nceptions of private property and public
trust. 'In so far as the ideal of feudalism is perfectly realised,' it
has been said,[27] 'all that we can call public law is merged in private
law; jurisdiction is property; office is property; the kingship itself
is property.' This feudal ideal was still preserved with many of the
institutions descended from feudalism. The king's right to his throne
was regarded as of the same kind as the right to a private estate. His
rights as king were also his rights as the owner of the land.[28]
Subordinate landowners had similar rights, and as the royal power
diminished greater powers fell to the aggregate of constitutional
kinglets who governed the country. Each of them was from one point of
view an official, but each also regarded his office as part of his
property. The country belonged to him and his class rather than he to
the country. We occasionally find the quaint theory which deduced
political rights from property in land. The freeholders were the owners
of the soil and might give notice to quit to the rest of the
population.[29] They had therefore a natural right to carry on
government in their own interests. The ruling classes, however, were not
marked off from others by any deep line of demarcation; they could sell
their own share in the government to anybody who was rich enough to buy
it, and there was a constant influx of new blood. Moreover, they did in
fact improve their estate with very great energy, and discharged
roughly, but in many ways efficiently, the duties which were also part
of their property. The nobleman or even the squire was more than an
individual; as head of a family he was a life tenant of estates which he
desired to transmit to his descendants. He was a 'corporation sole' and
had some of the spirit of a corporation. A college or a hospital is
founded to discharge a particular function; its members continue perhaps
to recognise their duty; but they resent any interference from outside
as sacrilege or confiscation. It is for them alone to judge how they can
best carry out, and whether they are actually carrying out, the aims of
the corporate life. In the same way the great noble took his part in
legislation, church preferment, the command of the army, and so forth,
and fully admitted that he was bound in honour to play his part
effectively; but he was equally convinced that he was subject to nothing
outside of his sense of honour. His duties were also his rig