with still better
reason, the sole direction; the imperfect and unformed laws left in
every thing a latitude of interpretation; and when the ends pursued by
the monarch were in general agreeable to his subjects, little scruple
or jealousy was entertained with regard to the regularity of the means.
During the reign of an able, fortunate, or popular prince, no member
of either house, much less of the lower, durst think of entering into
a formed party in opposition to the court; since the dissolution of the
parliament must in a few days leave him unprotected to the vengeance of
his sovereign, and to those stretches of prerogative which were then so
easily made in order to punish an obnoxious subject. During an unpopular
and weak reign, the current commonly ran so strong against the monarch,
that none durst enlist themselves in the court party; or if the prince
was able to engage any considerable barons on his side, the question was
decided with arms in the field, not by debates or arguments in a senate
or assembly. And upon the whole, the chief circumstance which, during
ancient times, retained the prince in any legal form of administration,
was, that the sword, by the nature of the feudal tenures, remained still
in the hands of his subjects; and this irregular and dangerous check had
much more influence than the regular and methodical limits of the laws
and constitution. As the nation could not be compelled, it was necessary
that every public measure of consequence, particularly that of levying
new taxes, should seem to be adopted by common consent and approbation.

The princes of the house of Tudor, partly by the vigor of their
administration, partly by the concurrence of favorable circumstances,
had been able to establish a more regular system of government; but they
drew the constitution so near to despotism, as diminished extremely the
authority of the parliament. The senate became in a great degree the
organ of royal will and pleasure: opposition would have been regarded as
a species of rebellion: and even religion, the most dangerous article in
which innovations could be introduced, had admitted, in the course of
a few years, four several alterations, from the authority alone of the
sovereign. The parliament was not then the road to honor and preferment:
the talents of popular intrigue and eloquence were uncultivated and
unknown: and though that assembly still preserved authority, and
retained the privilege of makin