by the tyranny of that same nobility, haughtily jealous of their liberty, or rather of their anarchy (1). The people, oppressed by those who ought to have guided and protected them, loaded with insults by those who existed by their labour, revolted on all sides. But their tumultuous insurrections had scarcely any other object than that of giving vent to the anguish with 37 which their hearts were filled. They had no thoughts of entering into a general combination; still less of changing the form of the government, and laying a regular plan of public liberty.

Having never extended their views beyond the fields they cultivated, they had no conception of those different ranks and orders of men, of those distinct and opposite privileges and prerogatives, which are all necessary ingredients of a free constitution. Hitherto confined to the same round of rustic employments, they little thought of that complicated fabric, which the more informed themselves cannot but with difficulty comprehend, when, by a concurrence of favourable circumstances, the structure has at length been reared, and stands displayed to their view.

In their simplicity, they saw no other remedy for the national evils than the general establishment of the regal power, that is, of the authority of one common

(1) Not content with oppression, they added insult. "When the gentry," says Mezeray, "pillaged and committed exactions on the peasantry, they called the poor sufferer, in derision, Jaques bonhomme, (goodman James). This gave rise to a furious sedition, which was called the Jaquerie. It began at Beauvais in the year 1357, extending itself into most of the provinces of France, and was not appeased but by the destruction of part of those unhappy victims, thousands of whom were slaughtered."

uncontrolled master; and only longed for that time, which, while it gratified their revenge, would mitigate their sufferings, and reduce to the same level both the oppressors and the oppressed.

The nobility, on the other hand, bent solely on the 38 enjoyment of a momentary independence, irrecoverably lost the affection of the only men who might in time support them; and, equally regardless of the dictates of humanity and of prudence, they did not perceive the gradual and continual advances of the royal authority, which was soon to overwhelm them all. Already were Normandy, Anjou, Languedoc, and Touraine united to the crown; Dauphiné, Champagne, and part of Guienne, were soon to follow. France was doomed at length to see the reign of Louis XI.; to see her General Estates first beecom useless, and be afterwards abolished (10).

It was the destiny of Spain also to behold her several

(10) For a state to be powerful, the people must either enjoy a liberty founded on the laws, or the regal authority must be fixed beyond all opposition. In France, the people were slaves till the reign of Philip Augustus; the noblemen were tyrants till the reign of Louis the Eleventh; and the kings, always employed in maintaining their authority against their vassals, had neither leisure to think about the happiness of their subjects, nor the power of making them happy. Voltaire says, that Louis XI. did a great deal for the regal power, but nothing for the happiness or glory of the nation.

Louis, like the other monarchs of Europe, at the close of the fifteenth century, was better enabled to obtain supremacy by reason of his being more enlightened than his nobles: he abolished the States General, Ferdinand of Spain laid a train for the destruction of the Cortes, and Henry VII. would have abolished the English parliament. Henry VIII. obtained such supremacy, as to compel the parliament to pass a statute whereby his proclamations ad the effect of acts of parliament.-EDITOR.

kingdoms united under one head; she was fated to be in time ruled by Ferdinand of Arragon, and Charles V. (m). And Germany, where an elective crown 39 prevented the re-unions (n), was to acquire a few free cities; but her people, parcelled into so many different dominions, were destined to remain subject to the arbitrary yoke of such of her different sovereigns as should be able to maintain their power and independence. In a word, the feudal tyranny which overspread the Continent did not compensate, by any preparation of distant advantages, the present calamities it caused; nor was it to leave behind it, as it disappeared, any thing but a more regular kind of despotism.

(m) Spain was originally divided into twelve kingdoms, besides principalities, which by treaties, and especially by conquests, were collected into three kingdoms, those of Castile, Arragon, and Granada. Ferdinand V., King of Arragon, married Isabella, Queen of Castile; they made a joint conquest of the kingdom of Granada, and these three kingdoms thus united descended, in 1516, to their grandson Charles V., and formed the Spanish monarchy. At this æra the kings of Spain began to be absolute; and the states of the kingdom of Castile and Leon, "assembled at Toledo in the month of November, 1539, were the last in which the three orders met, that is, the grandees, the ecclesiastics, and the deputies of the towns."-See the History of Spain, by Ferrera.

(n) The kingdom of France, as it stood under Hugh Capet and his next successors, may, with a great degree of exactness, be compared with the German Empire; but the imperial crown of Germany, having, through a conjunction of circumstances, continued elective, the emperors, though vested with more high-sounding prerogatives then even the kings of France, laboured under very essential disadvantages: they could not pursue a plan of aggrandisement with the same steadiness as a line of hereditary sovereigns usually do; and the right to elect them, enjoyed by the greater princes of Germany, procured a sufficient power to these, to protect themselves, as well as the inferior lords, against the power of the crown.

40

But in England the same feudal system, after having suddenly broken in like a flood, had deposited, and still continued to deposit, the noble seeds of the spirit of liberty, union, and sober resistance.

So early as the time of Edward, the tide was seen gradually to subside; the laws which protect the person and property of the individual began to make their appearance; that admirable constitution, the result of a threefold power, insensibly rose (o); and the eye might even then discover the verdant summits of the fortunate region, that was destined to be the seat of philosophy and liberty, which are inseparable companions.

(0) "Now in my opinion," says Philippe de Comines, in times not much posterior to those of Edward I., and with the simplicity of the language of his times, "among all the sovereignties I know in the world, that in which the public good is best attended to, and the least violence exercised on the people, is that of England." Mémoires de Comines, tom. 1, lib. 5, chap. 19.

CHAPTER III.

SECTION I.-The Subject continued.

THE representatives of the nation, and of the whole 41 nation, were now admitted into parliament: the great point, therefore, was gained that was one day to procure them the influence which they at present possess; and the subsequent reigns afford continual instances of its successive growth (1).

Under Edward II. the commons began to annex petitions to the bills by which they granted subsidies: this was the dawn of their legislative authority. Under Edward III. they declared they would not, in future, acknowledge any law to which they had not

(1) In the First Report of the Lords' Committee upon the Peerage, p. 252, the committee state, that the first solemn act which they had discovered, by which the constitution of the legislative assembly of the realm was distinctly described, after the charter of King John, was a statute passed in the 15th Edw. II., where it is declared, "that the matters to be established for the estate of the realm, and of the people, should be treated, established, and accorded in parliament by the king, and by the assent of the prelates, earls, and barons, and the commonalty of the realm, according as had been before accustomed." This committee also state, that the provision of the charter of King John, about summoning the commune concilium, appears to have been abandoned, and probably did not extend to all legislative purposes, but only to that of granting aid.-EDITOR.

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