8 ON Till- INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. 



Fh*st. — Its political state. — Under this division, the nature of the 

 High Court of Parliament ]n-iniarily presents itself to our view. In 

 the earlier ages of feudalism the third estate of the realm did not 

 exist; the parliament then consisting of the sovereign and the barons, 

 who composed the King's gi*eat council. The present House of Lords, 

 spiritual and temporal, must deduce its origin from the feudal system ; 

 whereby every baron and every owner cf a knight's fee being tenant 

 in capite to the crown, was bound to attend and had the privilege of 

 attendance as a right, in his sovereign's court to consult upon the 

 national affairs. It was a peculiarity of that system, a principle of 

 the antient northern freedom that secured this privilege to every 

 military tenant. The usual services of every tenant of the crown, 

 were knights service, or the necessity of serving the sovereign for 

 forty days annually, in civil or foreign war, with the seven other 

 incidents of aids, reliefs, primer seisins, wardship, marriage, Jincs 

 or alienation of the estate or fief, and escheat ; and any services 

 required beyond these, whether payable, or to be rendered by the 

 barons, or their vassals ; in short, whatever extraordinary measures 

 were necessary for the common weal could only be imposed by their 

 lord the king, by their advice and with their consent. And for nearly 

 eight hundred years this principle has existed and still suiTives 9k 

 full force, not exclusively however, since the erection of the House 

 of Commons; for every act of parliament bears still the expressions, 

 " Be it enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with 

 the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, &c." 



The lay peers held their seats by virtue of their baronies, and the 

 archbishops, bishops, and mitred abbots, also held theirs by the same 

 title. Summoned to parliament in right of the temporal baronies which 

 they hold or are supposed to hold, the prelates now take their scats 

 as lords of parliament and not as peers of the realm. 



The most striking feature in the political system of England, and 

 indeed of Europe, was the feudal constitution of the landed aristoc- 

 racy possessing peculiar privileges, exclusive immunities, and many 

 of them almost sovereign power; for the nobles of this countiy, at one 

 period, both awed their king and ruled his peoi)le. As the feudal 

 companions of their chief they had a right to sit along with him on 

 all trials, whether civil or criminal, occuring within the limits of their 



