lord could exact fealty from his servants and homage and fealty
from his vassals ; if he attempted to get more, he accroached
royal power and was amenable to the charge of treason. The
words of the oath of allegiance or fealty to the king, taken in
the reign of Edward I, ran thus : ‘I will be “foial” and “loial”
and bear faith and allegiance to the king and his heirs, of life
and limb and worldly honour, against all people who may live
and die Other clauses followed in the case of lords who
held lands, and in the case of the private individual the oath
of the peace was combined with that of allegiance. The words
of homage, which were not sworn, were : ‘ I become your man,
from this day forth, for life, for limb, and for worldly honour,
and shall bear you faith for the lands that I hold of you ².'
In liege homage, such as that done by the lords at the corona-
tion, the form is : ‘I become your liege man of life and limb
and of earthly worship, and faith and truth I shall bear unto
you, to live and die, against all manner of folk ; so God me
help ³∙^, The kiss of the lord completed the ceremony⁴.

That these obligations were insufficient to maintain either
the peace of the country or the due obedience of the subject,
our whole medieval history proves ; but that they had a certain
and occasionally a strong influence in that direction is proved,
once for all, by the history of the parliament of 1460, which,
although determined to secure the right of the duke of York
to the crown, did not venture to set aside the solemn obli-
gations which its members had undertaken in the repeated
oaths sworn to Henry VI. Unhappily in such times the means
taken for securing the royal position of the new king sealed

* Blackstone, Comm. i. 367, 368.

² The form given by Britton is this : ‘ ɪ become your man for the fees
and tenements which I hold and ought to hold of you, and will bear you
faith of life and limb, of body and chattels, and of every earthly honour
against all who can live and die lib. i.i. c. 4.

³ See Coronation Service ; and Taylor, Glory of Kegality, pp. 204, 205,
353 sq∙

⁴ ‘ Then the lord, whoever he may be, whether ourself or another, and
wlɪether male or female, clerk or lay, old or young, ought to kiss his
tenant, whether he be poor or rich, ugly or handsome, in token of per-
petual affiance and obligation of strict friendship ; ’ Britton, lib. ɪii. c. 4 ;
cf. Ass. de Jerus. i. 313.

the fate of the old. king when he had once fallen : no conqueror
or victorious faction could afford to be merciful to a person
to whom so many honourable men had sworn to be true and
loyal. The security which oaths could not give had to be
sought by legislation on treason.

463. The doctrine of treason was the necessary result of Doctrineof
treason.

the doctrine of oaths and of the duty, moral or religious, of
obedience. It appears in germ in Alfred’s legislation : ‘ if a Eaily Iegis-
man plot against the king’s life, of himself or by harbouring treason,
of exiles or of his men, let him be liable in his life and in all
that he has; ’ and ‘he who plots against his lord’s life, let him
be liable in his life to him and in all that he has V In Glanvill
it appears under the Eoman name of ‘ lese-majesty ’ in the rules
for trial of the man who is charged by fame, or by an accuser,
touching the king’s death, or sedition in the kingdom or the
host². By that time the doctrine of the civil law had leavened
the English law, and the sense of betrayal of obligation, which
lies at the root of treason, was already lost in the general
necessity of securing the king and realm. The general obli-
gation of the subject being recognised, the special plea of
treachery, ‘ proditio,’ was a mere rhetorical aggravation of
the sin of disobedience.

The acts that constituted treason, however generally set
down in the law books, were not defined by statute until the
reign of Edward III. Bracton places in the first class of Definitions
‘lese-majesty’ the case of one who by rash daring has con- majesty,
trived the death of the king, or has done or procured anything
to be done to produce sedition against the king or in the army ;
and the crime involves all who have counselled or consented,
even if it has not come to effect³. The convicted traitor is to

¹ LI. Alfr. § ₄.

² ‘ Crimen quod in Iegibus dicitur crimen Iaesae majestatis, ut de nece
vel Seditione personae domini régis vel regni vel exercitus Glanv. lib. i.
c. 2 ; ef. xiv. I. See also the Lex Fι-isiorum, xvii. § ɪ ; Pertz, Legg,
v. 68. There is a most important passage on the subject in the Poll-
craticus of John of Salisbury, lib. vi. c. 25.

³ Bracton₁ lib. iii. c. 3 : ‘ Habet enim crimen Iaesae majestatis sub se
multas species, quarυm una est ut si quis ausu temerario Inachinatus sit in
mortem domini régis vel aliquid egerit vel agi procuraverit ad Seditionem

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