The advantage

of legally influ

encing the mo

tions of govern

ment.

Eleven confir

mations of

magna charta

in Edward's

up only to provide for the wants of the king, and approve of the refolutions taken by him and the affembly of the lords. But it was nevertheless a great point gained to have obtained the right of uttering their complaints, affembled in a body, and in a legal way to have acquired, inftead of the dangerous refource of infurrections, a lawful and regular mean of influencing the motions of the government, and thenceforth to have become a part of it. Whatever disadvantage might attend the station at first allotted to the representatives of the people, it was foon to be compenfated by the preponderance the people neceffarily acquire, when they are enabled to act and move with method, and especially with concert.

"And indeed this privilege of naming reprefentatives infignificant as it might then

reign, owing to appear, presently manifested itself by the the influence of moft confiderable effects. In spite of his re

the commons.

luctance, and after many evasions unworthy of fo great a king, Edward was obliged to confirm the great charter; he even confirmed it eleven times in the course of his reign. It was moreover enacted, that whatever should be done contrary to it fhould be null and void; that it should be read twice a year in all cathedrals; and that the penalty of excommunication

1

munication fhould be denounced against any one, who fhould prefume to violate it.

"At length he converted into an established law a privilege, of which the English had hitherto had only a precarious enjoyment; and in the ftatute de tallagio non concedendo he decreed, that no tax fhould be laid, nor impost levied, without the joint confent of the lords and commons; a moft important statute this, which, in conjunction with Magna Charta,, forms the bafis of the English conftitution. If from the latter the English are to date the origin of their liberty, from the former they are to date the establishment of it; and as the great charter was the bulwark, that protected the freedom of individuals, fo was the ftatute in question the engine, which protected the charter itself, and by the help of which the people were thenceforth to make legal conquefts over the authority of the crown."

* "The representatives of the nation, and of the whole nation, were now admitted into parliament; the great point therefore was gained, that was one day to procure them the great influence, which they at present poffefs; and the subsequent reigns afford continual inftances of its fucceffive growth.

* De Lolme, c. iii. p. 41, & feq.
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« Under

Under Edward

II. the commons annex

petitions to the

"Under Edward the Second, the commons began to annex petitions to the bills, by

bills, by which which they granted fubfidies; this was the dawn of their legislative authority. Under

they granted

fubfidies.

Under Edward

a right of confenting to every law,

and of impeach

ftate.

III. they claim Edward the Third, they declared they would not in future acknowledge any law, to which they had not exprefsly affented. Soon after ing minifters of this, they exerted a privilege, in which confifts at this time one of the great balances of the conftitution; they impeached, and procured to be condemned fome of the first minifters of state. Under Henry the Fourth, they refused to grant fubfidies before an anfwer had been given to their petitions. In a word, every event of any confequence was attended, with an increase of the power of the commons; increases indeed but flow and gradual, but which were peaceably and legally effected, and were the more fit to engage the

Under Hen. IV. they refused to grant fubfidies till anfwers were given to their petitions.

The progrefs of their influence legal and fure.

attention of the people, and coalefce with the ancient principles of the conftitution. Under From Hen. V. Henry the Fifth, the nation was entirely taken up with its wars against France; and

the wars of the

nation prevented any fur

ther progrefs of in the reign of Henry the Sixth began the

the influence of the commons.

fatal contefts between the houses of York
and Lancaster.
now to be heard; during the filence of the
laws already in being, no thought was had of
enacting new ones; and for thirty years toge-

The noife of arms alone was

ther,

ther, England presents a wide scene of flaughter and defolation.

"At length, under Henry the Seventh, who, by his intermarriage with the house of York, united the pretenfions of the two families, a general peace was re-established, and the prospect of happier days feemed to open on the nation. But the long and violent agitation, under which it had laboured, was to be followed by a long and painful recovery. Henry mounting the throne with fword in hand, and in great measure as a conqueror, had promises to fulfil, as well as injuries to avenge. In the mean time the people wearied out by the calamities they had undergone, and longing only for repofe abhorred even the idea of refiftance; fo that the remains of an almost exterminated nobility beheld themselves left defenceless, and abandoned to the mercy of the sovereign.

"The commons on the other hand accuftomed to act only a fecond part in public affairs, and finding themselves bereft of thofe, who had hitherto been their leaders, were more than ever afraid to form of themselves an oppofition. Placed immediately as well as the lords under the eye of the king, they beheld themselves expofed to the fame dangers; like them therefore they purchased their perfonal

Dd 4

Commons and lords fubmiffive to the first

princes of the houfe of Tudor.

The nation kept in view the principles of Liberty.

perfonal fecurity at the expence of public liberty; and in reading the history of the two firft kings of the houfe of Tudor, we imagine ourselves reading the relation given by Tacitus, of Tiberius and the Roman fenate.

"The time therefore feemed to be arrived, at which England muft fubmit in its turn to the fate of the other nations of Europe; all those barriers, which it had raised for the defence of its liberty, feemed to have only been able to poftpone the inevitable effects of power.

"But the remembrance of their ancient laws, of that great charter fo often and fo folemnly confirmed, was too deeply impressed on the minds of the English to be effaced by tranfitory evils. Like a deep and extenfive ocean, which preferves an equability of temperaturę amidst all the viciffitudes of feafons, England ftill retained those principles of liberty, which were fo univerfally diffused through all orders of the people, and they required only a proper opportunity to manifeft themselves.

England befides ftill continued to poffefs the immense advantage of being one undivided state.

"Had it been like France divided into feveral diftinct dominions, it would also have

had