by Edmund Burke
Such was the prince who, on a pretended claim from the will of King Edward, supported by the common and popular pretence of punishing offenders and redressing grievances, landed at Pevensey in Sussex, to contest the crown with Harold. Harold had no sooner advice of his landing than he advanced to meet him with all possible diligence; but there did not appear in his army, upon this occasion, the same unanimity and satisfaction which animated it on its march against the Norwegians. An ill-timed economy in Harold, which made him refuse to his soldiers the plunder of the Norwegian camp, had created a general discontent. Several deserted; and the soldiers who remained followed heavily a leader under whom there was no hope of plunder, the greatest incitement of the soldiery. Notwithstanding this ill disposition, Harold still urged forward, and by forced marches advanced within seven miles of the enemy. The Norman, on his landing, is said to have sent away his ships, that his army might have no way of safety but in conquest; yet had he fortified his camp, and taken every prudent precaution, that so considerable an enterprise should not be reduced to a single effort of despair. When the armies, charged with the decision of so mighty a contest, had approached each other, Harold paused awhile. A great deal depended on his conduct at this critical time. The most experienced in the council of war, who knew the condition of their troops, were of opinion that the engagement ought to be deferred, — that the country ought to be wasted, — that, as the winter approached, the Normans would in all probability be obliged to retire of themselves, — that, if this should not happen, the Norman army was without resources, whilst the English would be every day considerably augmented, and might attack their enemy at a time and manner which might make their success certain. To all these reasons nothing was opposed but a false point of honor and a mistaken courage in Harold, who urged his fate, and resolved on an engagement. The Norman, as soon as he perceived that the English, were determined on a battle, left his camp to post himself in an advantageous situation, in which his whole army remained the night which preceded the action.
This night was spent in a manner which prognosticated the event of the following day. On the part of the Normans it was spent in prayer, and in a cool and steady preparation for the engagement; on the side of the English, in riot and a vain confidence that neglected all the necessary preparations. The two armies met in the morning; from seven to five the battle was fought with equal vigor, until at last the Norman army pretending to break in confusion, a stratagem to which they had been regularly formed, the English, elated with success, suffered that firm order in which their security consisted to dissipate, which when William observed, he gave the signal to his men to regain their former disposition, and fall upon the English, broken and dispersed. Harold in this emergency did everything which became him, everything possible to collect his troops and to renew the engagement; but whilst he flew from place to place, and in all places restored the battle, an arrow pierced his brain, and he died a king, in a manner worthy of a warrior. The English immediately fled; the rout was total, and the slaughter prodigious.
The consternation which this defeat and the death of Harold produced over the kingdom was more fatal than the defeat itself. If William had marched directly to London, all contest had probably been at an end; but he judged it more prudent to secure the sea-coast, to make way for reinforcements, distrusting his fortune in his success more than he had done in his first attempts. He marched to Dover, where the effect of his victory was such that the strong castle there surrendered without resistance. Had this fortress made any tolerable defence, the English would have had leisure to rouse from their consternation, and plan some rational method for continuing the war; but now the conqueror was on full march to London, whilst the English were debating concerning the measures they should take, and doubtful in what manner they should fill the vacant throne. However, in this emergency it was necessary to take some resolution. The party of Edgar Atheling prevailed, and he was owned king by the city of London, which even at this time was exceedingly powerful, and by the greatest part of the nobility then present. But his reign was of a short duration. William advanced by hasty marches, and, as he approached, the perplexity of the English redoubled: they had done nothing for the defence of the city; they had no reliance on their new king; they suspected one another; there was no authority, no order, no counsel; a confused and ill-sorted assembly of unwarlike people, of priests, burghers, and nobles confounded with them in the general panic, struck down by the consternation of the late defeat, and trembling under the bolts of the Papal excommunication, were unable to plan any method of defence: insomuch that, when he had passed the Thames and drew near to London, the clergy, the citizens, and the greater part of the nobles, who had so lately set the crown on the head of Edgar, went out to meet him; they submitted to him, and having brought him in triumph to Westminster, he was there solemnly crowned King of England. The whole nation followed the example of London; and one battle gave England to the Normans, which had cost the Romans, the Saxons, and Danes so much time and blood to acquire.
At first view it is very difficult to conceive how this could have happened to a powerful nation, in which it does not appear that the conqueror had one partisan. It stands a single event in history, unless, perhaps, we may compare it with the reduction of Ireland, some time after, by Henry the Second. An attentive consideration of the state of the kingdom at that critical time may, perhaps, in some measure, lay open to us the cause of this extraordinary revolution. The nobility of England, in which its strength consisted, was much decayed. Wars and confiscations, but above all the custom of gavelkind, had reduced that body very low. At the same time some few families had been, raised to a degree of power unknown in the ancient Saxon times, and dangerous in all. Large possessions, and a larger authority, were annexed to the offices of the Saxon magistrates, whom they called Aldermen. This authority, in their long and bloody wars with the Danes, it was found necessary to increase, and often to increase beyond the ancient limits. Aldermen were created for life; they were then frequently made hereditary; some were vested with a power over others; and at this period we begin to hear of dukes who governed over several shires, and had many aldermen subject to them. These officers found means to turn the royal bounty into an instrument of becoming independent of its authority. Too great to obey, and too little to protect, they were a dead weight upon the country. They began to cast an eye on the crown, and distracted the nation by cabals to compass their designs. At the same time they nourished the most terrible feuds amongst themselves. The feeble government of Edward established these abuses. He could find no method of humbling one subject grown too great, but by aggrandizing in the same excessive degree some others. Thus, he endeavored to balance the power of Earl Godwin by exalting Leofric, Duke of Mercia, and Siward, Duke of Northumberland, to an extravagant greatness. The consequence was this: he did not humble Godwin, but raised him potent rivals. When, therefore, this prince died, the lawful successor to the crown, who had nothing but right in his favor, was totally eclipsed by the splendor of the great men who had adorned themselves with the spoils of royalty. The throne was now the prize of faction; and Harold, the son of Godwin, having the strongest faction, carried it. By this success the opposite parties were inflamed with a new occasion of rancor and animosity, and an incurable discontent was raised in the minds of Edwin and Morcar, the sons of Duke Leofric, who inherited their father’s power and popularity: but this animosity operated nothing in favor of the legitimate heir, though it weakened the hands of the governing prince.
The death of Harold was far from putting an end to these evils; it rather unfolded more at large the fatal consequences of the ill measures which had been pursued. Edwin and Morcar set on foot once more their practices to obtain the crown; and when they found themselves baffled, they retired in discontent from the councils of the nation, withdrawing thereby a very large part of its strength and authority. The council of the nation, which was formed of the clashing factions of a few great men, (for the rest were n
othing,) divided, disheartened, weakened, without head, without direction, dismayed by a terrible defeat, submitted, because they saw no other course, to a conqueror whose valor they had experienced, and who had hitherto behaved with great appearances of equity and moderation. As for the grandees, they were contented rather to submit to this foreign prince than to those whom they regarded as their equals and enemies.
With these causes other strong ones concurred. For near two centuries the continual and bloody wars with the Danes had exhausted the nation; the peace, which for a long time they were obliged to buy dearly, exhausted it yet more; and it had not sufficient leisure nor sufficient means of acquiring wealth to yield at this time any extraordinary resources. The new people, which after so long a struggle had mixed with the English, had not yet so thoroughly incorporated with the ancient inhabitants that a perfect union might be expected between them, or that any strong, uniform, national effort might have resulted from it. Besides, the people of England were the most backward in Europe in all improvements, whether in military or in civil life. Their towns were meanly built, and more meanly fortified; there was scarcely anything that deserved the name of a strong place in the kingdom; there was no fortress which, by retarding the progress of a conqueror, might give the people an opportunity of recalling their spirits and collecting their strength. To these we may add, that the Pope’s approbation of William’s pretensions gave them great weight, especially amongst the clergy, and that this disposed and reconciled to submission a people whom the circumstances we have mentioned had before driven to it.
CHAPTER VII.
OF THE LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS OF THE SAXONS.
Before we begin to consider the laws and constitutions of the Saxons, let us take a view of the state of the country from whence they are derived, as it is portrayed in ancient writers. This view will be the best comment on their institutions. Let us represent to ourselves a people without learning, without arts, without industry, solely pleased and occupied with war, neglecting agriculture, abhorring cities, and seeking their livelihood only from pasturage and hunting through a boundless range of morasses and forests. Such a people must necessarily be united to each other by very feeble bonds; their ideas of government will necessarily be imperfect, their freedom and their love of freedom great. From these dispositions it must happen, of course, that the intention of investing one person or a few with the whole powers of government, and the notion of deputed authority or representation, are ideas that never could have entered their imaginations. When, therefore, amongst such a people any resolution of consequence was to be taken, there was no way of effecting it but by bringing together the whole body of the nation, that every individual might consent to the law, and each reciprocally bind the other to the observation of it. This polity, if so it may be called, subsists still in all its simplicity in Poland.
But as in such a society as we have mentioned the people cannot be classed according to any political regulations, great talents have a more ample sphere in which to exert themselves than in a close and better formed society. These talents must therefore have attracted a great share of the public veneration, and drawn a numerous train after the person distinguished by them, of those who sought his protection, or feared his power, or admired his qualifications, or wished to form themselves after his example, or, in fine, of whoever desired to partake of his importance by being mentioned along with him. These the ancient Gauls, who nearly resembled the Germans in their customs, called Ambacti; the Romans called them Comites. Over these their chief had a considerable power, and the more considerable because it depended upon influence rather than institution: influence among so free a people being the principal source of power. But this authority, great as it was, never could by its very nature be stretched to despotism; because any despotic act would have shocked the only principle by which that authority was supported, the general good opinion. On the other hand, it could not have been bounded by any positive laws, because laws can hardly subsist amongst a people who have not the use of letters. It was a species of arbitrary power, softened by the popularity from whence it arose. It came from popular opinion, and by popular opinion it was corrected.
If people so barbarous as the Germans have no laws, they have yet customs that serve in their room; and these customs operate amongst them better than laws, because they become a sort of Nature both to the governors and the governed. This circumstance in some measure removed all fear of the abuse of authority, and induced the Germans to permit their chiefs to decide upon matters of lesser moment, their private differences, — for so Tacitus explains the minores res. These chiefs were a sort of judges, but not legislators; nor do they appear to have had a share in the superior branches of the executive part of government, — the business of peace and war, and everything of a public nature, being determined, as we have before remarked, by the whole body of the people, according to a maxim general among the Germans, that what concerned all ought to be handled by all. Thus were delineated the faint and incorrect outlines of our Constitution, which has since been so nobly fashioned and so highly finished. This fine system, says Montesquieu, was invented in the woods; but whilst it remained in the woods, and for a long time after, it was far from being a fine one, — no more, indeed, than a very imperfect attempt at government, a system for a rude and barbarous people, calculated to maintain them in their barbarity.
The ancient state of the Germans was military: so that the orders into which they were distributed, their subordination, their courts, and every part of their government, must be deduced from an attention to a military principle.
The ancient German people, as all the other Northern tribes, consisted of freemen and slaves: the freemen professed arms, the slaves cultivated the ground. But men were not allowed to profess arms at their own will, nor until they were admitted to that dignity by an established order, which at a certain age separated the boys from men. For when a young man approached to virility, he was not yet admitted as a member of the state, which was quite military, until he had been invested with a spear in the public assembly of his tribe; and then he was adjudged proper to carry arms, and also to assist in the public deliberations, which were always held armed. This spear he generally received from the hand of some old and respected chief, under whom he commonly entered himself, and was admitted among his followers. No man could stand out as an independent individual, but must have enlisted in one of these military fraternities; and as soon as he had so enlisted, immediately he became bound to his leader in the strictest dependence, which was confirmed by an oath, and to his brethren in a common vow for their mutual support in all dangers, and for the advancement and the honor of their common chief. This chief was styled Senior, Lord, and the like terms, which marked out a superiority in age and merit; the followers were called Ambacti, Comites, Leudes, Vassals, and other terms, marking submission and dependence. This was the very first origin of civil, or rather, military government, amongst the ancient people of Europe; and it arose from the connection that necessarily was created between the person who gave the arms, or knighted the young man, and him that received them; which implied that they were to be occupied in his service who originally gave them. These principles it is necessary strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole course both of government and real property, wherever the German nations obtained a settlement: the whole of their government depending for the most part upon two principles in our nature, — ambition, that makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead amongst others, — and admiration, which makes others equally desirous of following him, from the mere pleasure of admiration, and a sort of secondary ambition, one of the most universal passions among men. These two principles, strong, both of them, in our nature, create a voluntary inequality and dependence. But amongst equals in condition there could be no such bond, and this was supplied by confederacy; and as the first of these principles created the senior and the knight, the second produced the conjurati frat
res, which, sometimes as a more extensive, sometimes as a stricter bond, are perpetually mentioned in the old laws and histories.
The relation between the lord and the vassal produced another effect, — that the leader was obliged to find sustenance for his followers, and to maintain them at his table, or give them some equivalent in order to their maintenance. It is plain from these principles, that this service on one hand, and this obligation to support on the other, could not have originally been hereditary, but must have been entirely in the free choice of the parties.
But it is impossible that such a polity could long have subsisted by election alone. For, in the first place, that natural love which every man has to his own kindred would make the chief willing to perpetuate the power and dignity he acquired in his own blood, — and for that purpose, even during his own life, would raise his son, if grown up, or his collaterals, to such a rank as they should find it only necessary to continue their possession upon his death. On the other hand, if a follower was cut off in war, or fell by natural course, leaving his offspring destitute, the lord could not so far forget the services of his vassal as not to continue his allowance to his children; and these again growing up, from reason and gratitude, could only take their knighthood at his hands from whom they had received their education; and thus, as it could seldom happen but that the bond, either on the side of the lord or dependant, was perpetuated, some families must have been distinguished by a long continuance of this relation, and have been therefore looked upon in an honorable light, from that only circumstance from whence honor was derived in the Northern world. Thus nobility was seen in Germany; and in the earliest Anglo-Saxon times some families were distinguished by the title of Ethelings, or of noble descent. But this nobility of birth was rather a qualification for the dignities of the state than an actual designation to them. The Saxon ranks are chiefly designed to ascertain the quantity of the composition for personal injuries against them.