第48章 Letter XII(2)

The ancient Britons are to us the aborigines of our island.We discover little of them through the gloom of antiquity,and we see nothing beyond them.This however we know,they were freemen.Caesar,who visited them in an hostile manner,but did not conquer them,perhaps was beaten by them;Caesar,I say,bestows very liberally the title of kings upon their chieftains,and the compilers of fabulous traditions deduce a series of their monarchs from Samothes,a contemporary of Nimrod.But Caesar affected to swell the account of his expedition with pompous names;and these writers,like those whom Strabo mentions,endeavoured to recommend themselves by publishing romances to an ignorant generation,instead of histories.These supposed monarchs were the heads of little clans,reguli,vel melioris notae nobiles;and if our island knew any authority of the kingly sort in those days,it was that of occasional and temporary monarchs,elected in great exigencies,communi consilio,suffragiis multitudinis,like Cassivellaunus in Britain,or Vercingetorix in Gaul;for,in some cases,examples taken from either of these people will conclude for both.The kings who ruled in Britain after the Romans abandoned the island,in the beginning of the fifth century,held their authority from the people,and governed under the control of national assemblies,as we have great reason to believe,and none to doubt.In short,as far as we can look back,a lawless power,a government by will,never prevailed in Britain.

The Saxons had kings,as well as the Britons.The manner in which they established themselves,and the long wars they waged for and against the Britons,led to and maintained monarchical rule amongst them.But these kings were in their first institution,no doubt,such as Tacitus describes the German kings and princes to have been:chiefs,who persuaded,rather than commanded;and who were heard in the public assemblies of the nation,according as their age,their nobility,their military fame,or their eloquence gave them authority.How many doughty monarchs,in later and more polite ages,would have slept in cottages,and have worked in stalls,instead of inhabiting palaces,and being cushioned up in thrones,if this rule of government had continued in force?--But the Saxon kings grew into power in time;and among them,as among other nations,birth,instead of merit,became,for the sake of order and tranquillity,a title to the throne.However,though these princes might command,and were no longer under the necessity of governing by persuasion,they were still under that of governing to the satisfaction of the people.

By what other expedient could they govern men,who were wise enough to preserve and exercise the right of electing their civil magistrates and military officers,and the system of whose government was upheld and carried on by a gradation of popular assemblies,from the inferior courts to the high court of Parliament;for such,or very near such,was the Wittena Gemote,in nature and effect,whenever the word parliament came into use?

The first prince of the Norman race was an absolute conqueror,in the opinion of some men;and I can readily agree that he assumed,in some cases,the power of a tyrant.But supposing all this to be true in the utmost extent,that the friends of absolute monarchy can desire it should be thought so,this,and this alone will result from it:unlimited or absolute monarchy could never be established in Britain;no,not even by conquest.The rights of the people were soon re-asserted;the laws of the Confessor were restored;and the third prince of this race,Henry the First,coven anted in a solemn speech to his people,for their assistance against his brother Robert and the Normans,by promising that sacred charter,which was in other reigns so often and so solemnly confirmed,by engaging to maintain his subjects in their ancient liberties,to follow their advice,and to rule them in peace with prudence and mildness.