hisement. Yet, in the long run, this has been the ideal towards
which the healthy development of national life in Europe has constantly
tended, only the steps towards it have not been taken to suit a
preconceived theory."[32]

Each step towards democracy has been taken "to suit the convenience of
party or the necessities of kings, to induce the newly admitted classes to
give their money, to produce political contentment."

The only two principles that are apparent in the age-long struggles for
political freedom in England, that are recognised and acknowledged, are:
(1) That that which touches all shall be approved by all; (2) that
government rests on the consent of the governed. Over and over again these
two principles may be seen at work.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III

POPULAR INSURRECTION IN ENGLAND

GENERAL RESULTS OF POPULAR RISINGS

Popular insurrection has never been successful in England; a violent death
and a traitor's doom have been the lot of every leader of the common people
who took up arms against the Government. The Civil War that brought Charles
I. to the scaffold, and the Revolution that deposed James II. and set
William of Orange on the throne, were the work of country gentlemen and
Whig statesmen, not of the labouring people.

But if England has never seen popular revolution triumphant and democracy
set up by force of arms, the earlier centuries witnessed more than one
effort to gain by open insurrection some measure of freedom for the working
people of the land.

No other way than violent resistance seemed possible to peasants and
artisans in the twelfth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, if
their wrongs were to be mitigated and their rulers to be called to account.

Langton and Simon of Montfort had placed some check on the power of the
Crown, had laid the foundations of political liberty, and marked the road
to be travelled; but the lot of the labouring people remained unheeded and
voiceless in the councils of the nation. What could they do but take up
arms to end an intolerable oppression?

WILLIAM FITZOSBERT, CALLED LONGBEARD, 1196

The first serious protest came from the London workmen in the reign of
Richard I.; and FitzOsbert, known as Longbeard, was the spokesman of the
popular discontent.

The King wanted money, chiefly for his crusades in Palestine. He had no
inclination to personal government, and the business of ruling England was
in