intituled Confirmatio Chartarum, all private property was secured from royal spoliation and placed under the safeguard of the great council of all the realm.

King Edward had committed several violent and arbitrary measures in order to raise the moneys which his wars required. The details of these transactions will be found in Guizot's "History of Representative Government," and in Blackstone's "Introduction to the Charter," as well as in the regular Histories of England. Providentially for this nation, wise and fearless patriots were still to be found among our barons, * who led the national opposition to these royal aggressions. But Edward, like Elizabeth in after ages, was a prince of sagacity as well as of spirit, and yielded to the popular feeling. † While he was in Flanders, in 1297, his son (who presided as regent in the English Parliament) passed, in the king's name, the statute usually called "Confirmatio Chartarum,” in the then usual form of a charter. It was sent over to King Edward, and signed by him at Ghent; ‡ and was afterwards (after some attempts at evasion) solemnly confirmed by him in a parliament held by himself in person in the year 1300.

The material portions of this Statute, or Charter, are as follows:

* See Hallam's just eulogy on the earls of Hereford and Essex, "Hist. Mid. Ages," vol. iii., p. 2, note.

"To know when to yield in government is at least as necessary as to know when to lose in trade; and he who can

not do the first, is so little likely to govern a kingdom well, that it is more than probable he would govern a shop ill."-Bolingbroke.

See Blackstone's "Introduction," p. xcv.

66

"CONFIRMATIO CHARTARUM.

ANNO VICESIMO QUINTO EDV. I.

CAP. V.

And for so much as divers people of our realm are in fear that the aids and tasks which they have given to us beforetime, towards our wars and other business, of their own grant and good will (howsoever they were made), might turn to a bondage to them and their heirs because they might be at another time found in the rolls, and likewise for the prises taken throughout the realm, in our name, by our ministers; we have granted for us and our heirs that we shall not draw such aids, tasks, nor prises, into a custom for anything that hath been done heretofore, be it by roll or any other precedent that may be founden.

CAP. VI.

Moreover, we have granted for us and our heirs, as well to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy church, as also to earls, barons, and to all the commonalty of the land, that for no business from thenceforth we shall take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prises, but by the common consent of all the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.Ӡ

"Par commun assent de tut le roiaume." The version in our statute book omits the important word "All."

+ Lord Coke says the ancient aids pour file marier, &c. (see supra, p. 134), are here meant:

and the ancient takings or seizures are here intended, such as waifes, strays, the goods of felons and outlaws, deodands, and the like.-Second Institut. p. 529.

CHAPTER XIII.

The Principles of the Constitution traced in the Charter.-Kingship in England.-Its powers and limitations.—Parliament.— Origin of the House of Peers.-Of the two branches of the House of Commons.-Trial by Jury.-Writ of Habeas Corpus.Origin and value of these Constitutional Rights.

HAVING now examined the text of Magna Carta and its Supplement, we may pause and consider how far they recognise or establish those great primary principles of our constitution, which have been defined in the first chapter of this work, and which may be conveniently repeated here.

The government of the country by an hereditary sovereign, ruling with limited powers, and bound to summon and consult a parliament of the whole realm comprising hereditary peers, and elective representatives of the com

mons.

That without the sanction of parliament no tax of any kind can be imposed, and no law can be made, repealed, or altered.

That no man be arbitrarily fined or imprisoned, that no man's property or liberties be impaired, and that no man be in any way punished, except after a lawful trial. Trial by jury.

That justice shall not be sold or delayed.

In the first place, with regard to the government of the country, the Great Charter and its supplements clearly recognise the authority of an hereditary sovereign. The

RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

179

repeated expressions in them of the king granting for himself and his heirs the various popular privileges, which they secure, are themselves sufficient to prove this. It would not be difficult to point out in them recognitions of the king being the fountain of honour,* of the king being the fountain of justice,* of the inviolability of the royal person,* and of other rules respecting English royalty, which will hereafter be more fully noticed. But, without resorting to literal criticism, no one can read the Charter without feeling perfectly certain that royalty is a fundamental portion, and the primary governing power of our political system. Indeed, not only in England, but throughout Europe, during the middle ages, the existence of a permanent suzerain, vested with large rights of a mixed personal and proprietary character over his vassals, though subject also to certain obligations towards them," was always presumed as indispensably necessary for the existence of political society.+ "The rights of the chief were always conceived as constituting a Status apart, and neither conferred originally by the grant, nor revocable at the pleasure of those over whom they were exercised. This view of the essential nature of political authority was a point in which all the three great elements of modern European society-the Teutonic, the Roman, and the Christian,

* See sections 14, 39, 36, 45, and 61 of John's Charter and notes in the last chapter.

+ See Grote's " History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 13, et seq.; the reflections on the discontinuance of Kingship in Hellas, compared with its preservation in Medieval Europe, deserve

an attentive perusal.

i. e. the Imperial Roman. The influence of Republican Rome, when her history and literature were first made familiar to Europe by the revival of classical studies, was certainly not monarchical.

The Prin ship in Origin House Origin

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reneur-i, though each in a different way and wi Liffrent nouications. Thus in England we find the aaten nstantly striving to regulate and temper. by

min compact and laws, the power of its royal ehet but never at mpang, in early times, to dispense with the existence of kingly chefiom. Even when the oppressive ness and pr ved pertily of individual monarchs indu:ed the nation to take away practical power from them, and t choose an executive board, who should rule in their name, such provisions, however necessary, were always considered and designed to be of a temporary nature. Nor even when kings were solemnly deposed, as in the cases of the Second Edward and the second Richard, was kingship ever assailed. A new sovereign was instantly placed in the room of the deposed one, in order that the nation might not be deprived for a moment of the monarchical head, that was reckoned politically indispensable.

The peaceable and undisputed accession of Edward I, though he was far distant from England at the time of the death of Henry III., established not only that the etown was hereditary in the royal family, but also that it was hereditary according to the principles of descent which regulate a private inheritance. *

1 uppours with equal clearness from the Charter, that ths roval power which forms part of our constitution, is a

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Such was the case till Edward I.'s reign, which dated from the day (four days after Henry III.'s death) when the barons swore felty to him in his absence, and his peace was proclaimed.-See Medum's Middle Ages, rol. ii.

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