aches of the peace came to be looked upon
as offenses against him; but he held no court and he had in practice
little to do with the administration of justice. Over local affairs he
had no direct control whatever.

[Footnote 3: Thus, in 871, the minor children of
Ethelred I. were passed over in favor of Alfred,
younger brother of the late king.]

[Footnote 4: The Anglo-Saxon king was "not the
supreme law-giver of Roman ideas, nor the fountain
of justice, nor the irresponsible leader, nor the
sole and supreme politician, nor the one primary
landowner; but the head of the race, the chosen
representative of its identity, the successful
leader of its enterprises, the guardian of its
peace, the president of its assemblies; created by
it, and, although empowered with a higher sanction
in crowning and anointing, answerable to his
people." W. Stubbs, Select Charters Illustrative of
English Constitutional History (8th ed., Oxford,
1895), 12.]

*4. The Witenagemot.*--Associated with the king in the conduct of
public business was the council of wise men, or witenagemot. The
composition of this body, being determined in the main by the will of
the individual monarch, varied widely from time to time. The persons
most likely to be summoned were the members of the royal family, the
greater ecclesiastics, the king's gesiths or thegns, the ealdormen who
administered the shires, other leading officers of state and of the
household, and the principal men who held land directly of the king.
There were included no popularly elected representatives. As a rule,
the witan was called together three or four times a year. Acting with
the king, it made laws, imposed taxes, concluded treaties, appointed
ealdormen and bishops, and occasionally heard cases not disposed of in
the courts of the shire and hundred. It was the witan, furthermore,
that elected the king; and since it could depose him, he was obliged
to recognize a certain responsibility to it. "It has been a marked and
important feature in our constitutional history," it is pointed out by
Anson, "that the king has never, in theory, acted in matters of state
without the counsel and consent