The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0091/00910.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 30KB | 466 lines

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Part X}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hallam, Henry}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{parliament
footnote
barons
tenants
charter
edward
henry
chief
england
et}
$Date{}
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Title:       History Of Europe During The Middle Ages
Book:        Book VIII: The Constitutional History Of England
Author:      Hallam, Henry

Part X

     Reign of Edward I. - Confirmatio Chartarum - Constitution of Parliament;
the Prelates; the Temporal Peers - Tenure by Barony; its Changes - Difficulty
of the Subject - Origin of Representation of the Commons - Knights of Shires;
their Existence doubtfully traced through the Reign of Henry III. - Question
whether representation was confined to Tenants in capite discussed - State of
English Towns at the Conquest and Afterwards; their Progress - Representatives
from them Summoned to Parliament by Earl of Leicester - Improbability of an
earlier Origin - Cases of St. Albans and Barnstaple considered - Parliaments
under Edward I. - Separation of Knights and Burgesses from the Peers - Edward
II. - Gradual Progress of the Authority of Parliament traced through the
Reigns of Edward III. and his Successors down to Henry IV. - Privilege of
Parliament; the early Instances of it Noticed - Nature of Borough
Representation - Rights of Election; other Particulars relative to Election -
House of Lords - Baronies by Tenure; by Writ - Nature of the Latter Discussed
- Creation of Peers by Act of Parliament and by Patent - Summons of Clergy to
Parliament - King's Ordinary Council; its Judicial and other Power - Charter
of the Plantagenet Government - Prerogative; its Excesses; erroneous Views
corrected - Testimony of Sir John Fortescue to the Freedom of the Constitution
- Causes of the superior Liberty of England considered - State of Society in
England - Want of Police - Villenage; its gradual Extinction - Latter Years of
Henry VI. - Regencies; Instances of them Enumerated - Pretensions of the House
of York, and War of the Roses - Edward IV. - Conclusion.

     Though the undisputed accession of a prince like Edward I. to the throne
of his father does not seem so convenient a resting-place in history as one of
those revolutions which interrupt the natural chain of events, yet the changes
wrought during his reign make it properly an epoch in the progress of these
inquiries.  And, indeed, as ours is emphatically styled a government by king,
lords, and commons, we cannot, perhaps, in strictness carry it further back
than the admission of the latter into parliament; so that if the constant
representation of the commons is to be referred to the age of Edward I., it
will be nearer the truth to date the English constitution from that than from
any earlier era.

     The various statutes affecting the law of property and administration of
justice which have caused Edward I. to be named, rather hyperbolically, the
English Justinian, bear no immediate relation to our present inquiries. In a
constitutional point of view the principal object is that statute entitled the
Confirmation of the Charters, which was very reluctantly conceded by the king
in the twenty-fifth year of his reign.  I do not know that England has ever
produced any patriots to whose memory she owes more gratitude than Humphrey
Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, and Roger Bigod, Earl of Norfolk.  In the
Great Charter the base spirit and deserted condition of John take off
something from the glory of the triumph, though they enhance the moderation of
those who pressed no further upon an abject tyrant.  But to withstand the
measures of Edward, a prince unequalled by any who had reigned in England
since the Conqueror, for prudence, valor, and success, required a far more
intrepid patriotism.  Their provocations, if less outrageous than those
received from John, were such as evidently manifested a disposition in Edward
to reign without any control; a constant refusal to confirm the charters,
which in that age were hardly deemed to bind the king without his actual
consent; heavy impositions, especially one on the export of wool, and other
unwarrantable demands.  He had acted with such unmeasured violence towards the
clergy, on account of their refusal of further subsidies, that, although the
ill-judged policy of that class kept their interests too distinct from those
of the people, it was natural for all to be alarmed at the precedent of
despotism. ^a These encroachments made resistance justifiable, and the
circumstances of Edward made it prudent.  His ambition, luckily for the
people, had involved him in foreign warfare, from which he could not recede
without disappointment and dishonor.  Thus was wrested from him that famous
statute, inadequately denominated the Confirmation of the Charters, because it
added another pillar to our constitution, not less important than the Great
Charter itself. ^b

[Footnote a: The fullest account we possess of these domestic transactions
from 1294 to 1298 is in Walter Hemingford, one of the historians edited by
Hearne, pp. 52-168.  They have been vilely perverted by Carte, but extremely
well told by Hume, the first writer who had the merit of exposing the
character of Edward I.  See too Knyghton in Twysden's Decem Scriptores, col.
2492.]

[Footnote b: Walsingham, in Camden's Scriptores Rer. Anglicarum, pp. 71-73.]

     It was enacted by the 25 Edward I. that the charter of liberties, and
that of the forest, besides being explicitly confirmed, ^c should be sent to
all sheriffs, justices in eyre, and other magistrates throughout the realm, in
order to their publication before the people; that copies of them should be
kept in cathedral churches, and publicly read twice in the year, accompanied
by a solemn sentence of excommunication against all who should infringe them;
that any judgment given contrary to these charters should be invalid, and
holden for naught.  This authentic promulgation, those awful sanctions of the
Great Charter, would alone render the statute of which we are speaking
illustrious.  But it went a great deal further.  Hitherto the king's
prerogative of levying money by name of tallage or prize from his towns and
tenants in demesne had passed unquestioned.  Some impositions, that especially
on the export of wool, affected all his subjects.  It was now the moment to
enfranchise the people, and give that security to private property which Magna
Charta had given to personal liberty.  By the 5th and 6th sections of this
statute "the aids, tasks, and prizes," before taken are renounced as
precedents; and the king "grants for him and his heirs, as well to
archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other folk of holy church, as also
to earls, barons, and to all commonalty of the land, that for no business from
henceforth we shall take such manner of aids, tasks, nor prizes, but by the
common assent of the realm, and for the common profit thereof, saving the
ancient aids and prizes due and accustomed." The toll upon wool, so far as
levied by the king's mere prerogative, is expressly released by the seventh
section. ^d

[Footnote c: Edward would not confirm the charters, notwithstanding his
promise, without the words, salvo jure coronae nostrae; on which the two earls
retired from court.  When the confirmation was read to the people at St.
Paul's, says Hemingford, they blessed the king on seeing the charters with the
great seal affixed; but when they heard the captious conclusion, they cursed
him instead.  At the next meeting of parliament, the king agreed to omit these
insidious words, p. 168.]

[Footnote d: The supposed statute, De Tallagio non concedendo, is considered
by Blackstone (Introduction to Charters, p. 67) as merely an abstract of the
Confirmatio Chartarum.  By that entitled Articuli super Chartas, 28 Edw. I., a
court was erected in every county, of three knights or others, to be elected
by the commons of the shire, whose sole province was to determine offences
against the two charters, with the power of punishing by fine and
impri