H ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS 



resembled, in some measure, the so-called German liberty of later 

 ages, which was the privilege merely of a few individuals of high 

 rank and large possessions, during the session of the Diet, of which 

 they were members. That the civil rights of Englishmen are en- 

 tirely diflFerent from similar baronial privileges, and, moreover, are not 

 even connected with the latter, or even of Anglo-Saxon origin, may 

 be inferred, and with some degree of certainty, from the course of 

 the march of that people through the British Islands. It is known 

 that the military colonization of the Anglo-Saxons had extended so 

 far as the foot of the Scottish Highlands ; whilst the Normans car- 

 ried their conquests no farther than the limits of the present Eng- 

 land. Supposing, then, that the traditions of British liberty had their 

 origin in the Anglo- Saxon policy, it is reasonable to expect that we 

 might find them in the most unfalsified form in the Lowlands of Scot- 

 land, where the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons, although sur- 

 rounded by numerous populations of Danes, still preserved their race 

 independent and unmixed, compared with those of the other pro- 

 vinces, and where the present native language had been early and 

 generally cultivated and perfected.* Yet what is the fact ? Why, 

 that those faint traces of early liberty which occasionally appear to 

 the historical investigator, are found, not in that country, as might 

 have been expected from the above mode of reasoning, but, on the 

 contrary, in those districts where Britons, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and 

 Normans, were most closely cast together, and their habits and cus- 

 toms mixed and amalgamated by intimate intercourse. The truth is, 

 in no other country was the feudal system more severely and rigidly 

 in action against the people and their kings, than in Scotland. In 

 no country were the parliament, the jury, and the judges, in so loose 

 and precarious a condition, and less guided by established laws and 

 provisions, than in Scotland. Traces of those defects are still found 

 in the constitution of the Scottish courts of justice and of juries. 

 Indeed, there is but one opinion among the best informed men in 

 Scotland : namely, that all the truly beneficial principles and provi- 

 sions of liberty were not imported into England from Scotland, but, 

 on the contrary, from the former into the latter country. 



Be this as it may, thus much is certain, that all traces of early li- 

 berty in England, if any such ever did exist, must have vanished on 

 the appearance of the first Norman princes ; for we find in those times 



• Sir W. Scott, in his introduction to '* Sir Tristram," a national romance 

 of the thirteenth century. 



