Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/273

Rh shows how this ancient method of land-division has left its traces upon that far-famed highway.

Next came the Normans and William's charter to the city, nominally a declaration of liberty, actually the commencement of thraldom, if such a term be not too harsh and too strong to apply to the condition of things then inaugurated. At any rate the city had no need to beg for the freedom which she was granted, for she had that already, and the real object of the charter was the assertion of royal rule where doubt as to that rule might have existed. Further, the Norman Castle rose just outside the walls but near enough to exercise its control over the city.

Finally, in our own days, the sovereign is crowned outside the city and asks afterwards for admission into it. "In these two connected ceremonies, coronation at Westminster and admission to the city, we have the last remnants of the ancient constitutional position of London—the monarch elected in English fashion outside the city, and then being admitted within the city in London fashion. The quasi-independence of London could not be better illustrated. It comes to her from her Roman past. It shows that it was the same system of government passing on from Roman to Norman times, not a different system altogether. It dominates her present conception of necessary aloofness from the developed London which surrounds her. It is a factor in modern politics" (p. 197). Such is Sir Laurence's thesis in briefest outline. That it will be accepted point by point by all is perhaps scarcely to be expected, but this may be said, that those who touch his shield for the combat will need to arm themselves for the fray with care, for they have a doughty warrior to meet, and one equipped with a copious armament of facts for the defence of the position of which he is the champion.