Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/186

 176 FINANCE Norman subjects for such interests as were indisputably continental. But it was not quite so clear that an English tenant was bound to defend the transmarine interests of the English king, or that a Norman, a Gascon, or Langue- doc tenant should be constrained to vindicate the English rights of a Norman duke. But there was so much to be said on behalf of the king s claim that a compromise was possible, and it was so much to the advantage of the English monarch that such a compromise should be made, that the bargain known as escuage or scutage was struck between the English king and his barons. Military service rendered by a military tenant was a tax in kind. In 1158 Henry II. laid claim to the great fief of Toulouse in right of his wife. If this fief could be transmitted through females, his claim, according to the public law of the time, was good. But another family had been in possession for nearly a century, and it was plainly inexpedient to the French king that his dominions should be completely girdled round, from Flanders to the Alps, by the fiefs of the English king, who, by various titles, had inherited or claimed the whole seaboard of France. The recovery, therefore, of the fief of Toulouse was sure to be an arduous task, and in effect Henry did not achieve it. But by bargaining for a money payment instead of personal service he could supply himself with the most effective means towards the object aimed at. A feudal army was collected slowly, was destitute of solid organization, and was at once disbanded when the time of its service was passed. An enlisted army, paid and commanded by the sovereign, gathered by careful selection, and drilled with all the skill which the age possessed, was a far more efficient instrument of warfare. The assize of arms under which the militia was enrolled defined the equipment of the national forces as precisely as those of Rome were defined under the so-called consti tution of Servius. Each social order had its proper arms and place in the army. None but freemen were entitled to serve. But in the king s enlisted army a serf could be enrolled, and rise to knighthood and even to nobility. During the long wars of Edward III. many such persons of originally ignoble birth became distinguished captains. The royal army became, like the church, the road by which humble merit might be promoted to rank and affluence. Such an army was highly paid, well drilled, rapidly man oeuvred, and prodigiously effective. Though small, it easily routed hosts many times greater in numbers than itself. The chivalry of France went down before the English footmen at Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, and Verueuil, as the Persian armies were destroyed at Granicus, Issus, and Arbela, and as the native forces of India were routed at Plassy or Assaye. It is true that these English victories were ultimately barren, because the victors were too few to hold the country which they conquered. But in action, as long as the army was true to its drill and discipline, it was irresistible, and could only be beaten or dislodged in detail. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the tradition of these exploits has had a permanent effect. Again, the commutation first adopted in 1158 united the two races, Norman and English, in a common policy. In accordance with the spirit of the time the bargain was a record and a precedent. If it strengthened the king s military power, it weakened his civil power. The feudal chieftain might not be unwilling to undertake a campaign from which he might get plunder or glory, or the solid advantages of successful and appreciated service. But it was another thing to find the funds from which others might be hired, and drilled, and win these advantages. Tluj military tenant began to criticize the sovereign s policy in undertaking foreign wars, and to demur to his demands for escuage. His natural ally against the power of the crown was the free peasant. In little more than half a century after the bargain which Becket made with the military tenants of the crown, the whole nation, church men, nobles, burghers, and peasants, were united against John and his mercenaries, forced the Great Charter from him, and despite the anathemas of the most powerful pope which ever sat at Rome, insisted that the Charter should be maintained. The history of no European nation supplies a parallel to the events of 1215. It will be found also that this common purpose influenced the minds of all ranks of Englishmen, till, under the unhappy reign of Henry VI,, the feuds of the nobles made havoc of English liberty for a century and a half. But it was during the period of national resistance to the excesses of prerogative, i.e., during the 13th, 14th, and the first half of the loth century, that those precedents were created which served the parliamentary opposition of the 17th century to such good purpose. In the third place, the commutation of personal service was the true cause of parliamentary representation. It is known that the earliest traces of representation are to be found in those elections of county knights who were appointed to assess the contributions for extraordinary necessities which the irregular councils or assemblies of the earlier Plantagenet kings had conceded. From local or county assessments to a national or general assessment, based on uniform principles, was only a step. At firsb there was no need that any but the country districts should be dealt with in this fashion. The resources and liabili ties of the towns were well known, and the king could treat directly with the borough authorities. These rela tions of the crown to the chartered boroughs is the explanation of those anomalous franchises which character ised so many of the boroughs before the Reform Act of 1832. At last, in 1265, Simon de Montfort summoned the representatives of the boroughs as well as the counties, avowedly for the purpose of obtaining their adhesion to his policy, and the precedent w r as copied thirty years later by Edward I. How the parliament gradually, through its control over the supply of funds for the extraordinary necessities of the crown, undertook the cognizance and remedy of abuses, assumed legislative functions, affirmed its own piivileges, debated political questions, changed or determined the succession to the crown, extended or narrowed the franchises of the electors, and criticized the royal administration and expenditure, is matter of familiar history. The origin of the English parliament was peculiar, as its place in modern European history was unique, till, at the conclusion of the 18th century, other countries began to imitate the forms and traditions of the English constitution, and at last a free parliament has become a symbol and condition of constitu tional government. It has been stated that finance, during the Plantagenet and Tudor dynasties, consisted mainly in the occasional imposition of direct taxes. The crown made known its necessities, and the parliament declared the amount of sup ply. At a period which is not settled, the right or duty of originating supply became vested in the lower chamber. It is probable that this great privilege, to which the House of Commons owes its ascendency, but which was formally conceded only in the reign of Charles II., was partly due to the willingness of the Lords to throw on the lower chamber the odium or danger of refusing or cutting down the demands of the crown, partly to the original character of parliamentary representation, the fact, namely, that it was called into being for the purpose of assessment. In course of time, the House of Commons assumed the right of giving validity to the grants of the clergy in their Con vocations, a right which they angrily affirmed in the first