It is related that this very document was lost for near two centuries, and was discovered at last by the celebrated Sir Robert Cotton, who, on calling upon his tailor one day, discovered him in the act of cutting up an old parchment deed, with a great number of seals attached thereto. His curiosity was awakened, and he examined it minutely, when he discovered that it was the Great Charter, or Magna Charta of England! He took possession of it, and, had it not been for this timely rescue, the palladium of England's liberties would have been appropriated to the unholy office of measuring his majesty's lieges for coats and breeches. It is now deposited in the Cottonian Library, in the British Museum.* It is a curious circumstance, also, that out of twenty-six barons who signed Magna Charta, only three could write their names; the remainder merely signing, or having signed their marks TRIAL BY JURY. Some authors have endeavoured to trace the origin of juries up as high as the Britons themselves, the first inhabitants of our islands; but certain it is they were in use among the earlier Saxon colonies, this institution being ascribed by Bishop Nicol son to Woden himself, their great legislator and captain. When the Normans came in, William, though commonly called the Conqueror, was so far from abrogating this privilege of juries, that, in the fourth year of his reign, he confirmed all king Edward the Confessor's laws, and the ancient customs of the kingdom, whereof this was an essential and most material part. Afterwards, when the Great Charter, commonly called Magna Charta, which is nothing else than a recital, confirmation, and corroboration of our ancient English liberties, was made and put under the Great Seal of England, in the 9th year of king Henry III., A.D. 1225, then was this privilege of trials by juries in an especial manner confirmed and established, as in the 14th chapter that no amercement shall be assessed, but by the oath of good and honest men of the vicinage. And more fully in the twenty-ninth chapter: no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseized of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other way destroyed, nor shall we pass upon him, or condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers. This Grand Charter, having been confirmed by above thirty Acts of Parliament, the said rights of juries thereby, and by constant usage and common custom of England, which is the common law, are brought down to us as our undoubted birthright, and are, in fact, the best inheritance of every Englishman. In Stourhead Grounds, belonging to Sir Richard Hoare, Bart., * See Cottonian Library. is a tower erected in memory of Alfred the Great. Over the entrance is the following inscription : Alfred the Great, A. D. 870, on this Summit To him we owe the Origin of Juries, CONFINING JURORS FROM MEAT AND DRINK. An Italian author, in his Antiquities, plainly affirms, that this regulation was framed for the purpose of avoiding the unsound decrees conséquent upon intoxication; and Dr. Gilbert Stuart very patiently and ingeniously affirms, in his Historical Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the British Constitution, p. 238, that from the propensity of the older Britons to indulge excessively in eating and drinking, has proceeded the restriction upon jurors and jurymen, to refrain from meat and drink, and to be even held in custody, until they had agreed upon their verdict. EXEMPTION OF SURGEONS AND BUTCHERS FROM SERVING ON JURIES. The reason commonly assigned for the privilege of surgeons, in being exempt from serving on juries is, that they are too constantly in the habit of suppressing the human feelings. But this is not the real cause of the privilege, as appears from the following extract from Andrews' History of England: "In the same year (ie., 1513), the Corporation of Surgeons, consisting of twelve, a number being then thought equal to the care of the metropolis, petitioned parliament to be exempted from bearing arms, or serving on juries and parish offices; and their petition was successful." This, however, is not the case with the Knights of the Cleaver, commonly yclept butchers. In M'Queen's Historical Records, we find the following notice on the subject. During this session (1661), Mr. Hyde brought in a bill to prohibit butchers from serving on juries in cases of life and death, which unanimously passed both houses of parliament, and received the royal assent. It is very strange, continues the historian, that so judicious and humane an enactment had not been passed before; not that they (butchers) should be considered as devoid of the common feelings of humanity, but more liable to its infirmities, from their avoca tions necessarily compelling them to the performance of a duty, incompatible with those feelings which they hitherto had been called upon to exercise in the capacity of jurymen. BENEFIT OF CLERGY. As the true meaning of the term may perhaps not be generally known, the following definition is given: felony, which comprehends almost numberless species of crimes, is subdivided into two classes-with, or without benefit of clergy. The benefit of clergy, at present, signifies an exemption from capital punishment in all felonies where the legislature has not taken away that benefit by express words. The origin of this principle, which is very little understood, is as follows: At the time the Romish faith was prevalent in this country, the clergy claimed an exemption from punishment for all secular offences, and the legislature was so far duped by them as to grant them that privilege; therefore, whenever a priest was convicted of a crime, for which another man would suffer death, he was discharged without punishment, on proving himself to be an ecclesiastic. The clergy did not fail to avail themselves of this advantage, and committed all sorts of enormity with impunity. This induced the parliaments at various times to subject them to capital punishments for particular offences, by taking away from those offences the benefit of clergy. In those dark superstitious times, every person who could read, was presumed in law to be a priest in orders; and till the reign of Anne, a man who was not possessed of this qualification, was liable to be hanged for an offence, which one possessed of it would only be burnt in the hand for; but since that time, laymen are allowed the benefit of clergy, once. The clergy, however, are entitled to claim it as often as they have occasion, and are exempted from the punishment of burning in the hand by the statute of 1 Edward VI., which extends the same privilege to Peers of the Realm, whom it also exempts from capital punishment for the crimes of housebreaking, highway robbery, horse-stealing, and robbing of churches. Felony without benefit of clergy, are capital offences, of which Sir William Blackstone, in his time, enumerates 160. By the recent statutes for the improvement of the criminal code, commonly called Peel's Acts (7 and 8 George IV. c. 28), it is enacted, "that benefit of clergy with respect to persons convicted of felony shall be abolished." BOROUGHS. As we are constantly hearing the word Boroughmonger made use of, the original signification of the term borough is here introduced. Borough originally meant a company, consisting of ten families, which were bound together as each other's pledge. Afterwards borough came to signify a town, having a wall or some kind of enclosure round. And all places that in old time had the name of borough, it is said, were fortified or fenced, in some shape or other. Borough is a place of safety, or privilege; and some are called free boroughs, and the tradesmen in them free burgesses, from a freedom they had granted to them originally, to buy and sell without disturbance, and exempt from toll. In July, 1833, a royal commission was issued to inquire as to the existing state of the municipal corporations in England and Wales, and to collect information respecting their defects. Their Report was laid before the House of Commons, and ordered to be printed in March, 1835. Upon this Report was founded the Bill, "for the regulation of municipal corporations in England and Wales." The total number of the cities, towns, and ports, reconstituted, under the general name of “ Boroughs" by the Municipal Reform Act, is 178. CORPORATIONS. It is difficult to account for the origin of charter and corporation towns, unless we suppose them to have arisen out of, or been connected with, some species of garrison service. The times in which they began justify this idea. The generality of those towns have been garrisons; and the corporations were charged with the gates of the towns, when no military garrison was present. Their refusing or granting admission to strangers, which has produced the custom of giving, selling, and buying freedom, has more of the nature of garrison authority than civil govern ment. Soldiers are free of all corporations throughout the nation, by the same propriety that every soldier is free of every garrison, and no other persons are. He can follow any employment, with the permission of his officers, in any corporation town throughout the nation. FEUDAL LAWS. The feudal (from feodum) laws, or the tenure of land by suit and service to the owner of it, was introduced into England by the Saxons, about 600. The slavery of this tenure increased under William I., 1068. This was dividing the kingdom into baronies, giving them to certain persons, and requiring those persons to furnish the king with money, and a stated number of soldiers. FOREST AND GAME LAWS. The ancient kings of Media were the first preservers of game. Their extensive paradises, or royal parks, contained numerous species of animals; lions, bears, camelopards, deer, antelopes, wild sheep, and wild asses. But as all those creatures in confinement underwent a kind of civilisation, and lost the wild propensities which distinguished them in their natural state, the more adventurous portion of Median youth always sallied forth to the mountains and forests, when they were desirous of exhibiting their courage or prowess. By the common law introduced into this country by the Normans, all game was the property of the king; no person whatsoever could enjoy the diversion of sporting, unless authorized by royal grant of a chase or free warren; and to kill a deer was deemed almost as heinous an act as to kill a man. It is generally allowed by all who have made remarks, that the game laws, as they subsisted for ages, were a disgrace to the noble fabric of our free constitution; and it is not the more remarkable, since they had their origin in slavery, as the following passage from Blackstone sufficiently demonstrates : In "Another violent alteration of the English constitution, consisted in the depopulation of whole counties for the purposes of the king's royal diversion, and subjecting both them, and all the ancient forests of the kingdom, to the unreasonable severity of forest laws, imported from the continent; whereby the slaughter of a beast was made almost as penal as the death of a man. the Saxon times, though no man was allowed to kill or chase the king's deer, yet he might start any game, pursue, and kill it, upon his own estate. But the rigour of these new constitutions vested the property of all the game in England in the king alone; and no man was allowed to disturb any fowl of the air, or any beast of the field, of such kinds as were especially reserved for the royal amusement of the sovereign, without express licence from the king, by the grant of a chase or free warren; and those franchises were granted as much with a view to preserve the breed of animals, as to indulge the subject. From a similar principle to which, though the forest laws are now mitigated, and grown by degrees entirely obsolete; yet from this root has sprung a bastard slip, known by the name of the Game Laws, now arrived to, and wantoning in, its highest vigour; both founded upon the same unreasonable notions of permanent property in wild creatures; and both productive of the same tyranny to the commons; but with this difference, that the forest laws established only one mighty hunter throughout the land, the game laws have raised a little Nimrod in every manor; and in one respect, the ancient law was much less unreasonable than the modern; for the king's grantee of a chase or free warren, might kill game in any part of his franchise; but now, though a freeholder of less than one hundred a year is forbidden to kill a partridge on his own estate, yet nobody else (not even the lord of the manor), unless he hath a grant of free warren, can do it without committing a trespass, and subjecting himself to an action." |