612
Constitutional History.
[C∏ΛP.
Workof we approach more modern times and have to look at questions
different . _ , 1 ι . , ,. . 1 η ..
ciassesof more or less akin to those which divide modern opinion, that
theɪseenr- political progress does not advance in a single line, and political
progress wisdom is the heirloom of no one class of society. There is an
iibarty. age of ecclesiastical prevision, an age of baronial precaution, an
age of municipal pretension ; of country policy, of mercantile
policy, of trade policy, of artisan aspiration : all, one after the
other, putting forth their best side in the struggle for power,
showing their worst side in the possession and retention of it.
But, in spite of selfish aims and selfish struggles for the main-
tenance of power, each contributes to the great march of
national wellbeing, and each contributes an element of its own,
each has a strong point of its own which it establishes before it
gives way to the next. Tlie church policy of the earlier middle
ages was one long protest against the predominance of mere
brute strength, whether exemplified in the violence of William
Rufus, or in the astute despotism of Henry I : the baronial
policy, which, from the reign of John to the accession of Henry
IV, shared or succeeded to the burden of the struggle, was
directed to the securing of self-government for the nation as
represented in its parliament : and the country interest,
as embodied in the knights, worked out in the fifteenth cen-
tury the results of the victory : the other influences are
only coming into full play as the middle ages close; but we
can detect in them some signs of the uses that they are still to
influence of serve. The country interest has still to continue the battle of
suits <F self-government ; the mercantile spirit to inform and reform the
ufeai⅛1 foreign policy ; the trade influence to remodel and develop
progιess. national economy ; the manufacturing influence to improve and
to specialise in every region of national organisation. Such has
been the result so far; it is vain and useless to prophesy.
But it would seem that the peculiar tendencies which are en-
couraged by the habits and trains of thought which these
pursuits severally involve, have worked and are working their
way into real practical influence as the balance of national
power has inclined successively to the several classes which are
employed on these pursuits. The churchman struggled for
XXi.] Social Life in Towns. 613
moral against physical influence, as for the cause of the spirit
against the flesh ; he forgot sometimes that the very law of the
spirit is a law of liberty. The baron struggled for national
freedom against royal encroachment; the habits of the warrior
and the hunter, the judge and the statesman, were all united in
him ; the medieval baron was a wonderful impersonation of
strength and versatility, and combined more great qualities,
for good or for evil, than any of the rival classes ; but in the
idea of corporate freedom the idea of individual and social
freedom was too often left out of sight : the whole policy of the
baronage was insular and narrowed down to one issue. The
mercantile influence tended to widen the national mind ; it
grew under the Tudors to great importance and power, but it
did not directly tend to the increase of liberty. The national
programme of liberation had to be taken up under the Stewarts
in a condition scarcely more developed than when it was laid
down under the Lancastrian kings : only the nation had learned
in the meantime more of the world, of diplomacy, of the balance
of nations, amj of the beating of commercial alliances on
domestic welfare. The economical and administrative reforms
for which trade and manufacture train men until the balance of
national power falls to them, are matters which we ourselves
have lived to witness. What organic changes the further ex-
tension of political power to the labourer in town and country
may bring, our children may live to see.
To return however to the special point. One fact remains to Theborougii
ɪ ɪ t représenta-
be considered, which must to a great extent modify all conclu- lion was no
. 1 rr, ° . adequate
sιons on the subject. The town members in parliament during représenta-
the middle ages represented only a very small proportion of the class,
towns, and those selected, as it would seem, by the merest chance
of accident or caprice. They were, as we have seen, very un-
equally distributed, and were in no way, like the knights of the
shire, a general concentration of local representation. In to far
then as they represented an interest at all, they represented it
very inadequately ; and if, as we have supposed, they represented He∏<∙e.ib
chiefly the governing bodies among their constituencies, they cance.
are still farther removed from being regarded as the true