e interest of the King. These grants consisted in
charters of incorporation, that the towns might be freed from the rule of
the landed nobility, and might accomplish their own government; and
grants of fairs, and markets, and tolls, as well as the rights of
representation in parliament. Thus in times past the Kings of Britain
were often in friendlier alliance with the towns and burgher nobility,
than with the feudal Barons and landed aristocracy. By this means the
power and privileges of the feudal nobility, which up to the fifteenth
century were nearly absolute and uncontrollable, were much reduced, and
are in the present reign nearly taken away. This result has been owing
almost entirely to the growing importance, influence, and intelligence of
the burgher or trading population. It is thus that in political society
as in nature and the material world, results are accomplished by the
antagonistic operation and conflict of rival or opposing principles,
elements, or influences.

The other great influence which counteracted the feudal spirit from an
earlier period, and mitigated its severities, was religion, or the
Church. This was natural and inevitable; for the overwhelming influence
of religion over the human mind in all ages and nations is the universal
deduction of history. It appears to strike its root even the deeper, in
proportion to the strength and ruggedness of the mind on which it
operates, as plants are more luxuriant from the rankness of the soil
where they grow. The fulminations of Sinai or the dulcet harps of Zion
have seldom failed in moving the heart of man, and exciting its tenderest
and best emotions. We find this verified even in the darkest times, and
among the most ferocious nations. Clovis, Charlemange, and William of
Normandy are magnificent illustrations. The first, from being one of the
most ruthless and savage warriors and conquerors at the head of the
Franks ever known in history, no sooner heard the preaching of the Gospel
through the instrumentality of his wife Clotilda, than he immediately
embraced its truths, and by the most abject humility and self-denying
sacrifices for the remainder of his life endeavored to atone for his past
cruelties. His great successor, Charlemange, less barbarous and with
higher capabilities, at the head of his Germans vanquished continental
Europe after innumerable and ferocious wars; yet succumbed his lofty
spirit to the influence of Christianity, and