and maintained by the lands they held. Courts were held by the feudal lords on their fiefs or manors, at which their tenants attended, and there all disputes and complaints respecting the lands of the manor, and other questions litigated between tenant and tenant were determined. The by-laws and local usages within the manor or district were declared and enforced at these courts, and matters of common concern were regulated by common consent. The lord presided either in person, or by his seneschal or steward; the tenants and free suitors of the manor being the peers, or pares Curiæ, who adjudicated both upon law and fact. Inasmuch, however, as the proceedings in these courts, from the overpowering influence of the lords, would be very apt occasionally to degenerate into injustice, their awards were not final; and appeals, on complaint of a defect of justice, might be made from them by writs of right to the county courts, established in the AngloSaxon period. Suits, also, were frequently transferred from manor courts to county courts, on complaint of the vassals that their lords demanded a greater amount of service than was due under their tenures. And in some instances cases were brought from the county courts to the King's court, or Aula Regis, to be decided by his justiciaries.* But the vice of the system was, that when the courts did justice, which was not always the case, to those who appealed to them, the lords were mostly too powerful to pay much or any attention to their decisions.

Under the Norman dynasty, the Great Council, or Court of Parliament, has been supposed by some constitutional writers to have been originally a court, similar in its constitution to the baronial courts now referred to, convoked by the king as paramount feudal lord, and attended Lyttelton's Hist., Henry II., v. 313, 8vo. ed.

of right by his immediate tenants, who were termed barons; the collective body of such tenants forming the baronage or peerage of the realm, from which the present House of Lords derives its descent and its judicial character.

Without stopping to investigate the correctness of this view of the rise of the legislature, it may be safely affirmed, that whatever modifications the parliament may have undergone under the influence of feudal institutions, its origin is not purely feudal, and that it derives some portion of its popular and representative character from its early connexion with the county courts of the Anglo-Saxon period. It is a remark of Hume, sanctioned by Hallam," that the institution of county courts has had greater effects on the government of England than have yet been accurately pointed out by historians, or traced by antiquaries."

In the further prosecution of our design, we shall, for greater convenience, divide this sketch into three parts: the first, comprising the development of the constitution, will embrace the period from the Conquest to the close of the wars of the Houses of York and Lancaster, at the accession of Henry VII., when the government seems to have nearly attained its present form; the second will embrace the interval between that epoch and the Revolution; and the last will bring us thence down to the present time.

I. The Conqueror and the first princes of the Norman line appear to have met with little opposition, in carrying on the government, from the interference of the Great Council. The assent of the latter was required to pass laws; but the care of the administration being left, without check of any kind, to the monarch, who was frequently involved in war and almost always necessitous, abuses of every sort, including a venal and corrupt administration of justice, were multiplied on all hands. Occasionally, however, the nobles and the community in general were awakened to a sense of these abuses; and charters were obtained from Henry I., and other sovereigns, modifying some of the hardships growing out of the feudal system, and promising to revive the old laws of Edward the Confessor. "What these laws were, or more properly, perhaps, these customs subsisting in the Confessor's age, was not very distinctly understood. So far, however, was clear, that the rigorous feudal servitudes, the weighty tributes upon poorer freemen, had never prevailed before the Conquest. In claiming the laws of Edward the Confessor, our ancestors meant but the redress of grievances, which tradition told them had not always existed."—(Hallam, Middle Ages, iii., 444.)

The reign of Henry II., the first sovereign of the House of Plantagenet, who ascended the throne in 1154, is one of the most important in our earlier annals. In it the lower orders, especially the inhabitants of cities and towns, increased considerably in wealth and importance, and the distinction between Englishman and Norman was well nigh obliterated. To facilitate the administration of justice, and to provide for the care of the royal demesnes and revenues arising out of the feudal system, Henry divided the kingdom into six circuits, and instituted the justices in eyre (in itinere), commissioned to administer justice, and to try writs of assize in the several counties. He, also, discouraged the barbarous practice of trying cases by battle, and by the

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ordeals of fire and water; and permitted the defendant to claim to have the case decided by a grand assize or peculiar description of jury. In this reign, too, it began to be customary to commute the military services, due under the feudal tenures, for a money payment (escuage); a change which led in the first place to the introduction of subsidies and taxes, and thereby eventually contributed to raise the Commons to the highest importance.-(Blackstone, iv. 422; Hume, i. 441-450; Stephens, Rise and Progress, i. 46, &c.)

Richard I., who succeeded Henry, engaged with the greatest ardour in the crusades. Among other devices for raising the sums required to meet his exigencies, he made grants of immunities and of portions of the demesnes of the Crown to cities and boroughs in return for loans of money; and as he followed a similar policy by means of sales, re-grants of land from the Crown in smaller parcels, &c., in all parts of the country, the popular influence was, consequently, in some degree increased. On the death of Richard, in 1199, the rapacity and oppressions of his successor, John, a prince without either talent or valour, afforded to the nobles and people a favourable opportunity, of which they did not fail to profit, of reforming abuses and of establishing the public liberties on a broader and more solid basis. This was effected by the concession of MAGNA CHARTA, or the Great Charter, extorted by the confederated barons from the king, and signed by him at Runnymede on the 15th of June, 1215.

"It has been lately," says Mr. Hallam, "the fashion to depreciate the value of Magna Charta, as if it had sprung from the private ambition of a few selfish barons, and redressed only some feudal abuses. It is, indeed, of little importance by what motives those who obtained it were guided. The real characters of men most distinguished in the transactions of that time are not easily determined at present. Yet if we bring these ungrateful suspicions to the test, they prove destitute of all reasonable foundation. An equal distribution of rights to all classes of freemen forms the peculiar beauty of the charter. In this just solicitude for the people, and in the moderation which infringed on no essential prerogative of the monarchy, we may perceive a liberality and patriotism very unlike the selfishness which is sometimes rashly imputed to those ancient barons. And, as far as we are guided by historical testimony, two great men, the pillars of our church and state, may be considered as entitled, beyond the rest, to the glory of this monument; Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of Pembroke. To their temperate zeal for a legal government, England was indebted during that critical period for the two greatest blessings that patriotic statesmen could confer; the establishment of civil liberty upon an immovable basis, and the preservation of national independence under the ancient line of sovereigns, which rasher men were about to exchange for the dominion of France.”—(Middle Ages, ii., 447.)

Though principally directed against the abuses of the king's power, as feudal lord, the Great Charter contains principles of universal appli'cation, which give it great weight and authority, even at the present day, in matters of constitutional law. In it we find the seeds of many of our most valued institutions; and great constitutional questions have