Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/363

Rh attachment to freedom that is our distinguishing national characteristic.

The trial itself certainly took place in Shrewsbury, since all the writs specify that the peers and representatives were to attend there for the purpose of conducting it.

The king, as we have already seen, was then on a visit to the chancellor at Acton Burnell, being unwilling probably to influence their decision by his presence. He had however, plainly intimated by the language of his writs, what were his private sentiments.

The severe penal enactments of that age, unworthy even of men who lived in a state of savage life, cannot now be adverted to without horror. And when we find this royal prince, after having courageously endeavoured to preserve his aboriginal throne from destruction, dragged at horses' heels through the narrow streets of Shrewsbury, hung up and cut down again whilst yet breathing, with heart and bowels torn out before his sight, at last beheaded and released from his sufferings, to have his mutilated body quartered and distributed through the four chief towns of England, the citizens of York and Winchester contending with savage eagerness for his right shoulder, the revolting award being decided in favour of Winchester, we instinctively pause to disbelieve the facts. We become incredulous that such degrading inhumanity should have happened not only then, but that even five centuries afterwards the eloquence of Romily should have been exerted to erase this unrepealed abomination from the English statute book. As the most philosophical of our historians has declared, these are warnings to mankind how easily the most execrable examples may be introduced, and with what difficulty a country can be purified from their stain.

After the royal prerogative had thus been vindicated by the barbarous execution of Prince David, whose guilt seems rather to have consisted in aspiring to transmit to his descendants their right to an ancient sovereignty, than in any acts of aggression on the neighbouring kingdom, the parliament adjourned to Acton Burnell, where they sat, and passed that celebrated statute-merchant bearing its name, and from the preamble to which, as well as from an instrument in Rymer, it is manifest that the three estates of the realm were not then