enewal of the Laws of St. Edward, or the ancient Saxon laws, as our
historians and law-writers generally, though very groundlessly, assert.
They bear no resemblance in any particular to the Laws of St. Edward, or
to any other collection of these ancient institutions. Indeed, how
should they? The object of Magna Charta is the correction of the feudal
policy, which was first introduced, at least in any regular form, at the
Conquest, and did not subsist before it. It may be further observed,
that in the preamble to the Great Charter it is stipulated that the
barons shall _hold_ the liberties there granted _to them and their
heirs, from the king and his heirs_; which shows that the doctrine of an
unalienable tenure was always uppermost in their minds. Their idea even
of liberty was not (if I may use the expression) perfectly free; and
they did not claim to possess their privileges upon any natural
principle or independent bottom, but just as they held their lands from
the king. This is worthy of observation.

By the Feudal Law, all landed property is, by a feigned conclusion,
supposed to be derived, and therefore to be mediately or immediately
held, from the crown. If some estates were so derived, others were
certainly procured by the same original title of conquest by which the
crown itself was acquired, and the derivation from the king could in
reason only be considered as a fiction of law. But its consequent rights
being once supposed, many real charges and burdens grew from a fiction
made only for the preservation of subordination; and in consequence of
this, a great power was exercised over the persons and estates of the
tenants. The fines on the succession to an estate, called in the feudal
language _reliefs_, were not fixed to any certainty, and were therefore
frequently made so excessive that they might rather be considered as
redemptions or new purchases than acknowledgments of superiority and
tenure. With respect to that most important article of marriage, there
was, in the very nature of the feudal holding, a great restraint laid
upon it. It was of importance to the lord that the person who received
the feud should be submissive to him; he had, therefore, a right to
interfere in the marriage of the heiress who inherited the feud. This
right was carried further than the necessity required: the male heir
himself was obliged to marry according to the choice of his lord; and
even widows, who had made one sacrifice to