190 1-2 TRANSACTIONS. S7 



the people. Hthelred II after having been deposed in 1013, 

 was restored the following year. In io:^»6, however, the 

 royal family was overlooked altogether and Earl Harold, the 

 :gTeatest Saxon statesman after Alfred, was elected Iving (1), 

 x^nd so history establishes beyond cavil that the Saxon 

 Kings were subject to the sovereignty of the people. 



Now when we come to the Conquest there is one im- 

 portant fact, apt, indeed, to be obscured by the despotic 

 character of his conduct as soon as he felt himself securely on 

 the throne, namel)^, that William of Normandy, at his own 

 request, was formally elected King by the Witan ; and, 

 moreover, as I have pointed out before, swore by the ancient 

 Coronation Oath to govern ths Kingdom in conformity with 

 the laws then existing. It seems to me that this fact throws 

 a great deal of illumination over the post-Conquest deposition 

 of Kings by the English people, as well as over the last 

 instance of the assertion of their ancient sovereign right to 

 elect a King, namely, in 1689. 



The first King to be deposed after the Conquest was 

 Edward II. He was formally deposed by the Parliament 

 which assembled at Westminster, in January 1327, because, 

 in the opinion of Parliament, he had broken the Coronation 

 Oath, "had ruined his Kingdom and people, and had suffered 

 himself to be led in all things by evil councillors." Clearly, 

 then, Edward II was not impeccable. Possibly the mind of 

 Parliament at that time was supported by what Bracton, 

 whose book on the Laws of England is called "the crown 

 and flower of English medieval jurisprudence", (2) wrote 

 nearly a century before : "The King has as superiors (a) God, 

 (d) the law, and (c) his court ; for the earls are the King's 

 comes ^ and he who has a comes has a master". (3) 



(1) Cf. Allen's Royal Prerog. p. 14; Taswell-LangmeaTs jBn,£^. Con. Hist. cap. 1. 



(2) Pollock & Maitland's Hist. Enp. Law i, 185. 



(3) See De Leg. Ang . f Shh. It is claimed that Bracton did not indite this passage ; 

 but even if spurious it was extant at the time we speak of. Cf. Maitland's Introduc- 

 tion to Bracton's Note Book p. 33. 



