ons to which he became himself a victim. Margaret
perhaps, by her sanguinary violence in the Coventry parliament of 1460,
where the duke and all his adherents were attainted, left him not the
choice of remaining a subject with impunity. But with us, who are to
weigh these ancient factions in the balance of wisdom and justice, there
should be no hesitation in deciding that the house of Lancaster were
lawful sovereigns of England. I am, indeed, astonished that not only
such historians as Carte, who wrote undisguisedly upon a Jacobite
system, but even men of juster principles, have been inadvertent enough
to mention the right of the house of York. If the original consent of
the nation, if three descents of the crown, if repeated acts of
parliament, if oaths of allegiance from the whole kingdom, and more
particularly from those who now advanced a contrary pretension, if
undisturbed, unquestioned possession during sixty years, could not
secure the reigning family against a mere defect in their genealogy,
when were the people to expect tranquillity? Sceptres were committed,
and governments were instituted, for public protection and public
happiness, not certainly for the benefit of rulers, or for the security
of particular dynasties. No prejudice has less in its favour, and none
has been more fatal to the peace of mankind, than that which regards a
nation of subjects as a family's private inheritance. For, as this
opinion induces reigning princes and their courtiers to look on the
people as made only to obey them, so, when the tide of events has swept
them from their thrones, it begets a fond hope of restoration, a sense
of injury and of imprescriptible rights, which give the show of justice
to fresh disturbances of public order, and rebellions against
established authority. Even in cases of unjust conquest, which are far
stronger than any domestic revolution, time heals the injury of wounded
independence, the forced submission to a victorious enemy is changed
into spontaneous allegiance to a sovereign, and the laws of God and
nature enjoin the obedience that is challenged by reciprocal benefits.
But far more does every national government, however violent in its
origin, become legitimate, when universally obeyed and justly exercised,
the possession drawing after it the right; not certainly that success
can alter the moral character of actions, or privilege usurpation before
the tribunal of human opinion, or in the pages of his