of the acceffion of Henry the Firft, and the great things he did for public liberty, contains fome curious and uncommon obfervations. "The nation refolved to give the crown to a prince, who should acquire and hold it under no other claim than a compact with his people: and though it would be difficult to justify their proceedings either in confcience or law, their policy may perhaps be accounted not unwife; as it made the title of the king become fecurity for the liberty of the fubject. To give that liberty a more folid and lafting eftablishment, they demanded a charter; which Henry granted foon after his coronation, as he had fworn to do before he was crowned. By this he reftored the Saxon laws which were in use under Edward the Confeffor, but with fuch alterations, or (as he ftyled them) emendations, as had been made in them by his father with the advice of his parliament; at the fame time annulling all evil customs and illegal exactions, by which the realm had been unjustly ,oppreffed. Some of thofe grievances were fpecified in the charter, and the redress of them was there

exprefsly enacted. It alfo contained very confiderable mitigations of thofe feudal rights, claimed by the king over his tenants, and by them over theirs, which either were the most burthenfome in their own nature, or had been made fo by an abufive extenfion. In short, all the liberty, that could well be confiftent with the fafety and intereft of the lord in his fief, was allowed to the vaffal by this charter, and the profits due to the former were fettled according to

a determined and moderate rale of law. To ufe the words of one of our greateft antiquaries, Sir Henry Spelman, It was the original of king John's Magna Charta, containing most of the articles of it; either particularly expressed, or in general, under the confirmation it gives to the laws of Edward the Confeffor. So mistaken are they, who have fuppofed that all the privileges granted in Magna Charta were innovations extorted by the arms of rebels from king John!a notion which feems to have been first taken up, not so much out of ignorance, as from a base motive of adulation to fome of our princes in latter times, who, endeavouring to grafp at abfolute power, were defirous of any pretence to confider thefe laws, which stood in their way, as violent éncroachments made by the barons on the ancient rights of the crown: whereas they were in reality reftitutions and fanctions of ancient rights enjoyed by the nobility and people of England in former reigns; or limitations of powers which the king had illegally and arbitrarily ftretched beyond their due bounds. In fome refpects this charter of Henry the First was more advantageous to liberty than Magna Charta itself."

The account which our noble author gives of the military art in the times of which he treats, together with his obfervations on the flate of naval affairs in England before and during that period, are fo curious, that we fhall tran fcribe the whole in his own words.

"The military art, during the times of which I write, was in many particulars the fame

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with that of the ancient Romans. We are informed by a contempo rary German hiftorian, that, in, the methods of encamping, and of befieging towns or cailles, the emperor Frederick Barbaroffa followed their rules. And the hiftories of the holy war, written within, the fame age, defcribe the fieges made in Afia, by the English and French, agreeably to thofe carried on under the difcipline of that na. tion. We have one compofed by an Englishman, Geoffry de Vinefauf, that gives a particular relation of the fiege of Acre, or Ptolemais, to which he accompanied King Richard the First. It appears from thence, that the befiegers, among other machines which had been used by the Romans, had moveable towers, built, of wood, and of fuch a height,, that the tops of them overlooked the battlements of the city. They, were covered with raw hides, to prevent their being burnt; and, had alfo a network of ropes which hung before them, and was intended to deaden the violence of the ftones, that were thrown against them from the engines of the befieged. Thofe engines were called by this author petraria, but were the balifte of the ancients; and, according to his account of them, their force was prodigious: they threw ftones of a vaft weight, and were employed by the beliegers to batter the walls, as by the befieged to defend them. He likewife mentions the crofs-bow among the weapons made ufe of in that fiege. It had been introduced in to England by William the Conqueror, who greatly availed himfelf of it, at the battle of Haftings: but the fecond Lateran council

having forbidden it in wars between Chriftian nations, it was laid afide in this country, during the reigns of king Stephen and of Henry the Second. Nevertheless Richard, the First, at his return out of Paleftine, brought it again into France, very fatally for him. felf, as he was killed foon afterwards by an arrow fhot out of that engine.

The manner of fortifying towns and caftles, as well as the methods. both of attack and defence, were ftill much the fame as had been ufed by the Romans: but the armies differed much from thofe of that people; for their principal ftrength was in the cavalry; whereas, among the Romans, it was in the legions, which were chiefly compofed of infantry. And this variation produced others in the manner of fighting, and of ranging the troops. Yet, upon many occafions, the horfemen difmounted to fight on foot; and this feems to have been done by the Englifh more frequently than by moft other nations. The infantry, for the most part, were archers and flingers; nor were there any in the world more excellent at that time than thofe belonging to this ifland, the Normans having com. municated their skill to the Saxons, and the Welf being famous for ftrength, and dexterity in drawing the bow. The offenfive arms, of the cavalry were lances and fwords: but they alfo ufed battleaxes, and maces of different forts; and fome fought with ponderous mallets or clubs of iron. I cannot better defcribe their defenfive armour, than by tranflating the words of a contemporary hiftorian, who has given an account of the

manner

manner in which the order of knighthood was conferred on the father of king Henry the Second. "They put on him (fays that author) an incomparable haber geon, compofed of double plates or fcollops of fteel, which no ar "row or lance could penetrate. They gave him cuifhes, or boots of iron, made equally ftrong. "They put gilt fpurs on his feet, and hung on his neck a fhield, "or buckler, on which lions of gold were painted. On his head they placed a helmet, which glittered all over with "precious ftones, and was fo well "forged, that no fword could "cleave or pierce it."

This armour, it may be prefumed, was richer than that of ordinary knights, and of more excellent workmanship in the temper of the fteel; but in other refpects much the fame. The habergeons, or coats of mail, were different from the cuiraffes ufed in later times, being formed of double plates of iron, and covering the arms and shoulders of the knights, as well as their bodies. Under thefe they wore other coats, of leather, or of taffety, quilted with wool. The feveral parts of the outward armour were fo artfully joined, that the whole man was defended by it from head to foot, and rendered almoft invulnerable, except by contufions, or by the point of a lance or fword running into his eye, through the holes that were left for fight in the vizor of the helmet: but if it happened that the horfe was killed or thrown down, or that the rider was difmounted, he could make but little refiftance, and was either taken prifoner, or flain, on the ground

with fhort daggers, which were ufually worn by the horsemen for that purpofe. It being cuftomary for all who were taken in war fo ranfom themfelves with fums of money, which were generally paid to those who took them in propor tion to the rank of the captives, good quarter was given.

There is a remarkable paffage, relating to this fubject, in Oderi cus Vitalis, a writer contemporary with king Henry the Firft. He tells us, that in a battle between Louis le Gros and that prince, of which an account has been given in a former part of this work, nine hundred knights were engaged, and only two of them killed: "becaufe (fays the hiftorian) they "were cloathed all over with iron," "and from their fear of God, and "the acquaintance they had con"tracted by living together, they "fpared one another, and rather "defired to take than kill thofe "who fled." Some battles in Italy, which Machiaval has defcribed as fought by the mercenary bands of that country, in the four. teenth and fifteenth centuries, were of the fame kind. But it must be obferved, that one of the reafons here given by Odericus Vitalis, why fo few of the knights, or men at arms, were flain in this action, viz. that they fpared one another, out of regard to the acquaintance they had contracted by living together, did not hold in engage ments between different nations, that were not fo connected as the French and Normans; nor in civit wars, where the animofity is in. creafed, not diminished, by the knowledge which the adverfe parties have of each other; and there. fore in thefe we do not find that

the

the battles were fo harmlefs: yet the greateft.flaughter was generally made of the foot, who were neither fo well armed for defence as the knights, nor able to pay fo high a price for their ranfoms.

Roger de Hovedon speaks of horfes covered with armour in the reign of Richard the Firft: but I find no mention thereof in the times of which I write; and that they were not ufually fo armed in the reign of Henry the First, may be proved from an action before related, between Odo de Borleng, and the barons of Normandy, who had revolted against that prince, in which all the horses of the rebels were killed by the arrows of the English, though not one of the riders was wounded.

In the above recited paffage, concerning the arms that were given to Geoffry Plantagenet, when he received the order of knighthood, it is faid," they "brought him a lance of afh, arm"ed with the fteel of Poitou, and "a fword from the royal treafure, where it had been laid up from "old times, being the workman "fhip of Galan, the most excel"lent of all fwordfmiths, who "had exerted in forging it his ut "moft art and labour." A fkilful fwordsmith was then fo neceffary to a warrior, that it is no wonder the name of one who excelled in his profeffion fhould be thus recorded in hiftory, and a fword of his making depofited in the treafury of a king. It must be obferved, that, in those days, a fuperior degree of bodily ftrength gave a double advantage: for the trongeft knight could wear the heaviest armour; whereby he was better fecured than others against VOL. X.

the weapons of an enemy; and at the fame time he could wield the moft ponderous weapons, which the armour of others was unable to refift. This advantage was ftill increased, if his fword was finely tempered, and his defenfive arms were rendered more impenetrable by the fkill of the armourer in preparing the fteel. Thus fome extraordinary acts of perfonal valour, which are related in our ancient hiftories, and feem to us quite incredible, may indeed be true. A fingle man, in a narrow pafs, may have defended it against a great number of affailants; and the fuccefs of a battle may have fome. times been decided by the particular prowefs of a few knights, or men at arms. Geoffry de Vine. fauf, in his account of the crufade against Saladin, makes the officers of the Turkish forces fay to that prince, in excufe of their having been beaten in an engagement with the English, that they could not hurt the enemy, who were not armed as they were, but with impenetrable armour, which yielded to no wea pons; fo that in affaulting them they Jeemed to firike against fints. The fame author defcribes the Turks, in another part of his book, as being armed very lightly, but bearing a quiver full of arrows, a club fet thick with fharp fpikes, a fword, a light javelin, and a short dagger or knife. Yet it appears, from his own relations of feveral battles, that with thefe weapons they often killed a great number of the Chriftians: and therefore we must understand the paffage before cited with some allowance for a degree of exaggeration. We alfo find that the armour of the knights in those days was not al- !

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ways