(3) Paul resolved to press onward. He had a great object, worthy of his best love and energy. He would put forth great efforts to reach it. The word "" press suggests the idea of struggle and of perseverance in it. He had to cut his way through a host of opposing forces. He had to slay many objects of affection. It was only by courage and persistent energy that he could succeed. Christian progress is no easy thing after all. It requires the crucifixion of self, and the conquest of the world. Success here, as in business, in learning, in anything worth winning, has to be paid for. The price is self-denial, courage, and perseverance. We do not become perfect in character by some sudden inspiration, but by constant thought and vigorous effort. We have to work out, develop, and complete our own salvation, for it is God that worketh in us to will and to do His good pleasure. He gives the thought, we have to embody it in conduct. He inspires the purpose, we have to translate it into actions. He shows the way, we have to walk in it. He reveals within us His will and pleasure, and begets in us the desire to work it out in our life; we have then to do it. It is necessary, therefore, to press, to struggle, to sacrifice, to fight. But so rich is the object of our struggle, that in its possession we shall be more than recompensed for all we have suffered and sacrificed. Reviewing is at this season the order of the day. It is done in every sphere. Men are anxious to know the exact position of their affairs. The wisdom of this is obvious enough. To know our position is necessary to confident action. And then experience. is a wise teacher and a reliable guide. What is done with profit in the temporal world may be done with profit in the spiritual. If any of the above words shall help the reader in his New Year review of his character and life, shall save him from any error, or inspire him with any hope and courage, they will not have been written in vain. Leeds. J. FOSTER. ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. IV.-KINGSHIP. SOME of the German tribes in the old English fatherland had kings, but their authority was limited, and dependent upon the general assembly of the tribe. In the most important tribes, however, both the office and title of king were unknown. It is therefore probable that when bands of Englishmen settled on these shores, some of them had already their kings; and that the rest had simply their military leaders, the supreme authority residing in the general assembly of the free men, which elected its ealderman to guide them in times of peace, and to lead them in battle. In Northumbria, the Angles carried on war with the natives for nearly a century before they had a king; and the occupants of East Anglia and Mercia were many years without any such chief magistrate, or common head. Warfare originated kingship, the temporary chief rising to permanent headship; and the usage of apportioning tracts of land to him enabled him to surround himself with chosen war bands, servants, or thegns, who were rewarded by grants of royal lands, and in time became a class of nobility. The words most commonly found in the oldest Teutonic annals to express the idea of king were theoden-people, and drihten—a family or company, noble or lordly. To express the idea, the word king was invariably used by the English settlers in Britain. The word has some relation of meaning to theoden and drihten. It comes from the word cyning-kin, kindred, akin, or from cyneing-noble, just, which is the same as the Latin genus, from which we get generous. Ing was the Teutonic patronymic for offspring, so that king meant, not father, or head of the race or kindred, but its son or offspring. Though he was looked upon as the representative of the race, yet the most important thing was the race itself, of which the king was an embodiment. Thus arose the fanciful and even romantic notions which have gathered around the throne. It is this idea of relation to the race that lies at the root of the political doctrines, that the king is absolutely perfect, immortal, and omnipresent; he is incapable of doing or, thinking wrong; in him there is no folly or weakness; he never dies; he is invisible; he is absolute and irresistible in his legal authority; all the land belongs to him; all offences are offences against the king, and therefore the prerogative of pardon rests with him; the armed forces by land and sea are his; he can make peace or war at pleasure; and that his acts are the acts of the nation. Rule and government as established in England cannot exist for a moment without some one filling the office of king. This is the ideal of kingship, an ideal which we cannot suppose the kings themselves to have been ignorant of, and which many of them have tried to make actual. Many of the attempts at absolute monarchy as made by the Stuarts may not unreasonably be explained by such lofty and flattering theories. But whilst such is the dangerous ideal, as a matter of fact it is qualified and corrected by other maxims and constitutional principles. The king is not amenable to any earthly tribunal, but he cannot act without an adviser who is responsible. He cannot raise and keep a standing army without consent of Parliament. It is fortunate such restraints do exist, else the subject would be without protection against the Crown, and government would be the glorification and enrichment of one man and his heirs, instead of the means of good to the community at large. "In legal theory the ideal king is supreme, but in practice the power of Parliament is absolute and without control." "The ideal king of the lawyers is above law; the real king of the Constitution is subject to law." In the line of royal exaltation there came up the doctrine of the sacredness of the king. This probably had its origin in "his lordship." The relation between a lord and a man who voluntarily placed himself under him, was looked upon as the closest and most sacred, and treason against a lord was visited with the highest penalties. In process of time, as the Crown rose in dignity and power, a distinction was introduced; treason against the king was high treason, against under lords it was petty treason. Almost all people seem to have looked on the king as something different from any one else-greater and more sacred. Among the heathen Swedes it is said to have been a common practice to sacrifice the life of the king to propitiate the gods. In heathen times kings were supposed to trace their descent from the gods the nations worshipped. The claim which the Stuart kings set up, to be "kings by Divine right," was, therefore, not a new doctrine, but one of great antiquity. The chosen of the people became also the anointed of the Lord. There is a form of the same sentiment in the coronation oath which the Sovereign takes as part of an ecclesiastical ceremony. Coronation adds nothing to regal authority. The death of the former king at once puts his successor in possession of kingly power; though in olden time coronation was an essential part of his exaltation. The vote of the national assembly made him the king-elect, but it was the ecclesiastical crowning and anointing which made him king. Since Edward I., who was the first king that reigned before coronation, hereditary succession has been the rule in practice. Though since then elections and coronations of kings have been to a great extent formal things, the Parliament has repeatedly asserted its right to regulate the succession. In the first centuries of our history (in fact, down to the Norman Conquest) the office of king was both hereditary and elective. There was a royal family, within which there was liberty of choice, as favour, convenience, or accident determined: the succession did not necessarily devolve upon the eldest child. The new king was elected by the free vote of the great council of the nation; and when the royal house failed to supply a fitting candidate, the choice might fall upon the worthiest man of the whole people. It is thus easy to understand that the first great point was the election, and the second point was the descent, and the principle of choice was fitness. In the light of this fact it is remarkable how the line of descent continued. The clearest break was when William the Conqueror was chosen king, without any hereditary title whatever. After him, his son (William II.) reigned; but his successor (Henry I.) reintroduced the old royal blood by marrying Matilda of Scotland, who was in the tenth stage of descent from Ecgberht (A.D. 802-37), with whom our royal genealogical chart begins. In this way may be traced the ancestry of Queen Victoria to the kings of England a thousand years ago (if that be worth aught); but it can be done only by the eye following such intricate lines as are given in Mr. Green's history. Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent 'Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, Aud simple faith than Norman blood. TENNYSON. The old power of electing the king had its natural counterpart in the power to depose him if he should not prove worthy. In the Northumbrian kingdom the depositions were frequent. Since the Norman Conquest there have been three-Edward II., Richard II., James II., and before it, three-Sigeberht, Ethelred, and Harthacnut. That of James II. took place in 1688, when William and Mary were made king and queen, both being grandchildren of Charles I. In 1701 it became again necessary to provide for the succession, William and Mary having no family. Louis of France had also told James II., who had been deposed, that he would reccgnise his son as the king of England. This led to a war with France, and urged the Parliament to fix the line of succession. This was done by the Act of Settlement, which provided that the Crown, after the death of both William and Mary, should devolve on the lineal heirs, first of Mary, then of Anne, and lastly of William. On the death of Mary, without issue, and of the last surviving child of Anne, it was enacted that the Crown should pass to the Princess Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I., and heirs of her body, being Protestants; no Catholic being allowed either to reign or to be consort of the monarch. Victoria, therefore, occupies the throne of England, not solely or chiefly because she happens to be Sophia's grandchild of the fourth generation, but because the Parliament of 180 years ago chose to say that that should be the line. On the strict hereditary principle, neither Mary nor Elizabeth had claim to the Crown, for they were sisters of Edward VI. In the reign of Elizabeth an Act was passed declaring it to be treason either to deny the right of Parliament to direct the descent of the Crown, or to affirm in writing that any person other than the Queen's issue was her lawful successor, until the point should be settled by Parliament. Yet you find in the case of Charles II. the hereditary notion was so strong that when he came to the throne as a restored Stuart, the years of his reign were reckoned from the beheading of his father, the years of the Commonwealth reckoning nothing. The coronation of Henry VIII. was the last during which the assent of the people assembled was formally asked. The Parliament gave him power to dispose of the Crown as he should think fit, and Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth all reigned by virtue of their father's will. His will provided that those lines failing (as they did), the succession should pass to his younger sister, Mary; but, as the people were not favourable to their claim, the Crown passed silently into the line of his elder sister, Margaret, in the teeth of the Act still existing. So that James I., her great-grandson, was a usurper, and had no legal claim to the Crown beyond what Parliament gave him when he was already in possession. It was to patch up this defective title that the "Divine right" doctrine was set up. The important thing to notice in all this is that Parliament has all along held to itself the right to settle the succession, as well as to remove a king should he prove unfit. It is one of the inconsistencies of history that, although Parliament has thus been really the supreme power, it has so often been basely subservient to the king's wishes. It is only to be explained by the romantic notions of kingship which occupied men's minds, and the fascination or glamour of a regal court. The first Queen of England was Mary, in the first year of whose reign it was declared that when the Royal office devolved upon a female, all prerogatives rested in her as in a king, and all statutes referring to a king applied equally to a queen.* No Act of Parliament becomes law until it receives the royal assent. William III. refused assent several times to measures which did not meet with his approval. It was a much commoner thing to refuse it in the Stuart times, but no such case has taken place for 160 years,—since Queen Anne. Royal influence has been brought to bear upon legislation at an earlier stage, so as to prevent a bill passing. George III., for instance, prevented by his influence the removal of disabilities from Roman Catholics, being personally averse to the proposal. The Ministry, that most important element in our political constitution, is nominally appointed by the Sovereign, and she has power to dismiss them. Should Parliament attempt to interfere with the royal prerogative, she can dissolve it. But the Parliament has always two courses to fall back upon in any quarrel with the Crown or Ministry— the opinion of the country, by general election; and refusal to grant supplies for the public service. The influence of the king upon national affairs was formerly much greater and more direct than it is now, or than it has been for several * Queen, from A. S. Cwen, a woman, or quan, a wife. |