[107] It was this circumstance that seemed to weigh most with the Lord Chancellor Bacon; who, in his short tract, In felicem memoriam Elizabethæ, saith, “Illud cogitandum censeo, in quali populo imperium tenuerit: si enim in Palmyrenis, aut Asiâ imbelli et molli regnum sortita esset, minùs mirandum fuisset—verùm in Anglia, natione ferocissimâ et bellicosissimâ, omnia ex nutu fœminæ moveri et cohiberi potuisse, SUMMAM MERITO ADMIRATIONEM HABET.”
[108] The subject of these Dialogues, on the English Constitution, is the most important in English politics.—To cite all the passages from our best antiquaries and historians, out of which this work was formed, and which lay before the writer in composing it, would swell this volume to an immoderate size. It is enough to say, that nothing material is advanced in the course of the argument, but on the best authority.
[109] That is, of the feudal law: which was one of the subjects explained by the bishop to his royal pupil the duke of Gloucester. “I acquainted him, says he, with all the great revolutions that had been in the world, and gave him a copious account of the Greek and Roman histories, and of Plutarch’s Lives: the last thing I explained to him was the Gothic constitution, and the BENEFICIARY AND FEUDAL LAWS.” [Hist. of his own Times, vol. iv. p. 357. Edinb. 1753.]
[110] On April 11, 1689.
[111] Of the great seal—The other lawyers in commission were Keck and Rawlinson.
[112] This was a favourite subject with our good bishop; and how qualified he was to discuss it, even in its minutest particularities, may be learnt from his history at large.
[113] It was not thus left to itself, but was nursed and fostered with great care by the preachers of divine indefeasible hereditary right, in this and the following reign.
[114] This casual remark seems to determine a famous dispute among the Antiquaries on the subject before us. Bishop Nicolson attended so little to this tralatitious use of words, in which all languages abound, that finding Laga in several places signified a country, he would needs have it that Camden, Lambarde, Spelman, Cowell, Selden, and all our best Antiquaries, were mistaken, when they supposed Laga ever signified, in the compositions here mentioned, a law. However, his adversaries among the Antiquaries were even with him; and finding that Laga, in these compositions, did signify a law in several places of our ancient laws, historians, and lawyers, deny that it ever signifies a country. Each indeed had a considerable object in view; the one was bent on overthrowing a system; the other on supporting it; namely, that famous threefold body of laws, the Danish, Mercian, and West-Saxon. It must be owned, the bishop could not overthrow the common system, without running into his extreme: it seems, his opponents might have supported it without running into theirs.
[115] See Historical Law-Tracts, vol. i. p. 294.
[116] Milton did not forget to observe, in his Tenure of kings and magistrates, That William the Norman, though a Conqueror, and not unsworn at his Coronation, was compelled a second time to take oath at St. Albans, ere the people would be brought to yield obedience. Vol. i. of his Prose works, 4to, 1753. p. 345.