ns of towns established their
liberty, both personal and political, far earlier than the dwellers on
agricultural land.

959-975-EDGAR.

CAP. 1. "_Secular Ordinance_. Now this is the secular ordinance
which I will that it be held. This, then, is first what I will:
that every man be worthy of folk-right, as well poor as rich;
and that righteous dooms be judged to him; and let there be such
remission in the 'bot' as may be becoming before God and tolerable
before the world."

1016. CANUTE.

CAP. 71. "And if any one depart this life intestate, be it through
his neglect, be it through sudden death; then let not the lord
draw more from his property than his lawful heriot. And according
to his direction, let the property be distributed very justly to
the wife and children and relations, to every one according to the
degree that belongs to him."

CAP. 81. "And I will that every man be entitled to his hunting in
wood and in field, on his own possession. And let every one forego
my hunting: take notice where I will have it untrespaesed on under
penalty of the full 'wite.'"

But even the great code of Edward the Confessor has, for the most
part, to do only with political divisions, what shall be a shire, what
a parish, etc., and certain technical matters that have now grown
obsolete. So we may conclude with the statement, substantially
accurate, that there was practically no _new_ legislation, no
constructive legislation under the Saxons; their social law was all
unwritten.

And Parliament did not begin by being a law-making body. Its
legislative functions were not very active, as they were confined to
declaring what the law was; more important were its executive and
judicial functions. In modern English government, particularly in our
own, one of the basic principles is that of the three departments,
executive, legislative, and judicial; the Norman or Roman theory
rather reposed all power in one; that is, in the sovereign, commonly,
of course, the king, the others being theoretically his advisers or
servants. In England, to-day, the real sovereign is the Parliament;
the merest shadow of sovereignty is left to the executive, the king,
and none whatever given the judicial branch. In this country we
preserve the three branches distinct, though none, not all three
together, are sovereign; it is the people who are that. And each
department is of equal