Part 2

The various systems may have run one into the other, but I think there are sufficiently distinct features to place them in the following order:

1st. The Aboriginal.

2d. The Roman, Population about 1,500,000.

3d. The Scandinavian under the ANGLO-SAXON and Danish kings--A.D. 450 to A.D. 1066. The population in 1066 was 2,150,000.

4th. The Norman, from A.D. 1066 to A.D. 1154. The population in the latter year was 3,350,000.

5th. The Plantagenet, from 1154 to 1485; in the latter the population was 4,000,000.

6th. The Tudor, 1485 to 1603, when the population was 5,000,000.

7th. The Stuarts, 1603 to 1714, the population having risen to 5,750,000.

8th. The Present, from 1714. Down to 1820 the soil supported the population; now about one half lives upon food produced in other countries. In 1874 the population was 23,648,607.

Each of these periods has its own characteristic, but as I must compress my remarks, you must excuse my passing rapidly from one to the other.

I. THE ABORIGINES.

The aboriginal period is wrapped in darkness, and I cannot with certainty say whether the system that prevailed was Celtic and Tribal. An old French customary, in a MS. treating upon the antiquity of tenures, says: "The first English king divided the land into four parts. He gave one part to the ARCH FLAMENS to pray for him and his posterity. A second part he gave to the earls and nobility, to do him knight's service. A third part he divided among husbandmen, to hold of him in socage. The fourth he gave to mechanical persons to hold in burgage." The terms used apply to a much more recent period and more modern ideas.

Caesar tells us "that the island of Britain abounds in cattle, and the greatest part of those within the country never sow their land, but live on flesh and milk. The sea-coasts are inhabited by colonies from Belgium, which, having established themselves in Britain, began to cultivate the soil."

Diodorus Siculus says, "The Britons, when they have reaped their corn, by cutting the ears from the stubble, lay them up for preservation in subterranean caves or granaries. From thence, they say, in very ancient times, they used to take a certain quantity of ears out every day, and having dried and bruised the grains, made a kind of food for their immediate use."

Jeffrey of Monmouth relates that one of the laws of Dunwalls Molnutus, who is said to have reigned B.C. 500, enacted that the ploughs of the husbandmen, as well as the temples of the gods, should be sanctuaries to such criminals as fled to them for protection.

Tacitus states that the Britons were not a free people, but were under subjection to many different kings.

Dr. Henry, quoting Tacitus, says, "In the ancient German and British nation the whole riches of the people consisted in their flocks and herds; the laws of succession were few and simple: a man's cattle, at death, were equally divided among his sons; or, if he had no sons, his daughters; or if he had no children, among his nearest relations. These nations seem to have had no idea of the rights of primogeniture, or that the eldest son had any title to a larger share of his father's effects than the youngest."

The population of England was scanty, and did not probably exceed a million of inhabitants. They were split up into a vast number of petty chieftainries or kingdoms; there was no cohesion, no means of communication between them; there was no sovereign power which could call out and combine the whole strength of the nation. No single chieftain could oppose to the Romans a greater force than that of one of its legions, and when a footing was obtained in the island, the war became one of detail; it was a provincial rather that a national contest. The brave, though untrained and ill-disciplined warriors, fell before the Romans, just as the Red Man of North America was vanquished by the English settlers.

II. THE ROMAN.

The Romans acted with regard to all conquered nations upon the maxim, "To the victors the spoils." Britain was no exception. The Romans were the first to discover or create an ESTATE OF USES in land, as distinct from an estate of possession. The more ancient nations, the Jews and the Greeks, never recognized THE ESTATE OF USES, though there is some indication of it in the relation established by Joseph in Egypt, when, during the years of famine, he purchased for Pharaoh the lands of the people. The Romans having seized upon lands in Italy belonging to conquered nations, considered them public lands, and rented them to the soldiery, thus retaining for the state the estate in the lands, but giving the occupier an estate of uses. The rent of these public lands was fixed at one tenth of the produce, and this was termed USUFRUCT--the use of the fruits.

The British chiefs, who submitted to the Romans, were subjected to a tribute or rent in corn; it varied, according to circumstances, from one fifth to one twentieth of the produce. The grower was bound to deliver it at the prescribed places. This was felt to be a great hardship, as they were often obliged to carry the grain great distances, or pay a bribe to be excused. This oppressive law was altered by Julius Agricola.

The Romans patronized agriculture--Cato says, "When the Romans designed to bestow the highest praise on a good man, they used to say he understood agriculture well, and is an excellent husbandman, for this was esteemed the greatest and most honorable character." Their system produced a great alteration in Britain, and converted it into the most plentiful province of the empire; it produced sufficient corn for its own inhabitants, for the Roman legions, and also afforded a great surplus, which was sent up the Rhine. The Emperor Julian built new granaries in Germany, in which he stored the corn brought from Britain. Agriculture had greatly improved in England under the Romans.

The Romans do not appear to have established in England any military tenures of land, such as those they created along the Danube and the Rhine; nor do they appear to have taken possession of the land; the tax they imposed upon it, though paid in kind, was more of the nature of a tribute than a rent. Though some of the best of the soldiers in the Roman legions were Britons, yet their rule completely enervated the aboriginal inhabitants--they were left without leaders, without cohesion. Their land was held by permission of the conquerors. The wall erected at so much labor in the north of England proved a less effectual barrier against the incursions of the Picts and Scots than the living barrier of armed men which, at a later period, successfully repelled their invasions. The Roman rule affords another example that material prosperity cannot secure the liberties of a people, that they must be armed and prepared to repel by force any aggression upon their liberty or their estates.

"Who will be free, themselves must strike the blow."

The prosperous "Britons," who were left by the Romans in possession of the island, were but feeble representatives of those who, under Caractacus and Boadicea, did not shrink from combat with the legions of Caesar. Uninured to arms, and accustomed to obedience, they looked for a fresh master, and sunk into servitude and serfdom, from which they never emerged. Yet under the Romans they had thriven and increased in material wealth; the island abounded in numerous flocks and herds; and agriculture, which was encouraged by the Romans, flourished. This wealth was by one of the temptations to the invaders, who seized not only upon the movable wealth of the natives, but also upon the land, and divided it among themselves.

The warlike portion of the aboriginal inhabitants appear to have joined the Cymri and retired westward. Their system of landholding was non-feudal, inasmuch as each man's land was divided among all his sons. One of the laws of Hoel Dha, King of Wales in the tenth century, decreed "that the youngest son shall have an equal share of the estate with the eldest son, and that when the brothers have divided their father's estate among them, the youngest son shall have the best house with all the office houses; the implements of husbandry, his father's kettle, his axe for cutting wood, and his knife; these three last things the father cannot give away by gift, nor leave by his last will to any but his youngest son, and if they are pledged they shall be redeemed." It may not be out of place here to say that this custom continued to exist in Wales; and on its conquest Edward I. ordained, "Whereas the custom is otherwise in Wales than England concerning succession to an inheritance, inasmuch as the inheritance is partible among the heirs-male, and from time whereof the memory of man is not to the contrary hath been partible, Our Lord the King will not have such custom abrogated, but willeth that inheritance shall remain partible among like heirs as it was wont to be, with this exception that bastards shall from henceforth not inherit, and also have portions with the lawful heirs; and if it shall happen that any inheritance should hereafter, upon failure of heirs-male, descend to females, the lawful heirs of their ancestors last served thereof. We will, of our especial grace, that the same women shall have their portions thereof, although this be contrary to the custom of Wales before used."

The land system of Wales, so recognized and regulated by Edward I., remained unchanged until the reign of the first Tudor monarch. Its existence raises the presumption that the aboriginal system of landholding in England gave each son a share of his father's land, and if so, it did not correspond with the Germanic system described by Caesar, nor with the tribal system of the Celts in Ireland, nor with the feudal system subsequently introduced.

The polity of the Romans, which endured in Gaul, Spain, and Italy, and tinged the laws and usages of these countries after they had been occupied by the Goths, totally disappeared in England; and even Christianity, which partially prevailed under the Romans, was submerged beneath the flood of invasion. Save the material evidence of the footprints of "the masters of the world" in the Roman roads, Roman wall, and some other structures, there is no trace of the Romans in England. Their polity, laws, and language alike vanished, and did not reappear for centuries, when their laws and language were reimported.