er
crimes. Their chief was more their sovereign than the king himself; and
their own band was more connected with them than their country. Hence
the perpetual turbulence, disorders, factions, and civil wars of those
times: hence the small regard paid to a character, or the opinion of the
public: hence the large discretionary prerogatives of the crown, and the
danger which might have ensued from the too great limitation of them. If
the king had possessed no arbitrary powers, while all the nobles assumed
and exercised them, there must have ensued an absolute anarchy in the
state.

One great mischief attending these confederacies was, the extorting
from the king pardons for the most enormous crimes. The parliament
often endeavored, in the last reign, to deprive the prince of this
prerogative; but, in the present, they were content with an abridgment
of it. They enacted, that no pardon for rapes, or for murder from malice
prepense, should be valid, unless the crime were particularly specified
in it.[*] There were also some other circumstances required for passing
any pardon of this kind: an excellent law, but ill observed, like most
laws that thwart the manners of the people, and the prevailing customs
of the times.

* 13 Richard II. chap. 1

It is easy to observe, from these voluntary associations among the
people, that the whole force of the feudal system was in a manner
dissolved, and that the English had nearly returned, in that particular,
to the same situation in which they stood before the Norman conquest.
It was, indeed, impossible that that system could long subsist under the
perpetual revolutions to winch landed property is every where subject.
When the great feudal baronies were first erected, the lord lived in
opulence in the midst of his vassals: he was in a situation to protect,
and cherish and defend them: the quality of patron naturally united
itself to that of superior: and these two principles of authority
mutually supported each other. But when by the various divisions and
mixtures of property, a man's superior came to live at a distance
from him, and could no longer give him shelter or countenance, the
tie gradually became more fictitious than real: new connections from
vicinity or other causes were formed: protection was sought by voluntary
services and attachment: the appearance of valor spirit, abilities in
any great man, extended his interest very far, and if the sovereign were
deficient in