The Sun.
London, England, 1818-07-21 00:00:00

TUE ENGLISH CON`l'l 1 I U I'ION

GIIURCII SnITE.

FOIL THE SUN.

This Constitution has ever been free, neither
absolute nor simple,-though its administration has
at times been despotic. The Saxon form of it
has been t reserved, anti William the Norman
brought in the feudal law. During his, and the
line of the Plantagenets, the contest between the
li,trons and Feudatories was for law and liberty,
t‘.hich were united under Henry Vll., and sub-
rottled to by him, though the latter was testrain-
yl for several subsequent reigns; but passive obe-
dience was never heard of till called for by Eliza-
beth, and her successor James 1., Which roused
the nation, and ended in the downfall of the
Stuarts.

The linequal alinement of land into feuds, pro-
e , tced riches and commerce, which greatly amended
&improved the old form of Goverment. They
Were essential among the Germans, to whom
they wete perpetual, white in other countries
they were temporary- and revocable. Allodial
lands were inheritable. Beneficiaty were Croa n
grants, and if immediate, the tenants were called
laudes, or sub-tenants ; the one being alienable,
bto the other 'Confined. Feuds produced to the
lords ploprietors fruits of (entire, and as they fa-
voured liberty, were submitted to by the English,
more for the advantage of the Aristocracy than
Monarchy, yet better suited for an Oligarchy, or
a Ailiiary Government. They kept the Church
subordinate to the State, but their fruits growing
arbitrary, was the occasion of struggles between
the King and his Barons, which were a little ap-
pf.a-ed by Magna Charta, but tint entirely until
aver the Restoration. They gave the King too
much hover, and the Barons too great an ascend-
ancy over him. Both were unfriendly to liberty,
until weakened by their wars. In Henry the
Vll.'s time the Barons were so reduced that they
could . not disturb him. Those who held of him
in capite, by kaigOt service, were the great Coun-
cil and Legislature of the kingdom, amounting its
Williani:soitue to about 700 ; the rest were tenants
in wet:age, or hushatiery of the plough, and
100ke,4 putt only- .svvants. Commerce and the
arts broaght in .wealth, and the people because of
senne consequence in the State. The Barons
being enabled to alienate their feuds under Henry
11. the Le!.:islature was enlarged, and as they bad
impoverished themselves to pursue the Crusade,
they could not attend it in person, which obliged
theta to appear there by proxy. Hence Knights of
the Shire were chosen to represent the less
tenants of the Crown ; and as trade increased,
the citizens chose Burgesses, under'Edward M.,
which formed the House of Commons.
Englishmen, fond of their native liberty, op-
posed the civil and canon law of the Romanists,
which the crown and mitre mutually contended
for ; and when the Papal authority ceased bete
under Honorias, the Saxon law, as settled by
Edward the Confessor, prevailed among them.
'ile Institutes of J tistinian being recovered in
Italy, in our King btephen's time, became a fa-
shionable study in Europe. They were read hoe
in Lambeth Palace, ender Vacatius ; hut ceased
tinder our William the Norman, one of whose
firs' charters began thus—" 1 William the Bas-
tard.--and the castles of the Nobles being Oill
of their illegitimate children, they were held ho-
nourable; but in a Parliament of Henry the 111 d,
the canon law was rejected, whereby subsequent
marriage made them lawful ; and in this manner
liberty -was prefer-led to sensuality. After the fall
of. Cardinal ‘Volsey, under Henry VIII. the Ro-
matt civil law langtdalled, until revived after the
death of his daughter Elizabeth, by the Stuarts in
the Courts of Star-chamber, mot High Commission.
The Tudors and their despotism did not change the
Constitution of England. The forms of liberty
were preserved. Parliament was, servile, and a
King thought hioiself absolute. So did James
,the Ist. Ttie throne had been exalted on the
depression of the Barons, whose property, which
made them formidable, was mixed in other hands.
The Commons rose rapidly into consequence, and
they etiatched the sceptre from the Stuarts.
slaking the King HEAD of the CHURCH was in
favour of his Imperial power. The Papal domi-
nion had long clouded the majesty of the Crown,
and held our Sovereigns in slavish obedience,
alike to the triple crown, as the mitre of their
coutomy ; but the translation of the Pope's au-
poonacy to them, increased their dignity and
strength, which had been enfeebled by the spi-
ritual tyranny of the Roman Pontiffs, who, with
all their predecessors, had presumptuously raised
an altar to the MESSIAH, and placed themselves
in his Chaiti as his VICAR. Their power was
paramount in every thing that regarded religion,
and every thing was thought so that touched their
interest. The people, zealous to reform this ar-
tifice, anti support the just rights of the Crown,
Henry VIII. availed himself of an opportunity,
very happily for posterity, and renounced it in
toto ; when Parliament transferred it to, and in-
vested it in him, his heirs and successors, without
fixing any precise limits to his spiritual jurisdie-

etiOu trusting, no doubt, that no imprOper use
s'•
or would be made of it in his temporal character as
• head of the Church, in which he became the Vi-
car of the Messiah upon earth, but only superior
in his own kingdom to the Pope, in ecclesiastical,
legislative, and executive power, which produced
the Coutt of High Commission, and so enlarged
his authority, that the liberty of the people could
only be secured by its subsequent abolition ;
though the restless spirit of the Papists and Pu-
ritans, against the established Church, counte-
nanced its continuance for some reigns after. All
matters of religion and conscience were within its
cognizance, which -favoured. the usurpations on
freedom, and, with the Court of Star-chamber,
subjected every thing of a temporal nature to
the judgment of the Crown, and between both
to the highest tyranny, which was only softened
by dispensations, raising the regal power above
the law, and making it omnipotent.
Toe I'd u! supremacy, after transplanting it,
soon she,%ed its tital effects; and the false no-
tions succeeding Princes had of it, would have set
the Crown above all laws, either divine OT human ;
to the dispensation of the gospel. MO..
ther consequence of it was an opinion that Kings
were irresistible, and the obedience of subjects