CHAPTER III. SCOPE AND OBJECT OF THE PRESENT HISTORY. Circumstances under which this ginated. § 1. THE work now presented to the public results from labours spread over many years work ori- of my life, labours commenced neither arbitrarily nor unwillingly, but whereto I was conducted as a duty. I mention this circumstance as an apology for undertaking a task already treated so often and repeatedly by writers who have acquired traditional and popular respect, that any further investigation of an apparently exhausted theme might seem superfluous. Imperfectly as my designs have been carried out, whether in skill, scheme or execution, such utility as my historical productions may possess will consist chiefly in their being considered as forming a course of instruction, which, begun more than a quarter of a century ago, I can now scarcely expect to complete; comprehending, according to my original conception, the whole mediæval history of the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Cymric and English races and nations, to the accession of the Tudor dynasty. Value and importance These designs originated out of an employof the En- ment compelling me to concentrate my attention cords. upon English history. Our English archives are glish Re unparalleled-none are equally ample, varied, and continuous; none have descended from remote times in equal preservation and regularity, not even the archives of the Vatican. In France, the most ancient consecutive records are the Olim registers, as they are called, commencing somewhat scantily under Saint Louis, whereas ours date from the Norman Conquest. The French never possessed any of greater antiquity, for the notion that the French records were captured or destroyed by the English is a mere fable. The proceedings of the Etats-généraux cannot, of course, begin sooner than the first Convocations of this imperfectly federal assembly under the House of Valois: the earliest and rather meagre registers of Royal Ordinances were not compiled till the reign of Jean-le-Bon; and although the conventions of the Provinces were held from an anterior date, yet none of their records preceding the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries exist with any degree of completeness. tion of the archives, owing to tion of this from The very circumstances which have protected Preservaand produced the title-deeds and evidences of English the English constitution, are features of English partly history. The material conservation of our En- the exemp glish Records results in the first instance from country the signal mercy shown to our country, so sin- hostility. gularly exempted, if we compare ourselves with other nations, from hostile devastation, whether occasioned by foreign foes or domestic dissensions. VOL. I. Never since the Conquest has London G heard the trumpet of a besieging army: never has an invader's standard floated upon that White Tower wherein our Records are contained. Thus spared from the calamities which might have consumed or destroyed our public muniments, their preservation equally exemplifies other prerogative characteristics of our history. Such is the early incorporation of the States and territories anciently composing the Anglo-Saxon realm into one solid government, the Sovereign possessing the same substantive rights throughout his dominions, notwithstanding some slight anomalies rather apparent than real,-and those dominions obeying the supremacy of one common legislature; a process effected far more completely in England than in France, the kingdom whose circumstances, taken on the whole, were most analogous to our own. Furthermore and in addition to this Imperial unity, are we distinguished amongst nations by the recognition of the principle that the national will should be ruled by the national law. Our high Court of Parliament was, from the beginning a remedial Court, a permanent tribunal, and not an accidental political assembly. Our Constitution is not theoretically founded either upon Royal prerogative or upon popular upon pre- liberty, but upon justice, a reasonable submission practice. to the authority of the past. This principle of English Constitution grounded cedent and justice necessitated a constant recurrence to precedent: stare super vias antiquas, the dead governing the living. What have our ancestors done?-our predecessors in the like case, or under the like emergency? In all our revolutionary conflicts, the main arguments employed by all contending parties were painfully and carefully adduced from the muniments of the Realm, -King or Clergy, Peers or Commons, Ministers or Parliaments appealing to the Roll, the Membrane, the Letter of the Law, upon which all their reasonings were to be grounded. During the periods exhibiting the greatest turbulence, we therefore find an uniform system of interpellation, preferred in good faith to Record and to Charter. Widely as the interpreters of the texts may have differed, the text was reverenced by all. Hence, even in our own times, our oldest Records have never become obsolete they were deposited in the Treasure-house of the State, not as archæological curiosities, but for their practical and living value. This, their material or bodily union and preservation, the effect of abstract constitutional principles, practically promoted and supported the same principles. Had a Castilian advocate in the reign of Philip the Fourth, wished, like a Selden, to quote the proceedings of the ancient Cortes, he could never have completed his constitutional pleadings. The protocols of the Spanish legis Summary, indicating the succession tutional latures were dispersed throughout the Monasteries of the Kingdom, nor could they have been united by any exertion of research or labour. We take up our title from Domesday-book. There is not such another Cadastre existing, of Consti- whether considered in relation to the era in which the Great Survey was compiled, or the historical, local or personal information which the volume contains. Records. The reign of Rufus is a blank as to Records, though the deficiency is supplied by store of Charters. One great Roll of the Exchequer belonging to Henry Beauclerc, the first of our constitutional Kings, is extant.-A chasm ensues, probably occasioned by the destructive convulsions of King Stephen's reign; but upon the accession of Henry Plantagenet the series of these Records recommences, and continues uninterrupted till they ceased in consequence of the recent legislative enactments, which suppressed the Exchequer of Receipt, the most ancient financial establishment in Europe. These great Rolls furnish most curiously minute specifications of the Crown's territorial possessions, together with a vast variety of personal details. Every Landholder in England, and every Englishman, was in danger of coming to the paytable. Therein the sources and particulars of the revenue are fully set forth; and they incidentally elucidate almost every branch of our laws and |