affembly. The barons, who were obliged to attend, were pleased on any pretext to excuse themselves from attendance, which they regarded as a burthen, not compenfated by a return of profit or honour, proportioned to the trouble and expence. The premier, in those days, had no places to give, no penfions to bestow: there was no civil lift for the minifter to play at cups and balls with, no elections to be made, no board of excife, no board of trade and plantation there was no national debt, and a standing army was needlefs and unknown to the conftitution. The par liament was not then the road to honour and preferment; the talents of popular intrigue and eloquence were uncultivated and unknown: therefore, as they reaped no immediate profit from their attendance at court, but were exposed to great incon veniencies and charge by an abfence from home, every one was pleased, that the call for that duty fhould feldom return upon him, and the affembly was never likely, on any occafion, to be very numerous.

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The kings again, before they confidered the expence they thereby laid upon their fubjects, and in confideration thereof difcontinued their frequent meetings, were anxious that the affembly of the barons should be full and frequent, as it was the chief badge of their fubordination to the crown, and drew them from the independence which they affected in their own caftles and manors. Barons fometimes denied their tenures, to be free of this burthen; and the anxiety with which our ancestors endeavoured to get free from the obligation of fitting in parliament, is surpas fed by that only with which their posterity folicit to be admitted.

THE vaffals of the crown were originally few in number; and the bounty of the duke of Normandy, in the diftribution of the lands to his principal officers, being fo immense, rather increased than diminished the power of the great barons.

The whole kingdom contained about feven hundred chief tenants, and fixty thousand two hundred and fifteen knights VOL. II.

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fees;

fees; and as none of the native English were admitted into the firft rank, the few who retained their landed property were glad to be received into the fecond, and to be under the protection of fome powerful Norman. But as property is not fixed and permanent, these exorbitant estates remained not long intire and unimpaired; many of thefe poffeffions came gradually and by various methods of alienation, to be split, fhared, and parcelled out into many dif ferent hands; either by provifions to younger children; by divifions among coheirs; by fale; by efcheating to the king, who gratified a great number of other courtiers by dealing them out among them in fmaller portions. And when the fashionable madnefs of croisades had involved the great barons in immenfe debts, in order to difcharge the expences of these expeditions, they were allowed in Henry the fecond's reign to alienate their poffeffions: the confequence of which was, that the leffer military tenants in capite exceedingly mul

tiplied.

tiplied. Hence arose the diftinction between the greater and the leffer barons. The former were those that retained their original fiefs undivided; the latter were the new and less potent vaffals of the crown, Such moderate eftates, as the leffer barons poffeffed, required oeconomy, confined the proprietors at home, and were better calculated for duration. And the order of knights and fmall barons began to form a very refpectable rank and order in the state; and an important innovation followed upon it.

As all of them were immediate vaffals of the crown by military tenure; they were, by the principles of the feudal law, equally entitled with the greater barons to a feat in the national and general councils. For, doubtlefs, every individual lord of a manor in England, as a baron of the realm, was indifputably fummonable de proprio jure, This right, which was at that time confidered as a burthen, they to this day enjoy, and may put in practice, when they please.

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pleafe. And whenever a major part of thefe barons fhall fet their hands and hearts to work, in order to affect the refumption of this their ancient right which they have only waved, but never formally granted away; doubtless no king of England will ever be fo ill advised, as to risk an attempt to withhold it from them one moment against their affent and will. Indeed there is no probability fuch a refumption fhould take place, as long as the great men, whom for these three centuries and a half, we have by long habit, been accuftomed to call the houfe of lords, fhall act as uncorrupt fenators, impartial judges, and unbiaffed mediators between the king and people; for it is a known maxim fruftra fit per pleura, quod fiat per pautiora. But if unmindful of their duty, they, by places, penfions, ribbons, or any other undue influence, degenerate into a ftipendiary band of dependants on a miniftry, whose mandates, right or wrong, they shall be ready to obey at the word of command; then will the refumption become highly, if not indifputably neceffary.

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