e affectations of chivalry, and the
subtleties of school philosophy: the feudal ideas of civil government,
the Romish sentiments in religion, had taken entire possession of the
people: by the former, the sense of submission towards princes was
somewhat diminished in the barons; by the latter the devoted
attachment to papal authority was much augmented among the clergy.
The Norman and other foreign families established in England had now
struck deep root; and being entirely incorporated with the people,
whom at first they oppressed and despised, they no longer thought that
they needed protection of the crown for the enjoyment of their
possessions, or considered their tenure as precarious. They aspired
to the same liberty and independence which they saw enjoyed by their
brethren on the continent, and desired to restrain those exorbitant
prerogatives and arbitrary practices, which the necessities of war and
the violence of conquest had at first obliged them to indulge in their
monarch. That memory also of a more equal government under the Saxon
princes, which remained with the English, diffused still farther the
spirit of liberty, and made the barons both desirous of more
independence to themselves, and willing to indulge it to the people.
And it was not long ere this secret revolution in the sentiments of
men produced, first violent convulsions in the state, then an evident
alteration in the maxims of government.

The history of all the preceding Kings of England since the Conquest
gives evident proofs of the disorders attending the feudal
institutions; the licentiousness of the barons, their spirit of
rebellion against the prince and laws, and of animosity against each
other: the conduct of the barons in the transmarine dominions of those
monarchs afforded perhaps still more flagrant instances of these
convulsions; and the history of France, during several ages, consists
almost entirely of narrations of this nature. The cities, during the
continuance of this violent government, could neither be very numerous
nor populous; and there occur instances which seem to evince, that
though these are always the first seat of law and liberty, their
police was in general loose and irregular, and exposed to the same
disorders with those by which the country was generally infested. It
was a custom in London for great numbers, to the amount of a hundred
or more, the sons and relations of considerable citizens, to form
themselves