o6 TKAXSACri' >xs. 1901-2 



paramount sovereigntv of the people is,, and has ever been^ 

 the true genius of English political institutions. 



Taking up the threads of Constitutional theory, we 

 find that even before the Revolution of 1688 they might have 

 been woven into a web of argument through which the most 

 subtle advocate for absolutism could not break. 



"The further back we carry our researches", sa>s Allen 

 in his masterly Inquiry into the Ri^e and ^rowth ff the Royal 

 Pi- rogative in E^tgland. (i) 



The stronger is the evidence wc discovor tliat, however the monarchical theory 

 may hiivc bL'cn proclaimed in law-books and magnified by Churchmen, it was never 

 rjdnci'd, strict;yand co'npletely, to practice; nor was it ever recognized or quietly sub- 

 in ttcd to by the people as the Government handed down to them by their ancestors. 



Now we have it on the authority of Tacitus (2) that the 

 primitive [political constitutions of the Germans, the ancestors 

 of the Anglo-Saxons, were essentially democratic, hence the 

 assertion of ultimate sovereignty by the Witenagemot, as I 

 have before pointed out. Says Professor Freeman (3): 



In the Germany of Tacitu«, as at this day in the democratic Cantons, the sovere- 

 ign power is ves ed in foe whole people, acting directly in their own persons. 



I have already shown how the people in the time of the 

 Heptarchy did not lack the courage to assert their sovereign 

 right to depose Kings who failed to rule in conformity with 

 the law. The correlative right of electing the King was also 

 claimed and exercised by the Witenagemot. Undoubtedly 

 there was a royal family in each of the several King-doms of 

 the Heptarchy, but they had no vested right to the throne. 

 The Crown was then an office, and not a piece of inheritable 

 property as it afterwards became. Among the members of 

 this particular family the Witenagemot had the right of free 

 choice, and usually they confined their selection to it. Thus 

 Ethelred I, in 866, was chosen in preference to the issue of 

 his elder brother. In 946 Edwy son of Edmund, was at 

 first ignored and his uncle Edred elected to the throne ; but, 

 on the latter's death, Edwy became King by the choice of 



(1) p. 10. 



(2) Be Mor. Germaniae, cap. 7-13. 



(3) Grou-th of Eng. Const, cap. i. 



