was
perpetuated even till the reign of Charles II. And it appears from
Glanville [i], the famous justiciary of Henry II., that in his time,
where any man died intestate, an accident which must have been very
frequent when the art of writing was so little known, the king, or the
lord of the fief, pretended to seize all the movables, and to exclude
every heir, even the children of the deceased: a sure mark of a
tyrannical and arbitrary government.
[FN [h] Glanv. lib. 2. cap. 36. What is called a relief in the
Conqueror's laws, preserved by Ingulph, seems to have been the heriot;
since reliefs, as well as the other burdens of the feudal law, were
unknown in the age of the Confessor, whose laws these originally were.
[i] Lib. 7. cap. 16. This practice was contrary to the laws of King
Edward ratified by the Conqueror, as we learn from Ingulph, p. 91.
But laws had at this time very little influence: power and violence
governed every thing.]

The Normans, indeed, who domineered in England, were, during this age,
so licentious a people, that they may be pronounced incapable of any
true or regular liberty; which requires such improvement in knowledge
and morals as can only be the result of reflection and experience, and
must grow to perfection during several ages of settled and established
government. A people so insensible to the rights of their sovereign
as to disjoint, without necessity, the hereditary succession, and
permit a younger brother to intrude himself into the place of the
elder, whom they esteemed, and who was guilty of no crime, but being
absent, could not expect that that prince would pay any greater regard
to their privileges, or allow his engagements to fetter his power and
debar him from any considerable interest or convenience. They had,
indeed, arms in their hands, which prevented the establishment of a
total despotism, and left their posterity sufficient power, whenever
they should attain a sufficient degree of reason, to assure true
liberty: but their turbulent disposition frequently prompted them to
make such use of their arms, that they were more fitted to obstruct
the execution of justice, than to stop the career of violence and
oppresion. The prince, finding that greater opposition was often made
to him when he enforced the laws than when he violated them, was apt
to render his own will and pleasure the sole rule of government; and,
at every emergence, to consider more the power of the persons w