military tenures. due in the Anglo-Saxon age: and when we find Church the military tenures reduced into a regular system, the amount of service due from the Church lands was but small, and even so late as the reign of Edward I., not very accurately defined. Upon every military muster there was a species of squabble between the Lord High Constable and the bishops as to the amount of men-atarms that ought to appear for them; and, indeed, in spite of all the endeavours of the law officers of the crown, the services were, even then, somewhat undefined from the baronage in general. And it is the greatest drawback to all our symmetrical historical theories, that we find the summonses to take the order of knighthood extended to all persons holding land above a certain amount, no matter of whom-a qualification grounded upon amount of property, and not of tenure. judge. 10. William's first intention was to adminis- William as ter justice even as his predecessors. The Basileus, like the Eastern Sovereign, was accessible to the people for the purpose of affording that high remedial justice which he could alone impart. He was to hear the complaints of the people: he was to exercise his transcendent powers of justice, lest right should fail. For this purpose, William endeavoured to qualify himself, by learning the language of the people, so that he might listen to them with his own ears, and make such order or decree as the case required, nor the intervention of any mmiste. 22 i fenilsence of the language of is e good find neither grammar e Sther a mi in: the instructor mit be vovat s the scholar nam; and Willam Lui ne le sue in endeavouring to learn to Fjeld English, ss Charlemagne had in trying to lear to write. Both the royal scholars gave up their lessons in despair. How great and important were the consequences which ensued from this inability! It seems as if, for the purpose of confounding human wisdom, we were sometimes permitted to discern how the most important consequences result, not from plan or forethought, but from tendencies, actions, or sentiments apparently the least adequate to the results developed in after time. If we attempt to examine what at this moment constitutes the peculiar attribute of our present form of government, and upon which its practical merits depend, it will be found, not in the visionary balance of power between the crown, the aristocracy, and the people, but in the relation between the crown and the functionaries by whom the power of the crown is exercised, leaving to the Sovereign every lawful influence, but preventing the Sovereign from falling into the danger of abusing that power; and, considered in this point of view, we should say that the whole history of the Constitution depends upon its development through the three stages which it has thus assumed. The Sovereign exercising his powers as a judge in his own proper person; the delegation of these powers to functionaries subservient to his prerogative, but proceeding according to definite and established law; lastly, the conversion of these functionaries into ministers, apparently appointed by the crown, but with the assent, virtually given, of the legislature, to whom they become responsible for the exercise of the authority placed in their hands. Court of 2 11. Now, the reign of the Conqueror exhibits the germ of the second of these great changes; the completion of the last was reserved for our own times. William's ignorance of the English Origin of the language, which would incapacitate him either Chancery. for hearing the complaints of his subjects, or, in many cases, giving the needful directions, would throw him naturally upon the expediency of delegating these functions to others; and he found an establishment for that purpose ready made to his hand. This was the Chancery, of which the foundation having been laid at a very early period, [it] acquired a new development in the Confessor's reign. As a portion of the imperial establishment, the Referendarius drew or prepared all royal rescripts and charters, and was the keeper of the royal signet. In the Frankish court. 616 THE COURT OF CHANCERY: monarchy, the succession of these officers can be deduced from Clovis, the patrician king; and we find an officer bearing this title in the charters of Ethelbert. In the reign of the Confessor, the assumption of the great seal, as the means of declaring the King's intention, has been alEarly stage ready noticed; and, under the Conqueror, the need of employing secretaries for the many purposes with which the King had hitherto dealt, viva voce, greatly encreased both the powers and the influence of the King's chapel, as this department was called. Those who are denominated the King's chaplains were the writing clerks constituting the Board, of which the Chancellor was the head. This officer may be termed the Secretary of State for all departments, and thus he continued during many generations, until his functions were gradually subdivided amongst the other officers of state, by whom they are now exercised. That such an office could alone be entrusted to an ecclesiastic, was a matter of course; and Arfastus, afterwards Bishop of Thetford, held it at a very early period of the Conqueror's reign. It issues writs. From this department emanated the gewrits, or letters, by which the Sovereign intimated his intentions; and those relating to the administration of remedial justice, constituted a large, and to the people in general, the most important portion. Varied as they were at first in form, according to the circumstances of each case, ITS ACTION ON THE LAW. 617 they are all grounded upon one principle-that right was to be done, lest further complaint of an unredressed grievance, should again reach the throne. The principle upon which they issued was a combination, so to speak, of an exertion of the King's grace and favour, united to his obligation of dispensing justice. What the King granted, he might withhold, either because the complaint was too unfounded or trivial to require the interposition of the supreme authority; or because the obscurity of the complainant or the influence of the defendant, or party accused, might stay the course of law. a subjects' court. Its precedents. How often either of these causes might It becomes operate, cannot be here discussed; but one point was gained. There was a regular office, to use the common phrase, to which the suitor might apply, and a regular body of officials, by whom the first process for obtaining justice could be issued. These officials, for their own convenience, would begin to collect something like a body of precedents, and hereby the first foundation was laid for a regular system of jurisprudence. The greater portion of our antient writs consist of the principles of the AngloSaxon law, embodied in an Anglo-Norman form; and, finding, as we do, the same forms first employed in England, and subsequently in Normandy, at least so far as can be ascertained from any evidence hitherto collected by archæological industry, are we not warranted in the |