View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages Part 7

This, like many others relating to the progress of society, is a very obscure inquiry. We can trace the pedigree of princes, fill up the catalogue of towns besieged and provinces desolated, describe even the whole pageantry of coronations and festivals, but we cannot recover the genuine history of mankind. It has pa.s.sed away with slight and partial notice by contemporary writers; and our most patient industry can hardly at present put together enough of the fragments to suggest a tolerably clear representation of ancient manners and social life. I cannot profess to undertake what would require a command of books as well as leisure beyond my reach; but the following observations may tend a little to ill.u.s.trate our immediate subject, the gradual extinction of villenage.

If we take what may be considered as the simplest case, that of a manor divided into demesne lands of the lord's occupation and those in the tenure of his villeins, performing all the services of agriculture for him, it is obvious that his interest was to maintain just so many of these as his estate required for its cultivation. Land, the cheapest of articles, was the price of their labour; and though the law did not compel him to pay this or any other price, yet necessity, repairing in some degree the law's injustice, made those pretty secure of food and dwellings who were to give the strength of their arms for his advantage.

But in course of time, as alienations of small parcels of manors to free tenants came to prevail, the proprietors of land were placed in a new situation relatively to its cultivators. The tenements in villenage, whether by law or usage, were never separated from the lordship, while its domain was reduced to a smaller extent through subinfeudations, sales, or demises for valuable rent. The purchasers under these alienations had occasion for labourers; and these would be free servants in respect of such employers, though in villenage to their original lord. As he demanded less of their labour, through the diminution of his domain, they had more to spare for other masters; and retaining the character of villeins and the lands they held by that tenure, became hired labourers in husbandry for the greater part of the year. It is true that all their earnings were at the lord's disposal, and that he might have made a profit of their labour when he ceased to require it for his own land. But this, which the rapacity of more commercial times would have instantly suggested, might escape a feudal superior, who, wealthy beyond his wants, and guarded by the haughtiness of ancestry against the desire of such pitiful gains, was better pleased to win the affection of his dependants than to improve his fortune at their expense.

The services of villenage were gradually rendered less onerous and uncertain. Those of husbandry, indeed, are naturally uniform, and might be antic.i.p.ated with no small exactness. Lords of generous tempers granted indulgences which were either intended to be or readily became perpetual. And thus, in the time of Edward I., we find the tenants in some manors bound only to stated services, as recorded in the lord's book.[405] Some of these, perhaps, might be villeins by blood; but free tenants in villenage were still more likely to obtain this precision in their services; and from claiming a customary right to be entered in the court-roll upon the same terms as their predecessors, prevailed at length to get copies of it for their security.[406] Proofs of this remarkable transformation from tenants in villenage to copyholders are found in the reign of Henry III. I do not know, however, that they were protected, at so early an epoch, in the possession of their estates. But it is said in the Year-book of the 42nd of Edward III. to be "admitted for clear law, that, if the customary tenant or copyholder does not perform his services, the lord may seize his land as forfeited."[407] It seems implied herein, that, so long as the copyholder did continue to perform the regular stipulations of his tenure, the lord was not at liberty to divest him of his estate; and this is said to be confirmed by a pa.s.sage in Britton, which has escaped my search; though Littleton intimates that copyholders could have no remedy against their lord.[408]

However, in the reign of Edward IV. this was put out of doubt by the judges, who permitted the copyholder to bring his action of trespa.s.s against the lord for dispossession.

While some of the more fortunate villeins crept up into property as well as freedom under the name of copyholders, the greater part enfranchised themselves in a different manner. The law, which treated them so harshly, did not take away the means of escape; nor was this a matter of difficulty in such a country as England. To this, indeed, the unequal progression of agriculture and population in different counties would have naturally contributed. Men emigrated, as they always must, in search of cheapness or employment, according to the tide of human necessities. But the villein, who had no additional motive to urge his steps away from his native place, might well hope to be forgotten or undiscovered when he breathed a freer air, and engaged his voluntary labour to a distant master. The lord had indeed an action against him; but there was so little communication between remote parts of the country, that it might be deemed his fault or singular ill-fortune if he were compelled to defend himself. Even in that case the law inclined to favour him; and so many obstacles were thrown in the way of these suits to reclaim fugitive villeins, that they could not have operated materially to r.e.t.a.r.d their general enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.[409] In one case, indeed, that of unmolested residence for a year and a day within a walled city or borough, the villein became free, and the lord was absolutely barred of his remedy. This provision is contained even in the laws of William the Conqueror, as contained in Hoveden, and, if it be not an interpolation, may be supposed to have had a view to strengthen the population of those places which were designed for garrisons. This law, whether of William or not, is unequivocally mentioned by Glanvil.[410] Nor was it a mere letter. According to a record in the sixth of Edward II., Sir John Clavering sued eighteen villeins of his manor of Cossey, for withdrawing themselves therefrom with their chattels; whereupon a writ was directed to them; but six of the number claimed to be freemen, alleging the Conqueror's charter, and offering to prove that they had lived in Norwich, paying scot and lot, about thirty years; which claim was admitted.[411]

By such means a large proportion of the peasantry before the middle of the fourteenth century had become hired labourers instead of villeins.

We first hear of them on a grand scale in an ordinance made by Edward III. in the twenty-third year of his reign. This was just after the dreadful pestilence of 1348, and it recites that, the number of workmen and servants having been greatly reduced by that calamity, the remainder demanded excessive wages from their employers. Such an enhancement in the price of labour, though founded exactly on the same principles as regulate the value of any other commodity, is too frequently treated as a sort of crime by lawgivers, who seem to grudge the poor that transient melioration of their lot which the progress of population, or other a.n.a.logous circ.u.mstances, will, without any interference, very rapidly take away. This ordinance therefore enacts that every man in England, of whatever condition, bond or free, of able body, and within sixty years of age, not living of his own, nor by any trade, shall be obliged, when required, to serve any master who is willing to hire him at such wages as were usually paid three years since, or for some time preceding; provided that the lords of villeins or tenants in villenage shall have the preference of their labour, so that they retain no more than shall be necessary for them. More than these old wages is strictly forbidden to be offered, as well as demanded. No one is permitted, under colour of charity, to give alms to a beggar. And, to make some compensation to the inferior cla.s.ses for these severities, a clause is inserted, as wise, just, and practicable as the rest, for the sale of provisions at reasonable prices.[412]

This ordinance met with so little regard that a statute was made in parliament two years after, fixing the wages of all artificers and husbandmen, with regard to the nature and season of their labour. From this time it became a frequent complaint of the commons that the statute of labourers was not kept. The king had in this case, probably, no other reason for leaving their grievance unredressed than his inability to change the order of Providence. A silent alteration had been wrought in the condition and character of the lower cla.s.ses during the reign of Edward III. This was the effect of increased knowledge and refinement, which had been making a considerable progress for full half a century, though they did not readily permeate the cold region of poverty and ignorance. It was natural that the country people, or uplandish folk, as they were called, should repine at the exclusion from that enjoyment of competence, and security for the fruits of their labour, which the inhabitants of towns so fully possessed. The fourteenth century was, in many parts of Europe, the age when a sense of political servitude was most keenly felt. Thus the insurrection of the Jacquerie in France about the year 1358 had the same character, and resulted in a great measure from the same causes, as that of the English peasants in 1382. And we may account in a similar manner for the democratical tone of the French and Flemish cities, and for the prevalence of a spirit of liberty in Germany and Switzerland.[413]

I do not know whether we should attribute part of this revolutionary concussion to the preaching of Wicliffe's disciples, or look upon both one and the other as phenomena belonging to that particular epoch in the progress of society. New principles, both as to civil rule and religion, broke suddenly upon the uneducated mind, to render it bold, presumptuous, and turbulent. But at least I make little doubt that the dislike of ecclesiastical power, which spread so rapidly among the people at this season, connected itself with a spirit of insubordination and an intolerance of political subjection. Both were nourished by the same teachers, the lower secular clergy; and however distinct we may think a religious reformation from a civil anarchy, there was a good deal common in the language by which the populace were inflamed to either one or the other. Even the scriptural moralities which were then exhibited, and which became the foundation of our theatre, afforded fuel to the spirit of sedition. The common original and common destination of mankind, with every other lesson of equality which religion supplies to humble or to console, were displayed with coa.r.s.e and glaring features in these representations. The familiarity of such ideas has deadened their effects upon our minds; but when a rude peasant, surprisingly dest.i.tute of religious instruction during that corrupt age of the church, was led at once to these impressive truths, we cannot be astonished at the intoxication of mind they produced.[414]

Though I believe that, compared at least with the aristocracy of other countries, the English lords were guilty of very little cruelty or injustice, yet there were circ.u.mstances belonging to that period which might tempt them to deal more hardly than before with their peasantry.

The fourteenth century was an age of greater magnificence than those which had preceded, in dress, in ceremonies, in buildings; foreign luxuries were known enough to excite an eager demand among the higher ranks, and yet so scarce as to yield inordinate prices; while the landholders were, on the other hand, impoverished by heavy and unceasing taxation. Hence it is probable that avarice, as commonly happens, had given birth to oppression; and if the gentry, as I am inclined to believe, had become more attentive to agricultural improvements, it is reasonable to conjecture that those whose tenure obliged them to unlimited services of husbandry were more hara.s.sed than under their wealthy and indolent masters in preceding times.

The storm that almost swept away all bulwarks of civilized and regular society seems to have been long in collecting itself. Perhaps a more sagacious legislature might have contrived to disperse it: but the commons only presented complaints of the refractoriness with which villeins and tenants in villenage rendered their due services;[415] and the exigencies of government led to the fatal poll-tax of a groat, which was the proximate cause of the insurrection. By the demands of these rioters we perceive that territorial servitude was far from extinct; but it should not be hastily concluded that they were all personal villeins, for a large proportion were Kentish-men, to whom that condition could not have applied; it being a good bar to a writ de nativitate probanda that the party's father was born in the county of Kent.[416]

After this tremendous rebellion it might be expected that the legislature would use little indulgence towards the lower commons. Such unhappy tumults are doubly mischievous, not more from the immediate calamities that attend them than from the fear and hatred of the people which they generate in the elevated cla.s.ses. The general charter of manumission extorted from the king by the rioters of Blackheath was annulled by proclamation to the sheriffs,[417] and this revocation approved by the lords and commons in parliament; who added, as was very true, that such enfranchis.e.m.e.nt could not be made without their consent; "which they would never give to save themselves from perishing all together in one day."[418] Riots were turned into treason by a law of the same parliament.[419] By a very harsh statute in the 12th of Richard II. no servant or labourer could depart, even at the expiration of his service, from the hundred in which he lived without permission under the king's seal; nor might any who had been bred to husbandry till twelve years old exercise any other calling.[420] A few years afterwards the commons pet.i.tioned that villeins might not put their children to school in order to advance them by the church; "and this for the honour of all the freemen of the kingdom." In the same parliament they complained that villeins fly to cities and boroughs, whence their masters cannot recover them; and, if they attempt it, are hindered by the people; and prayed that the lords might seize their villeins in such places without regard to the franchises thereof. But on both these pet.i.tions the king put in a negative.[421]

From henceforward we find little notice taken of villenage in parliamentary records, and there seems to have been a rapid tendency to its entire abolition. But the fifteenth century is barren of materials; and we can only infer that, as the same causes which in Edward III.'s time had converted a large portion of the peasantry into free labourers still continued to operate, they must silently have extinguished the whole system of personal and territorial servitude. The latter, indeed, was essentially changed by the establishment of the law of copyhold.

I cannot presume to conjecture in what degree voluntary manumission is to be reckoned among the means that contributed to the abolition of villenage. Charters of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt were very common upon the continent. They may perhaps have been less so in England. Indeed the statute de donis must have operated very injuriously to prevent the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of villeins regardant, who were entailed along with the land. Instances, however, occur from time to time, and we cannot expect to discover many. One appears as early as the fifteenth year of Henry III., who grants to all persons born or to be born within his village of Contishall, that they shall be free from all villenage in body and blood, paying an aid of twenty shillings to knight the king's eldest son, and six shillings a year as a quit-rent.[422] So in the twelfth of Edward III. certain of the king's villeins are enfranchised on payment of a fine.[423] In strictness of law, a fine from the villein for the sake of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was nugatory, since all he could possess was already at his lord's disposal. But custom and equity might easily introduce different maxims; and it was plainly for the lord's interest to encourage his tenants in the acquisition of money to redeem themselves, rather than to quench the exertions of their industry by availing himself of an extreme right. Deeds of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt occur in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth;[424] and perhaps a commission of the latter princess in 1574, directing the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of her bondmen and bondwomen on certain manors upon payment of a fine, is the last unequivocal testimony to the existence of villenage;[425] though it is highly probable that it existed in remote parts of the country some time longer.[426]

[Sidenote: Reign of Henry VI.]

From this general view of the English const.i.tution, as it stood about the time of Henry VI., we must turn our eyes to the political revolutions which clouded the latter years of his reign. The minority of this prince, notwithstanding the vices and dissensions of his court and the inglorious discomfiture of our arms in France, was not perhaps a calamitous period. The country grew more wealthy; the law was, on the whole, better observed; the power of parliament more complete and effectual than in preceding times. But Henry's weakness of understanding, becoming evident as he reached manhood, rendered his reign a perpetual minority. His marriage with a princess of strong mind, but ambitious and vindictive, rather tended to weaken the government and to accelerate his downfall; a certain reverence that had been paid to the gentleness of the king's disposition being overcome by her unpopularity. By degrees Henry's natural feebleness degenerated almost into fatuity; and this unhappy condition seems to have overtaken him nearly about the time when it became an arduous task to withstand the a.s.sault in preparation against his government. This may properly introduce a great const.i.tutional subject, to which some peculiar circ.u.mstances of our own age have imperiously directed the consideration of parliament. Though the proceedings of 1788 and 1810 are undoubtedly precedents of far more authority than any that can be derived from our ancient history, yet, as the seal of the legislature has not yet been set upon this controversy, it is not perhaps altogether beyond the possibility of future discussion; and at least it cannot be uninteresting to look back on those parallel or a.n.a.logous cases by which the deliberations of parliament upon the question of regency were guided.

[Sidenote: Historical instances of regencies:]

[Sidenote: during the absence of our kings in France;]

While the kings of England retained their continental dominions, and were engaged in the wars to which those gave birth, they were of course frequently absent from this country. Upon such occasions the administration seems at first to have devolved officially on the justiciary, as chief servant of the crown. But Henry III. began the practice of appointing lieutenants, or guardians of the realm (custodes regni), as they were more usually termed, by way of temporary subst.i.tutes. They were usually nominated by the king without consent of parliament; and their office carried with it the right of exercising all the prerogatives of the crown. It was of course determined by the king's return; and a distinct statute was necessary in the reign of Henry V. to provide that a parliament called by the guardian of the realm during the king's absence should not be dissolved by that event.[427] The most remarkable circ.u.mstance attending those lieutenancies was that they were sometimes conferred on the heir apparent during his infancy. The Black Prince, then duke of Cornwall, was left guardian of the realm in 1339, when he was but ten years old;[428] and Richard his son, when still younger, in 1372, during Edward III.'s last expedition into France.[429]

[Sidenote: at the accession of Henry III.;]

[Sidenote: of Edward I.;]

[Sidenote: of Edward III.;]

[Sidenote: of Richard II.;]

These do not however bear a very close a.n.a.logy to regencies in the stricter sense, or subst.i.tutions during the natural incapacity of the sovereign. Of such there had been several instances before it became necessary to supply the deficiency arising from Henry's derangement. 1.

At the death of John, William earl of Pembroke a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of rector regis et regni, with the consent of the loyal barons who had just proclaimed the young king, and probably conducted the government in a great measure by their advice.[430] But the circ.u.mstances were too critical, and the time is too remote, to give this precedent any material weight. 2. Edward I. being in Sicily at his father's death, the n.o.bility met at the Temple church, as we are informed by a contemporary writer, and, after making a new great seal, appointed the archbishop of York, Edward earl of Cornwall, and the earl of Gloucester, to be ministers and guardians of the realm; who accordingly conducted the administration in the king's name until his return.[431] It is here observable that the earl of Cornwall, though nearest prince of the blood, was not supposed to enjoy any superior t.i.tle to the regency, wherein he was a.s.sociated with two other persons. But while the crown itself was hardly acknowledged to be unquestionably hereditary, it would be strange if any notion of such a right to the regency had been entertained. 3. At the accession of Edward III., then fourteen years old, the parliament, which was immediately summoned, nominated four bishops, four earls, and six barons as a standing council, at the head of which the earl of Lancaster seems to have been placed, to advise the king in all business of government. It was an article in the charge of treason, or, as it was then styled, of accroaching royal power, against Mortimer, that he intermeddled in the king's household without the a.s.sent of this council.[432] They may be deemed therefore a sort of parliamentary regency, though the duration of their functions does not seem to be defined. 4. The proceedings at the commencement of the next reign are more worthy of attention. Edward III. dying June 21, 1377, the keepers of the great seal next day, in absence of the chancellor beyond sea, gave it into the young king's hands before his council. He immediately delivered it to the duke of Lancaster, and the duke to Sir Nicholas Bode for safe custody. Four days afterwards the king in council delivered the seal to the bishop of St. David's, who affixed it the same day to divers letters patent.[433] Richard was at this time ten years and six months old; an age certainly very unfit for the personal execution of sovereign authority. Yet he was supposed capable of reigning without the aid of a regency. This might be in virtue of a sort of magic ascribed by lawyers to the great seal, the possession of which bars all further inquiry, and renders any government legal. The practice of modern times requiring the constant exercise of the sign manual has made a public confession of incapacity necessary in many cases where it might have been concealed or overlooked in earlier periods of the const.i.tution. But though no one was invested with the office of regent, a council of twelve was named by the prelates and peers at the king's coronation, July 16, 1377, without whose concurrence no public measure was to be carried into effect. I have mentioned in another place the modifications introduced from time to time by parliament, which might itself be deemed a great council of regency during the first years of Richard.

[Sidenote: of Henry VI.]

5. The next instance is at the accession of Henry VI. This prince was but nine months old at his father's death; and whether from a more evident incapacity for the conduct of government in his case than in that of Richard II., or from the progress of const.i.tutional principles in the forty years elapsed since the latter's accession, far more regularity and deliberation were shown in supplying the defect in the executive authority. Upon the news arriving that Henry V. was dead, several lords spiritual and temporal a.s.sembled, on account of the imminent necessity, in order to preserve peace, and provide for the exercise of officers appertaining to the king. These peers accordingly issued commissions to judges, sheriffs, escheators, and others, for various purposes, and writs for a new parliament. This was opened by commission under the great seal directed to the duke of Gloucester, in the usual form, and with the king's teste.[434] Some ordinances were made in this parliament by the duke of Gloucester as commissioner, and some in the king's name. The acts of the peers who had taken on themselves the administration, and summoned parliament, were confirmed.

On the twenty-seventh day of its session, it is entered upon the roll that the king, "considering his tender age, and inability to direct in person the concerns of his realm, by a.s.sent of lords and commons, appoints the duke of Bedford, or, in his absence beyond sea, the duke of Gloucester, to be protector and defender of the kingdom and English church, and the king's chief counsellor." Letters patent were made out to this effect, the appointment being however expressly during the king's pleasure. Sixteen councillors were named in parliament to a.s.sist the protector in his administration; and their concurrence was made necessary to the removal and appointment of officers, except some inferior patronage specifically reserved to the protector. In all important business that should pa.s.s by order of council, the whole, or major part, were to be present; "but if it were such matter that the king hath been accustomed to be counselled of, that then the said lords proceed not therein without the advice of my lords of Bedford or Gloucester."[435] A few more councillors were added by the next parliament, and divers regulations established for their observance.[436]

This arrangement was in contravention of the late king's testament, which had conferred the regency on the duke of Gloucester, in exclusion of his elder brother. But the nature and spirit of these proceedings will be better understood by a remarkable pa.s.sage in a roll of a later parliament; where the house of lords, in answer to a request of Gloucester that he might know what authority he possessed as protector, remind him that in the first parliament of the king[437] "ye desired to have had ye governaunce of yis land; affermyng yat hit belonged unto you of rygzt, as well by ye mene of your birth as by ye laste wylle of ye kyng yat was your broyer, whome G.o.d a.s.soile; alleggyng for you such groundes and motyves as it was yought to your discretion made for your intent; whereupon, the lords spiritual and temporal a.s.sembled there in parliament, among which were there my lordes your uncles, the bishop of Winchester that now liveth, and the duke of Exeter, and your cousin the earl of March that be gone to G.o.d, and of Warwick, and other in great number that now live, had great and long deliberation and advice, searched precedents of the governail of the land in time and case semblable, when kings of this land have been tender of age, took also information of the laws of the land, of such persons as be notably learned therein, and finally found your said desire not caused nor grounded in precedent, nor in the law of the land; the which the king that dead is, in his life nor might by his last will nor otherwise altre, change, nor abroge, without the a.s.sent of the three estates, nor commit or grant to any person governance or rule of this land longer than he lived; but on that other behalf, the said lords found your said desire not according with the laws of this land, and against the right and fredome of the estates of the same land. Howe were it that it be not thought that any such thing wittingly proceeded of your intent; and nevertheless to keep peace and tranquillity, and to the intent to ease and appease you, it was advised and appointed by authority of the king, a.s.senting the three estates of this land, that ye, in absence of my lord your brother of Bedford, should be chief of the king's council, and devised unto you a name different from other counsellors, not the name of tutor, lieutenant, governor, nor of regent, nor no name that should import authority of governance of the land, but the name of protector and defensor, which importeth a personal duty of attendance to the actual defence of the land, as well against enemies outward, if case required, as against rebels inward, if any were, that G.o.d forbid; granting you therewith certain power, the which is specified and contained in an act of the said parliament, to endure as long as it liked the king. In the which, if the intent of the said estates had been that ye more power and authority should have had, more should have been expressed therein; to the which appointment, ordinance, and act, ye then agreed you as for your person, making nevertheless protestation that it was not your intent in any wise to deroge or do prejudice unto my lord your brother of Bedford by your said agreement, as toward any right that he would pretend or claim in the governance of this land; and as toward any pre-eminence that you might have or belong unto you as chief of council, it is plainly declared in the said act and articles, subscribed by my said lord of Bedford, by yourself, and the other lords of the council. But as in parliament to which ye be called upon your faith and ligeance as duke of Glocester, as other lords be, and not otherwise, we know no power nor authority that ye have, other than ye as duke of Glocester should have, the king being in parliament, at years of mest discretion: We marvailing with all our hearts that, considering the open declaration of the authority and power belonging to my lord of Bedford and to you in his absence, and also to the king's council subscribed purely and simply by my said lord of Bedford and by you, that you should in any wise be stirred or moved not to content you therewith or to pretend you any other: Namely, considering that the king, blessed be our Lord, is, sith the time of the said power granted unto you, far gone and grown in person, in wit, and understanding, and like with the grace of G.o.d to occupy his own royal power within few years: and forasmuch considering the things and causes abovesaid, and other many that long were to write, We lords aforesaid pray, exhort, and require you to content you with the power abovesaid and declared, of the which my lord your brother of Bedford, the king's eldest uncle, contented him: and that ye none larger power desire, will, nor use; giving you this that is aboven written for our answer to your foresaid demand, the which we will dwell and abide with, withouten variance or changing. Over this beseeching and praying you in our most humble and lowly wise, and also requiring you in the king's name, that ye, according to the king's commandment, contained in his writ sent unto you in that behalf, come to this his present parliament, and intend to the good effect and speed of matters to be demesned and treted in the same, like as of right ye owe to do."[438]

It is evident that this plain, or rather rude address to the duke of Gloucester, was dictated by the prevalence of cardinal Beaufort's party in council and parliament. But the transactions in the former parliament are not unfairly represented; and, comparing them with the pa.s.sage extracted above, we may perhaps be ent.i.tled to infer: 1. That the king does not possess any const.i.tutional prerogative of appointing a regent during the minority of his successor; and 2. That neither the heir presumptive, nor any other person, is ent.i.tled to exercise the royal prerogative during the king's infancy (or, by parity of reasoning, his infirmity), nor to any t.i.tle that conveys them; the sole right of determining the persons by whom, and fixing the limitations under which, the executive government shall be conducted in the king's name and behalf, devolving upon the great council of parliament.

The expression used in the lords' address to the duke of Gloucester, relative to the young king, that he was far gone and grown in person, wit, and understanding, was not thrown out in mere flattery. In two years the party hostile to Gloucester's influence had gained ground enough to abrogate his office of protector, leaving only the honorary t.i.tle of chief counsellor.[439] For this the king's coronation, at eight years of age, was thought a fair pretence; and undoubtedly the loss of that exceedingly limited authority which had been delegated to the protector could not have impaired the strength of government. This was conducted as before by a selfish and disunited council; but the king's name was sufficient to legalize their measures, nor does any objection appear to have been made in parliament to such a mockery of the name of monarchy.

[Sidenote: Henry's mental derangement.]

[Sidenote: Duke of York made protector.]

In the year 1454, the thirty-second of Henry's reign, his unhappy malady, transmitted perhaps from his maternal grandfather, a.s.sumed so decided a character of derangement or imbecility, that parliament could no longer conceal from itself the necessity of a more efficient ruler.

This a.s.sembly, which had been continued by successive prorogations for nearly a year, met at Westminster on the 14th of February, when the session was opened, by the duke of York, as king's commissioner. Kemp, archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England, dying soon afterwards, it was judged proper to acquaint the king at Windsor by a deputation of twelve lords with this and other subjects concerning his government. In fact, perhaps, this was a pretext chosen in order to ascertain his real condition. These peers reported to the lords' house, two days afterwards, that they had opened to his majesty the several articles of their message, but "could get no answer ne sign for no prayer ne desire," though they repeated their endeavours at three different interviews. This report, with the instruction on which it was founded, was, at their prayer, entered of record in parliament. Upon so authentic a testimony of their sovereign's infirmity, the peers, adjourning two days for solemnity or deliberation, "elected and nominated Richard duke of York to be protector and defender of the realm of England during the king's pleasure." The duke, protesting his insufficiency, requested "that in this present parliament, and by authority thereof, it be enacted that, of yourself and of your ful and mere disposition, ye desire, name, and call me to the said name and charge, and that of any presumption of myself I take them not upon me, but only of the due and humble obeisance that I owe to do unto the king our most dread and sovereign lord, and to you the peerage of this land, in whom by the occasion of the infirmity of our said sovereign lord resteth the exercise of his authority, whose n.o.ble commandments I am as ready to perform and obey as any of his liegemen alive, and that, at such time as it shall please our blessed Creator to restore his most n.o.ble person to healthful disposition, it shall like you so to declare and notify to his good grace." To this protestation the lords answered that, for his and their discharge, an act of parliament should be made conformably to that enacted in the king's infancy, since they were compelled by an equal necessity again to choose and name a protector and defender. And to the duke of York's request to be informed how far the power and authority of his charge should extend, they replied that he should be chief of the king's council, and "devised therefore to the said duke a name different from other counsellors, not the name of tutor, lieutenant, governor, nor of regent, nor no name that shall import authority of governance of the land; but the said name of protector and defensor;" and so forth, according to the language of their former address to the duke of Gloucester. An act was pa.s.sed accordingly, const.i.tuting the duke of York protector of the church and kingdom, and chief counsellor of the king, during the latter's pleasure; or until the prince of Wales should attain years of discretion on whom the said dignity was immediately to devolve. The patronage of certain spiritual benefices was reserved to the protector according to the precedent of the king's minority, which parliament was resolved to follow in every particular.[440]

It may be conjectured, by the provision made in favour of the prince of Wales, then only two years old, that the king's condition was supposed to be beyond hope of restoration. But in about nine months he recovered sufficient speech and recollection to supersede the duke of York's protectorate.[441] The succeeding transactions are matter of familiar, though not, perhaps, very perspicuous history. The king was a prisoner in his enemies' hands after the affair at St. Albans,[442] when parliament met in July, 1455. In this session little was done, except renewing the strongest oaths of allegiance to Henry and his family. But the two houses meeting again after a prorogation to November 12, during which time the duke of York had strengthened his party, and was appointed by commission the king's lieutenant to open the parliament, a proposition was made by the commons that, "whereas the king had deputed the duke of York as his commissioner to proceed in this parliament, it was thought by the commons that, if the king hereafter could not attend to the protection of the country, an able person should be appointed protector, to whom they might have recourse for redress of injuries; especially as great disturbances had lately arisen in the west through the feuds of the earl of Devonshire and Lord Bonvile."[443] The archbishop of Canterbury answered for the lords that they would take into consideration what the commons had suggested. Two days afterwards the latter appeared again with a request conveyed nearly in the same terms. Upon their leaving the chamber, the archbishop, who was also chancellor, moved the peers to answer what should be done in respect of the request of the commons; adding that "it is understood that they will not further proceed in matters of parliament, to the time that they have answer to their desire and request." This naturally ended in the reappointment of the duke of York to his charge of protector. The commons indeed were determined to bear no delay. As if ignorant of what had been resolved in consequence of their second request, they urged it a third time, on the next day of meeting; and received for answer that "the king our said sovereign lord, by the advice and a.s.sent of his lords spiritual and temporal being in this present parliament, had named and desired the duke of York to be protector and defensor of this land." It is worthy of notice that in these words, and indeed in effect, as appears by the whole transaction, the house of peers a.s.sumed an exclusive right of choosing the protector, though, in the act pa.s.sed to ratify their election, the commons' a.s.sent, as a matter of course, is introduced. The last year's precedent was followed in the present instance, excepting a remarkable deviation; instead of the words "during the king's pleasure," the duke was to hold his office "until he should be discharged of it by the lords in parliament."[444]

This extraordinary clause, and the slight allegations on which it was thought fit to subst.i.tute a vicegerent for the reigning monarch, are sufficient to prove, even if the common historians were silent, that whatever pa.s.sed as to this second protectorate of the duke of York was altogether of a revolutionary complexion. In the actual circ.u.mstances of civil blood already spilled and the king in captivity, we may justly wonder that so much regard was shown to the regular forms and precedents of the const.i.tution. But the duke's natural moderation will account for part of this, and the temper of the lords for much more. That a.s.sembly appears for the most part to have been faithfully attached to the house of Lancaster. The partisans of Richard were found in the commons and among the populace. Several months elapsed after the victory of St.

Albans before an attempt was thus made to set aside a sovereign, not labouring, so far as we know, under any more notorious infirmity than before. It then originated in the commons, and seems to have received but an unwilling consent from the upper house. Even in const.i.tuting the duke of York protector over the head of Henry, whom all men despaired of ever seeing in a state to face the dangers of such a season, the lords did not forget the rights of his son. By this latter instrument, as well as by that of the preceding year, the duke's office was to cease upon the prince of Wales arriving at the age of discretion.

[Sidenote: Duke of York's claim to the crown.]

But what had long been propagated in secret, soon became familiar to the public ear; that the duke of York laid claim to the throne. He was unquestionably heir general of the royal line, through his mother, Anne, daughter of Roger Mortimer earl of March, son of Philippa, daughter of Lionel duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. Roger Mortimer's eldest son, Edmund, had been declared heir presumptive by Richard II.; but his infancy during the revolution that placed Henry IV. on the throne had caused his pretensions to be pa.s.sed over in silence. The new king however was induced by a jealousy natural to his situation to detain the earl of March in custody. Henry V. restored his liberty; and, though he had certainly connived for a while at the conspiracy planned by his brother-in-law the earl of Cambridge and Lord Scrope of Masham to place the crown on his head, that magnanimous prince gave him a free pardon, and never testified any displeasure. The present duke of York was honoured by Henry VI. with the highest trusts in France and Ireland; such as Beaufort and Gloucester could never have dreamed of conferring on him if his t.i.tle to the crown had not been reckoned obsolete. It has been very pertinently remarked that the crime perpetrated by Margaret and her counsellors in the death of the duke of Gloucester was the destruction of the house of Lancaster.[445] From this time the duke of York, next heir in presumption while the king was childless, might innocently contemplate the prospect of royalty; and when such ideas had long been pa.s.sing through his mind, we may judge how reluctantly the birth of prince Edward, nine years after Henry's marriage, would be admitted to disturb them. The queen's administration unpopular, careless of national interests, and partial to his inveterate enemy the duke of Somerset;[446] the king incapable of exciting fear or respect; himself conscious of powerful alliances and universal favour; all these circ.u.mstances combined could hardly fail to nourish those opinions of hereditary right which he must have imbibed from his infancy.

The duke of York preserved through the critical season of rebellion such moderation and humanity that we may pardon him that bias in favour of his own pretensions to which he became himself a victim. Margaret perhaps, by her sanguinary violence in the Coventry parliament of 1460, where the duke and all his adherents were attainted, left him not the choice of remaining a subject with impunity. But with us, who are to weigh these ancient factions in the balance of wisdom and justice, there should be no hesitation in deciding that the house of Lancaster were lawful sovereigns of England. I am, indeed, astonished that not only such historians as Carte, who wrote undisguisedly upon a Jacobite system, but even men of juster principles, have been inadvertent enough to mention the right of the house of York. If the original consent of the nation, if three descents of the crown, if repeated acts of parliament, if oaths of allegiance from the whole kingdom, and more particularly from those who now advanced a contrary pretension, if undisturbed, unquestioned possession during sixty years, could not secure the reigning family against a mere defect in their genealogy, when were the people to expect tranquillity? Sceptres were committed, and governments were inst.i.tuted, for public protection and public happiness, not certainly for the benefit of rulers, or for the security of particular dynasties. No prejudice has less in its favour, and none has been more fatal to the peace of mankind, than that which regards a nation of subjects as a family's private inheritance. For, as this opinion induces reigning princes and their courtiers to look on the people as made only to obey them, so, when the tide of events has swept them from their thrones, it begets a fond hope of restoration, a sense of injury and of imprescriptible rights, which give the show of justice to fresh disturbances of public order, and rebellions against established authority. Even in cases of unjust conquest, which are far stronger than any domestic revolution, time heals the injury of wounded independence, the forced submission to a victorious enemy is changed into spontaneous allegiance to a sovereign, and the laws of G.o.d and nature enjoin the obedience that is challenged by reciprocal benefits.

But far more does every national government, however violent in its origin, become legitimate, when universally obeyed and justly exercised, the possession drawing after it the right; not certainly that success can alter the moral character of actions, or privilege usurpation before the tribunal of human opinion, or in the pages of history, but that the recognition of a government by the people is the binding pledge of their allegiance so long as its corresponding duties are fulfilled.[447] And thus the law of England has been held to annex the subject's fidelity to the reigning monarch, by whatever t.i.tle he may have ascended the throne, and whoever else may be its claimant.[448] But the statute of 11th of Henry VII. c. 1, has furnished an unequivocal commentary upon this principle, when, alluding to the condemnations and forfeitures by which those alternate successes of the white and red roses had almost exhausted the n.o.ble blood of England, it enacts that "no man for doing true and faithful service to the king for the time being be convict or attaint of high treason, nor of other offences, by act of parliament or otherwise."

[Sidenote: War of the Lancastrians and Yorkists.]

Though all cla.s.ses of men and all parts of England were divided into factions by this unhappy contest, yet the strength of the Yorkists lay in London and the neighbouring counties, and generally among the middling and lower people. And this is what might naturally be expected. For notions of hereditary right take easy hold of the populace, who feel an honest sympathy for those whom they consider as injured; while men of n.o.ble birth and high station have a keener sense of personal duty to their sovereign, and of the baseness of deserting their allegiance. Notwithstanding the wide-spreading influence of the Nevils, most of the n.o.bility were well affected to the reigning dynasty.

We have seen how reluctantly they acquiesced in the second protectorate of the duke of York after the battle of St. Albans. Thirty-two temporal peers took an oath of fealty to Henry and his issue in the Coventry parliament of 1460, which attainted the duke of York and the earls of Warwick and Salisbury.[449] And in the memorable circ.u.mstances of the duke's claim personally made in parliament, it seems manifest that the lords complied not only with hesitation but unwillingness, and in fact testified their respect and duty for Henry by confirming the crown to him during his life.[450] The rose of Lancaster blushed upon the banners of the Staffords, the Percies, the Veres, the Hollands, and the Courtneys. All these ill.u.s.trious families lay crushed for a time under the ruins of their party. But the course of fortune, which has too great a mastery over crowns and sceptres to be controlled by men's affection, invested Edward IV. with a possession which the general consent of the nation both sanctioned and secured. This was effected in no slight degree by the furious spirit of Margaret, who began a system of extermination by acts of attainder and execution of prisoners that created abhorrence, though it did not prevent imitation. And the barbarities of her northern army, whom she led towards London after the battle of Wakefield, lost the Lancastrian cause its former friends,[451]

and might justly convince reflecting men that it were better to risk the chances of a new dynasty than trust the kingdom to an exasperated faction.

[Sidenote: Edward IV.]

A period of obscurity and confusion ensues, during which we have as little insight into const.i.tutional as general history. There are no contemporary chroniclers of any value, and the rolls of parliament, by whose light we have hitherto steered, become mere registers of private bills, or of pet.i.tions relating to commerce. The reign of Edward IV. is the first during which no statute was pa.s.sed for the redress of grievances or maintenance of the subject's liberty. Nor is there, if I am correct, a single pet.i.tion of this nature upon the roll. Whether it were that the commons had lost too much of their ancient courage to present any remonstrances, or that a wilful omission has vitiated the record, is hard to determine; but we certainly must not imagine that a government cemented with blood poured on the scaffold, as well as in the field, under a pa.s.sionate and unprincipled sovereign, would afford no scope for the just animadversion of parliament.[452] The reign of Edward IV. was a reign of terror. One half of the n.o.ble families had been thinned by proscription; and though generally restored in blood by the reversal of their attainders--a measure certainly deserving of much approbation--were still under the eyes of vigilant and inveterate enemies. The opposite faction would be cautious how they resisted a king of their own creation, while the hopes of their adversaries were only dormant. And indeed, without relying on this supposition, it is commonly seen that, when temporary circ.u.mstances have given a king the means of acting in disregard of his subjects' privileges, it is a very difficult undertaking for them to recover a liberty which has no security so effectual as habitual possession.

Besides the severe proceedings against the Lancastrian party, which might be extenuated by the common pretences, retaliation of similar proscriptions, security for the actual government, or just punishment of rebellion against a legitimate heir, there are several reputed instances of violence and barbarity in the reign of Edward IV. which have not such plausible excuses. Every one knows the common stories of the citizen who was attainted of treason for an idle speech that he would make his son heir to the crown, the house where he dwelt; and of Thomas Burdett, who wished the horns of his stag in the belly of him who had advised the king to shoot it. Of the former I can a.s.sert nothing, though I do not believe it to be accurately reported. But certainly the accusation against Burdett, however iniquitous, was not confined to these frivolous words; which indeed do not appear in his indictment,[453] or in a pa.s.sage relative to his conviction in the roll of parliament. Burdett was a servant and friend of the duke of Clarence, and sacrificed as a preliminary victim. It was an article of charge against Clarence that he had attempted to persuade the people that "Thomas Burdett his servant, which was lawfully and truly attainted of treason, was wrongfully put to death."[454] There could indeed be no more oppressive usage inflicted upon meaner persons than this attainder of the duke of Clarence--an act for which a brother could not be pardoned had he been guilty, and which deepens the shadow of a tyrannical age, if, as it seems, his offence toward Edward was but levity and rashness.

But whatever acts of injustice we may attribute, from authority or conjecture, to Edward's government, it was very far from being unpopular. His love of pleasure, his affability, his courage and beauty, gave him a credit with his subjects which he had no real virtue to challenge. This restored him to the throne, even against the prodigious influence of Warwick, and compelled Henry VII. to treat his memory with respect, and acknowledge him as a lawful king.[455] The latter years of his reign were pa.s.sed in repose at home after scenes of unparalleled convulsions, and in peace abroad after more than a century of expensive warfare. His demands of subsidy were therefore moderate, and easily defrayed by a nation which was making rapid advances towards opulence.

According to Sir John Fortescue, nearly one fifth of the whole kingdom had come to the king's hand by forfeiture at some time or other since the commencement of his reign.[456] Many indeed of these lands had been restored, and others lavished away in grants, but the surplus revenue must still have been considerable.

Edward IV. was the first who practised a new method of taking his subjects' money without consent of parliament, under the plausible name of benevolences. These came in place of the still more plausible loans of former monarchs, and were princ.i.p.ally levied on the wealthy traders.

Though no complaint appears in the parliamentary records of his reign, which, as has been observed, complain of nothing, the illegality was undoubtedly felt and resented. In the remarkable address to Richard by that tumultuary meeting which invited him to a.s.sume the crown, we find, among general a.s.sertions of the state's decay through misgovernment, the following strong pa.s.sage:--"For certainly we be determined rather to aventure and committe us to the perill of owre lyfs and jopardie of deth, than to lyve in such thraldome and bondage as we have lyved long tyme heretofore, oppressed and injured by extortions and newe impositions ayenst the lawes of G.o.d and man, and the libertie, old policie, and lawes of this realme, whereyn every Englishman is inherited."[457] Accordingly, in Richard III.'s only parliament an act was pa.s.sed which, after reciting in the strongest terms the grievances lately endured, abrogates and annuls for ever all exactions under the name of benevolence.[458] The liberties of this country were at least not directly impaired by the usurpation of Richard. But from an act so deeply tainted with moral guilt, as well as so violent in all its circ.u.mstances, no substantial benefit was likely to spring. Whatever difficulty there may be in deciding upon the fate of Richard's nephews after they were immured in the Tower, the more public parts of the transaction bear unequivocal testimony to his ambitious usurpation.[459]

It would therefore be foreign to the purpose of this chapter to dwell upon his a.s.sumption of the regency, or upon the sort of election, however curious and remarkable, which gave a pretended authority to his usurpation of the throne. Neither of these has ever been alleged by any party in the way of const.i.tutional precedent.

[Sidenote: Conclusion.]