: This is an annual sum granted by parliament at the commencement of each reign, for the expense of the royal household and establishment, as distinguished from the general exigencies of the State; and is the provision before stated to be made for the crown, out of the taxes, in lieu of its proper patrimony, and in consideration of the assignment of that patrimony to the public use. This arrangement has prevailed from the time of the Revolution downwards, though the amount fixed for the civil list has been subject in different reigns to considerable variation. At the commencement of the present reign a civil list was settled on her majesty for life to the amount of 385,000l. per annum, payable quarterly, out of the consolidated fund, of which the sum of 60,000l. is assigned for her majesty's privy purse in return for which grant it was provided, that the hereditary revenues of the crown (with the exception of the hereditary duties of excise on beer, ale, and cyder, which were to be discontinued during the present reign) should, during the present queen's life, be carried to, and form part of the consolidated fund (t). [The civil list (as will sufficiently appear from these explanations) is properly the whole of the sovereign's revenue in his own distinct capacity; the rest being rather the revenue of the public or its creditors, though collected and distributed again in the name and by the officers of the crown.] The civil list, therefore, now stands [in the same place as the hereditary income did formerly ;] but with this great difference, that it is not chargeable, as the hereditary income was, with the general and public expenses of government. [The whole revenue of Queen Elizabeth amounted to 600,000l. ayear (u); that of King Charles the first was 800,000l. (v) ; ciple: "that, whenever any sums "should be raised by loans on per"petual redeemable annuities, a sum "equal to one per cent. on the stock "created by such loan should be "issued out of the produce of the "consolidated fund quarterly, and "be placed to the account of the "commissioners for reduction of the "national debt." See 32 Geo. 3, c. 69. (t) 1 & 2 Vict. c. 2. (u) Lord Clar. Continuation, 163. (v) Com. Journ. 4th September, 1660. [and the revenue voted for King Charles the second was 1,200,000l. (x); though complaints were made (in the first years at least) that it did not amount to so much (y). But it must be observed, that under these sums were included all manner of public expenses; among which Lord Clarendon, in his speech to the parliament, computed that the charge of the navy and land forces amounted annually to 800,000l., which was ten times more than before the former troubles (z). The same revenue, subject to the same charges, was settled on King James the second (a); but by the increase of trade and more frugal management, it amounted on an average to a million and a half per annum (besides other additional customs granted by parliament (b), which produced an annual revenue of 400,000l.), out of which his fleet and army were maintained at the yearly expense of 1,100,000l. (c).] [Upon the whole, it is doubtless much better for the crown, and also for the people, to have the revenue settled upon the modern footing rather than the antient for the crown, because it is more certain, and collected with greater ease; for the people, because they are now delivered from the feudal hardships, and other odious branches of the prerogative. And though complaints have sometimes been made of the increase of the civil list, yet if we consider the sums that have been formerly granted, the limited extent under which it is now established, the revenues and prerogatives given up in lieu of it by the crown, and, above all, the diminution of the value of money, compared with what it was worth in former reigns, we must acknowledge these complaints to be void of any rational foundation: and that it is impossible to support that dignity, which a sovereign of this country should maintain, with an income in any degree less than what is now established by parliament.] (x) Com. Journ. 14th Sept. 1660. Clar. Continuation, 165. (z) Lord Clar. 165. (a) Stat. 1 Jac. 2, c. 1. (b) Stat. 1 Jac. 2, cc. 3, 4. (c) Com. Journ. 1 Mar. and 20 Mar. 1688. CHAPTER VIII. OF THE ROYAL FORCES. IT will be recollected, that in a former place, when considering that branch of the royal prerogative which relates to the right of military command, we postponed the discussion of the manner in which the royal forces were raised and regulated (a). To this subject, after some preliminary remarks on the history of our military system, we now propose to devote the present chapter. [In the time of our Saxon ancestors, as appears from Edward the Confessor's laws (b), the military force of this kingdom was in the hands of the dukes or heretochs, who were constituted through every province and county in the kingdom; being taken out of the principal nobility, and such as were most remarkable for being "sapientes, fideles, et animosi." Their duty was to lead and regulate the English armies, with a very unlimited power; "prout eis visum fuerit ad honorem coronæ et utilitatem regni." And because of this great power they were elected by the people in their full assembly, or folkmote, in the same manner as sheriffs were elected: following still that old fundamental maxim of the Saxon constitution, that where any officer was entrusted with such power, as if abused might tend to the oppression of the people, that power was delegated to him by the vote of the people themselves (c). So too, among the antient universas, et per singulos comitatus, in pleno folkmote, sicut et vicecomites, provinciarum et comitatuum, eligi debent." - Ll. Edw. Confess. ubi sup. See also Bede, Eccl. Hist. 1. 5, c. 10. (a) Vide sup. p. 510. (b) Wilkins, Leg. Anglo-Sax. Ll. Edw. Confess. C. De Heretochiis. (c) "Isti vero viri eligebantur per commune consilium, pro communi utilitate regni, per provincias et patrias [Germans, the ancestors of our Saxon forefathers, they had their dukes, as well as kings, with an independent power over the military, as the kings had over the civil state. The dukes were elective, the kings hereditary: for so only can be consistently understood that passage of Tacitus (d), "reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt:" in constituting their kings, the family or blood royal was regarded; in choosing their dukes or leaders, warlike merit: just as Cæsar relates of their ancestors in his time, that whenever they went to war, by way either of attack or defence, they elected leaders to command them (e). This large share of power, thus conferred by the people, though intended to preserve the liberty of the subject, was perhaps unreasonably detrimental to the prerogative of the crown: and accordingly we find a very ill use made of it by Edric Duke of Mercia, in the reign of King Edmund Ironside, who, by his office of duke or heretoch, was entitled to a large command in the king's army, and by his repeated treacheries at last transferred the crown to Canute the Dane. It seems universally agreed by all historians, that King Alfred first settled a national militia in this kingdom, and by his prudent discipline made all the subjects of his dominion soldiers; but we are unfortunately left in the dark as to the particulars of this his so celebrated regulation; though, from what was last observed, the dukes seem to have been left in the possession of too large and independent a power which enabled Duke Harold, on the death of Edward the Confessor, though a stranger to the royal blood, to mount for a short space the throne of this kingdom, in prejudice of Edgar Atheling, the rightful heir. Upon the Norman conquest the feudal law was introduced here in all its rigour, the whole of which is built on a military plan.] The particulars of that constitution have been already explained (f). [It is sufficient here to observe, (d) De Morib. Germ. 7. (e) "Quum bellum civitas aut illatum defendit, aut infert, magistratus qui ei bello præsint, deliguntur.”- [that, in consequence thereof, all the lands in the kingdom,] held by tenure in chivalry, [were divided into what were called knights' fees, in number above sixty thousand; and for every knight's fee a knight or soldier, miles, was bound to attend the king in his wars for forty days in a year (g); in which space of time, before war was reduced to a science, the campaign was generally finished, and a kingdom either conquered or victorious. By these means the king had, without any expense, an army of sixty thousand men always ready at his command. And accordingly we find one, among the laws of William the Conqueror (h), which in the king's name commands and firmly enjoins the personal attendance of all knights and others; “quod habeant et teneant se semper bene in armis et in equis, ut decet et oportet: et quod sint semper prompti et parati ad servitium suum integrum nobis explendum et peragendum, cum opus adfuerit, secundum quod debent de feodis et tenementis suis de jure nobis facere." This personal service in process of time degenerated into pecuniary commutations or aids, and at last the] tenure in chivalry itself [was abolished at the restoration, by statute 12 Car. II. c. 24. In the meantime we are not to imagine that the kingdom was left wholly without defence in case of domestic insurrections, or the prospect of foreign invasions. Besides those, who by their military tenures were bound to perform forty days' service in the field, first the assize of arms, enacted 27 Hen. II. (i), and afterwards the statute of Winchester (k), under Edward the first, obliged every man, according to his estate and degree, to provide a determinate quantity of such arms as were then in use, in order to keep the peace: and constables were appointed in all hundreds by the latter (g) We frequently read of half or other aliquot part of a knight; (as that for so much land three knights and a half, &c. were to be returned). The fraction of a knight was performed by a whole knight, who served half the time, or other due (h) C. 58. See Co. Litt. 75, 76. |
