Letters on England [15]
whole nations. These were
birds of prey fighting with an eagle for doves whose blood the
victorious was to suck. Every nation, instead of being governed by
one master, was trampled upon by a hundred tyrants. The priests
soon played a part among them. Before this it had been the fate of
the Gauls, the Germans, and the Britons, to be always governed by
their Druids and the chiefs of their villages, an ancient kind of
barons, not so tyrannical as their successors. These Druids
pretended to be mediators between God and man. They enacted laws,
they fulminated their excommunications, and sentenced to death. The
bishops succeeded, by insensible degrees, to their temporal
authority in the Goth and Vandal government. The popes set
themselves at their head, and armed with their briefs, their bulls,
and reinforced by monks, they made even kings tremble, deposed and
assassinated them at pleasure, and employed every artifice to draw
into their own purses moneys from all parts of Europe. The weak
Ina, one of the tyrants of the Saxon Heptarchy in England, was the
first monarch who submitted, in his pilgrimage to Rome, to pay St.
Peter's penny (equivalent very near to a French crown) for every
house in his dominions. The whole island soon followed his example;
England became insensibly one of the Pope's provinces, and the Holy
Father used to send from time to time his legates thither to levy
exorbitant taxes. At last King John delivered up by a public
instrument the kingdom of England to the Pope, who had
excommunicated him; but the barons, not finding their account in
this resignation, dethroned the wretched King John and seated Louis,
father to St. Louis, King of France, in his place. However, they
were soon weary of their new monarch, and accordingly obliged him to
return to France.
Whilst that the barons, the bishops, and the popes, all laid waste
England, where all were for ruling the most numerous, the most
useful, even the most virtuous, and consequently the most venerable
part of mankind, consisting of those who study the laws and the
sciences, of traders, of artificers, in a word, of all who were not
tyrants--that is, those who are called the people: these, I say,
were by them looked upon as so many animals beneath the dignity of
the human species. The Commons in those ages were far from sharing
in the government, they being villains or peasants, whose labour,
whose blood, were the property of their masters who entitled
themselves the nobility. The major part of men in Europe were at
that time what they are to this day in several parts of the world--
they were villains or bondsmen of lords--that is, a kind of cattle
bought and sold with the land. Many ages passed away before justice
could be done to human nature--before mankind were conscious that it
was abominable for many to sow, and but few reap. And was not
France very happy, when the power and authority of those petty
robbers was abolished by the lawful authority of kings and of the
people?
Happily, in the violent shocks which the divisions between kings and
the nobles gave to empires, the chains of nations were more or less
heavy. Liberty in England sprang from the quarrels of tyrants. The
barons forced King John and King Henry III. to grant the famous
Magna Charta, the chief design of which was indeed to make kings
dependent on the Lords; but then the rest of the nation were a
little favoured in it, in order that they might join on proper
occasions with their pretended masters. This great Charter, which
is considered as the sacred origin of the English liberties, shows
in itself how little liberty was known.
The title alone proves that the king thought he had a just right to
be absolute; and that the barons, and even the clergy, forced him to
give up the pretended right, for no other reason but because they
were the most powerful.
Magna Charta begins in
birds of prey fighting with an eagle for doves whose blood the
victorious was to suck. Every nation, instead of being governed by
one master, was trampled upon by a hundred tyrants. The priests
soon played a part among them. Before this it had been the fate of
the Gauls, the Germans, and the Britons, to be always governed by
their Druids and the chiefs of their villages, an ancient kind of
barons, not so tyrannical as their successors. These Druids
pretended to be mediators between God and man. They enacted laws,
they fulminated their excommunications, and sentenced to death. The
bishops succeeded, by insensible degrees, to their temporal
authority in the Goth and Vandal government. The popes set
themselves at their head, and armed with their briefs, their bulls,
and reinforced by monks, they made even kings tremble, deposed and
assassinated them at pleasure, and employed every artifice to draw
into their own purses moneys from all parts of Europe. The weak
Ina, one of the tyrants of the Saxon Heptarchy in England, was the
first monarch who submitted, in his pilgrimage to Rome, to pay St.
Peter's penny (equivalent very near to a French crown) for every
house in his dominions. The whole island soon followed his example;
England became insensibly one of the Pope's provinces, and the Holy
Father used to send from time to time his legates thither to levy
exorbitant taxes. At last King John delivered up by a public
instrument the kingdom of England to the Pope, who had
excommunicated him; but the barons, not finding their account in
this resignation, dethroned the wretched King John and seated Louis,
father to St. Louis, King of France, in his place. However, they
were soon weary of their new monarch, and accordingly obliged him to
return to France.
Whilst that the barons, the bishops, and the popes, all laid waste
England, where all were for ruling the most numerous, the most
useful, even the most virtuous, and consequently the most venerable
part of mankind, consisting of those who study the laws and the
sciences, of traders, of artificers, in a word, of all who were not
tyrants--that is, those who are called the people: these, I say,
were by them looked upon as so many animals beneath the dignity of
the human species. The Commons in those ages were far from sharing
in the government, they being villains or peasants, whose labour,
whose blood, were the property of their masters who entitled
themselves the nobility. The major part of men in Europe were at
that time what they are to this day in several parts of the world--
they were villains or bondsmen of lords--that is, a kind of cattle
bought and sold with the land. Many ages passed away before justice
could be done to human nature--before mankind were conscious that it
was abominable for many to sow, and but few reap. And was not
France very happy, when the power and authority of those petty
robbers was abolished by the lawful authority of kings and of the
people?
Happily, in the violent shocks which the divisions between kings and
the nobles gave to empires, the chains of nations were more or less
heavy. Liberty in England sprang from the quarrels of tyrants. The
barons forced King John and King Henry III. to grant the famous
Magna Charta, the chief design of which was indeed to make kings
dependent on the Lords; but then the rest of the nation were a
little favoured in it, in order that they might join on proper
occasions with their pretended masters. This great Charter, which
is considered as the sacred origin of the English liberties, shows
in itself how little liberty was known.
The title alone proves that the king thought he had a just right to
be absolute; and that the barons, and even the clergy, forced him to
give up the pretended right, for no other reason but because they
were the most powerful.
Magna Charta begins in