It is true, moreover, that English nobles have not generally been so turbulent in what I have called the Vitriolic period, nor so debased in the Narcotic period, as most other European Aristocracies. They were, indeed, very violent in the wars of the Roses,—many of them were very debased under Charles the Second, and again under the first and last Georges, and it is quite likely will be again under that very unpromising ruler, Albert Edward, who seems developing the head of George the Third and the heart of George the Fourth[57]—but they have never been quite so violent or debased as the Continental nobles at similar periods.
But all this, so far from weakening the thesis I support, strengthens it—nay, clenches it.
For the nobility of England, less than any other in Europe, was based upon the oppression of a subject class. From the earliest period when law begins to be established in England we find that the serf system begins to be extinguished. The courts of law quietly adopted and steadily maintained the principle that in any question between lord and serf the presumption was in favor of the inferior's right to liberty rather than the superior's right to property.[58] The whole current set that way, and we find growing in England that middle class, steady and sturdy by the possession of rights, which won Agincourt and Crecy and Marston Moor and Worcester,—which made her country a garden and her cities marts for the world.[59]
It is because England had so little of a serf-ruling caste in her history that she has been saved from so many of the calamities which have befallen other nations.
And there is another great difference between England and other nations, a difference of tremendous import. She has not stopped after making her lower classes nominally free. She has given them full civil rights and a constantly increasing share of political rights. Thus she has made them guardians of freedom. This is the great reason why her nobility have not destroyed her. This enfranchised class has been a barrier against aristocratic encroachment.
And yet in so far as the upper caste of England have partaken of traditions and habits of oppression they have deeply injured their country. Not a single great modern measure which they have not bitterly opposed.
The Repeal of the Corn Laws, the Abolition of Tests, the Reform Bill, the improvement of the Universities—these and a score more of great measures nearly as important, they have fought to the last.[60]
To them is mainly due that grasping of lands which has brought so much misery on the working class.[61]
To them is due that cold-blooded dealing with Lafayette and Bailly and other patriots of the French Revolution, which finally resulted in the Brunswick Manifesto and the Reign of Terror.