Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A64308
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An introduction to the history of England by Sir William Temple, Baronet.
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Temple, William, Sir, 1628-1699.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing T638; ESTC R14678
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83,602
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334
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foreign Birth yet so far gained the general Affections and Satisfaction of the Commoners of the Realm who ask nothing but Security in their Estates and Properties that no Commotions afterwards raised by the Nobles and Clergy against his Government though in Favour of a better Right and Title were ever supported by the Commons who compose the Mass and Bulk of a Nation and whose general good or ill Humour Satisfaction or Discontent will ever have the most forcible Influence for the Preservation or Ruin of any State Besides the good and profitable Institutions and Orders of this King already mentioned so generally approved and so grateful to the Commonalty of the Realm there were others of a different Nature and which had a contrary Effect by distasting and disobliging many of the chief Nobility and most or all of the Clergy though some were so cautious as not to lose their Dignities or Revenues by expressing their Resentments The Offences taken by these last were first the abrogating or surceasing the Judiciary Power exercised by the Bishops during the Saxon Times in each County where Justice was administred and the Bishop with the Alderman or Earl of each Shire sate as Judges in those Courts which encreased not only their Authority but their Revenues too by a Share they had with the King in all Fines rais'd from the Issue of Causes there determined But all this was abolished by the King's Institution of Justiciaries to administer Justice upon all Pleas of the Crown and others among Subjects at four Terms of the Year This gave particular Offence to the Bishops but another to the whole Clergy for whereas before they held all their Land by Franc Almonage and subject to no Duties or Impositions but such as they laid upon themselves in their Ecclesiastical Assemblies This Prince finding above a third Part of the Lands of the Kingdom in Possession of the Clergy and the Forces of the Crown which consisted in Knights Service lessened in Proportion by their Immunity He reduced all their Lands to the common Tenure of Knights Fees and Baronage and thereby subjected them to the Attendance upon the King in his Wars and to other Services anciently due and sometimes raised upon all Lands that held in fee from the Crown This Innovation touched not only the Bishops but all the Abbots throughout the Kingdom many of whom were endowed with so great Lands and Revenues that in Right thereof they were upon the regular Constitutions of Parliaments allowed Session with the Bishops as Barons in the House of Lords The whole Clergy exclaimed against this new Institution not only as an Indignity and Injustice but as an Impiety too and Violation of the sacred Rights of the holy Church but their Complaints were without Redress though not without ill Consequence The Discontents among many of the great Nobles arose chiefly from two Occasion The first was the Rigor of the Forrest Laws and of their Execution And the other was the King 's too apparent Partiality to his Normans To know the Ground or Pretence of these Forrest Laws it will be necessary to run up to their Original In the first Seisures and Distributions made of the British Lands by the conquering Saxons besides those reserved to the Kings or divided among the People and held by the Tenures either of Knights Service or of Book-land as it was termed among the Saxons and thereby distinguish'd from that of Villenage There were many great Tracts of barren wild or woody Lands left undisposed and in a manner waste so great Numbers of British Inhabitants having been extinguish'd by the Wars or retired into Wales Cornwal Britanny and Scotland and the new Saxons not content to share among them any Lands but such as were fruitful and fit to be cultivated These were enclosed or improved as well as inhabited by the new Proprietors and the others left wast as well as undisposed to any certain Owners The whole Country was as has been observed very full of all Sorts of wild Game in the Time of the Britains who lived at large without any Inclosures little Property and subsisted much upon Hunting Fishing and Fowling which they had all in common Upon the enclosing or cultivating of the fruitful Lands by the Saxons the wild Beasts naturally afraid of Neighbours whom they found to be all Enemies fled into the wild woody and desolate Tracts of Land where they found Shelter and fed though hardly yet out of common Sight and Noise And hereby all those Parts became replenish'd with all Sorts of Game especially with Red and Fallow-Deer and made all those several Extents of Ground which were afterwards called Forrests The Saxon Kings esteemed these to belong to the Crown by their Right to all Possessions that have no certain Owner and by their never having been disposed upon the first Divisions of Land in the Saxon Kingdoms nor afterwards by any Grants of the Crown This Right was not disputed nor any Use of it made further than for the King's Pleasure which yet was not by them restrained from the Nobles or Knights that were Borderers upon the Forrests who were so moderate in those more simple Ages as to commit no Excesses or destroy the Game which it was their Interest to preserve both for their Sport and the Quarry and for some use made of it for common Pasturage among all the bordering Neighbours William the Conqueror not only seised upon all these Forrests as Part of his own Demesns but made a very large one in Hampshire besides those he found by laying wast and leaving uninhabited great Extents of Land which he pretended to be fallen to the Crown by ancient Succession or by new Forfeitures and this he called the new Forrest which Name after so long a Course of Ages it still retains In all these Forrests he pretended an absolute Right and Dominion and in Pursuance thereof instituted new and arbitrary Laws of his own unused and unknown before in this Kingdom and very different from the Moderation of the Saxon Government He confined all hunting or fowling in these Forrests to himself or such as should have Right to it by his Concessions or Permissions He imposed Fines upon all Trespasses committed in them according to his own Pleasure and which seemed much to exceed the Fault or Value of the thing These he caused to be levied with great Rigor and Exaction and thereby debarred not only his Commoners but his Nobles too from a Liberty they had before always enjoy'd Though he took care not to provoke the Commoners by leaving Pasturage free for such of the Neighbours who lived most upon their Stock and thereby took no greeat Offence at the Restraint from their Sport which they had not Time from their Labour much to follow yet the Nobles and Knights who valued their Sports more than common Gains and made use of their Riches but for Encrease of their Pleasures resented this Restraint as a sensible Injury as an Invasion
Justice being the very Foundation of Government as Treasure is said to be the Sinew of War For the first As he had sworn at his Coronation to govern by the Laws of the Realm so he continued the ancient Customs and Liberties of the People that were called the common Law of the Kingdom which he caused to be in Substance observed both in what concerned the Crown and the Subject though he introduced several new Forms in the Administration or Execution of them Besides the ancient Laws or Customs that concerned the Descent of private Inheritances or the Penalties upon several Crimes There were two fundamental Laws of the Saxon or English Kingdom The Trial by Juries of twelve Men wherein consisted the chief Safety of Mens Properties and Lives And the Burrough Law which was the greatest Security that had been invented by the Wisdom of our Saxon Ancestors for the Peace and Order of the Realm The first I know is by some Authors mentioned as having been introduced by this Norman King out of the Laws of that Country But I think it evident to have been an Institution very ancient among the Saxons and to have been derived and observed during the whole Succession of the English Kings and even in the Danish Reigns without any Interruption Nor does there want some Traces or Appearance of it from the very Institutions of Odin the first great Leader of the Asiatick Goths or Getae into Europe and the Founder of that mighty Kingdom round the Baltick Sea from whence all the Gothick Governments in these Northwest Parts of the World were derived by the spreading Conquests of those Northern Races 'T is recorded that upon the beginning of his Expedition he ordained a Council of twelve Men who should judge and decide all Matters that came in Question and there being then no other Laws establisht among those vast Numbers of rough People going to seek out new Conquests and thereby Seats to inhabit It is probable these twelve Men judged all Cases upon Evidence or matter of fact and then gave their Sentence and appointed Penalties according to what they esteemed most agreeable to Justice and Equity so as the twelve Men were at first both Jurors and Judges Their Judgments in Causes both real and criminal being generally approved as just and equitable grew into President to succeeding Judges and being received by general Submission introduced the Custom of certain Sentences being pronounced in certain Causes and certain Punishments being usually inflicted upon certain Crimes In Process of Time and Multiplicity of Business the matter of Fact continued to be tried by twelve Men but the Adjudgment of the Punishment and the Sentence thereupon came to be given by one or two or more Persons chosen out of such as were best versed in the Knowledge of what had been usual in former Judgments upon like Cases and as the first Part was left to the Equals or Neighbours of the Persons accused as most likely to do Justice to one of their own Rank or Acquaintance so the other was committed to Persons of Learning or Knowledge in the ancient Customs Records or Traditions of what had long passed in the Course of Justice among that Nation Thus we find it evident that in the Saxon Reigns in England Causes were adjudged by the Aldermen and Bishop of the several Shires with the Assistance of twelve Men of the same County who are 〈◊〉 said to have been Judges or Assistants to the two first by such as affirm or pretend this manner of Trial to have been drawn by the Conqueror himself out of Normandy who is thereby said to have introduced in this as well as some other Forms the Norman Laws into the common Law of England 'T is true that the same Custom or Trial was used in Normandy before the Conquest and it is most probable that neither the English received it from the Normans nor these from the English but that both Nation deriving their Original from those ancient Goths agreed in several Customs or Institutions deduced from their common Ancestors which made this Trial by Juries continue uninterrupted in England not only by the Normans but by the Danes also who were but another Swarm of that great Northern Hive 'T is true the Terms of Jury and Verdict were introduced by the Normans with many others in the Stile and Practice of our Laws but the Trials by twelve Men with that essential Circumstance of their unanimous Agreement was not only used among the Saxons and Normans but is known to have been as ancient in Sweden as any Records or Traditions of that Kingdom which was the first Seat of the Gothick Dominions in the Northwest Parts of Europe and it still remains in some Provinces of that Country However King William caused this to be observed as the common Law of the Kingdom and thereby gave great and universal Satisfaction to the Body of the People both English and Normans The Burrough Law had been likewise anciently establish'd among the Saxons whereby every Shire was divided into so many Hundreds or Burroughs consisting at first of one hundred Families therein usually inhabiting every Hundred into so many Tithings consisting of ten Families If any Person committed or were accused of any Crime the Tithing to which he belonged was bound to produce him to Justice before the Court of the Hundred or County If he fled they were to swear they were not Complices of the Fact and that they would procure the Criminal whenever they could find him if this failed in a certain time they would discover all the Goods he was possess'd of within their Tithing to satisfie the Damage done to a Subject or a Fine to the King upon such an Offence If neither Person nor Estate appeared then the Tithing was answerable to a certain Proportion and if that were not sufficient then it was laid upon the Hundred By this means it became every Man's Interest as well as Duty to prevent all Crimes and Misdemeanors among their Neighbours and to discover the Criminals since they were otherwise to share in the Penalty and as the rest of the Tithing was bound for the Behavior of every Freeman among them so every Lord or Master was bound to answer in the same manner for their Servants I know not whether any Constitution of Government either ancient or modern ever invented and instituted any Law or Order of greater Wisdom or of greater Force to preserve the Peace and Safety of any State and of equal Utility to the Prince and People making Virtue and Innocence of Life so necessary by the easie Apprehension or Discovery and certain Punishment of Offenders This Law the King caused likewise to be severely observed during his Reign finding therein his own Interest as well as his Peoples and the great Security of his new settled Government He confirmed all Mens Properties Inheritances and Successions invading none either for his own Benefit or Reward of his Norman Forces or Friends