of the Common Council of the Magnates of England-" per Commune Concilium Magnatum Angliæ:" the quota was xx s. per fee. In the 18th of King Edward I. an extraordinary large aid (viz. xls. out of every knight's fee) was granted by the parliament to the king for the marriage of his eldest daughter; but it appears by the roll, (Pas. Commun. 18 Ed. I. Rot. 14. a. in bundello anni 17 et 18 Edward I.), that the parliament by a special clause provided, that this liberality should not be used as a precedent.

The great tenants in capite, or inferior lords of seigneuries, were entitled also to a notable aid from the sub-tenants, to marry their eldest daughters once. Ralf Fitz-Ralf had an aid paid to him, 17 Edward I, by his tenants in chivalry, to marry his eldest daughter. In these cases, Madox considers that a private lord could not demand more money for aid, pur fille marier, of his tenants than the king demanded of him on the like occasion. A singular entry appears on the Róle 9 John, Rot. 18. of Isabell de Bolebec, fined in ccc. marks and iij. palfreys, that she might not be distrained to marry, and that if she would marry, it should be with the king's assent, &c. and that she might have a reasonable aid of all her knights and free tenants, to enable her to pay this fine. The sub-tenants and vassals do not appear to have been wholly at the fiscal extortion of the lords, but in some degree under the protection of the itinerant justices, and the royal favour; although the right of amercing them was too frequently bought and sold, between the tenants in capite, and the king. The People, however, in time rose out of their degradation; and, by Magna Charta, cap. 20, we perceive their increased power in the express stipulation, that the king should not, for the future, grant absolutely to any one leave to take an aid of his free men, "de liberis hominibus suis," save in three cases enumerated, in which the marriage of his eldest daughter was comprehended.

Women had a feudal right of trial by duel, as appears by various entries of fines on the exchequer rolls.-See Madox, vol. i. p. 451.

That they frequently filled judicial situations, superior to those already enumerated, is also certain. Complaint was made in the 18th of Richard II., that men were compelled to answer before" divers lords and ladies" for their freeholds, and other matters cognizable at common law; and, in consequence, a remedy for this abuse was given by petition in chancery.-Stat. 15 Rich. II. c. 12.

Ladies of rank appear, by several exceptions in our old acts of parliament, to have been distinguished by law from the female canaille. The following is a singular instance: the first chapter of the Statutes 34 and 35 Henry VIII. A. D. 1542-3,

forbids the reading of the English translation of the New Tes tament by "women, artificers, 'prentices, journeymen, and serving-men of the degree of yeomen, or under;" but a subsequent exception follows, licensing "a noble woman or gentle woman to read the translation to herself alone, provided she does not to others!"

Many of our early sumptuary laws also display the same courtesy. The fourth chapter of Stat. 3. 11th Edward III. enacts, that neither man nor woman who cannot afford to spend £100 a-year shall wear furs. Barrington, in an ingenious note on this statute, cites it as the first instance in our law" of an apprehension that a woman is not included under the word man." Is it to be presumed that her rights of citizenship were anciently co-extensive with the male?

By the old German law, a master could not grant freedom to his slave under the age of twenty, while a woman was allowed her liberty at the age of sixteen. The 25 Henry VIII. c. xxii. provided, that "if the crown shall descend to a minor king under eighteen years, or a minor queen under sixteen, their mother shall be the guardian, together with such counsellors as the king shall nominate by his will." The daughters (Mary and Elizabeth) in whose favour this statute was made, were examples of the worst and most beneficial exercise of despotic power. When "dressed in the little brief authority" of the English "constitution," they pressed hard the screw of divine right, and contributed liberally to the lists of British martyrology. We are not among the number of those who believe in all that history has handed down, of the respective enormities and blessings of these two reigns. The Catholics, in common with the Puritans, have been grossly misrepresented; and, on the other hand, the "glorious" guardianship of our civil and religious liberties by Elizabeth is very questionable, at least to the extent generally believed. Such, indeed, were her notions of prerogative, and of the right of her female inheritance, that Sergeant Hale is reported to have declared in the House of Commons, by her command, "that all we had was the queen's, and she might take it all when she pleased."-(Petyt. MSS. vol. iv. p. 8--13.)

These two reigns produced a memorable controversy on the subject of female monarchical rights. The cause of Lady Jane Grey was supported against Mary chiefly by the reformed preachers they were the zealous adherents of that unfortunate lady; and so long as they were likely to succeed against the popish designs of Mary, they perceived no objection to a female sovereign. On her melancholy execution, however, a new revelation opened to them; their industry and biblical ingenuity quickly discovered that the government of a woman was prohibited by the word of God. In the Old Testament it

had been ordered to take the king from the midst of the "brethren," an expression which they contended must exclude all females; and because, in the New Testament, we are taught that the man is the head of the woman, they argued, that no woman ought to possess the supreme authority over men.(Strype, iii. 11.) Q.E. D. The guards, however, prevailed against the field preachers: the non-conformists were most of them driven abroad, or into silence, and Mary was firmly seated on the throne.

At this period the singular circumstance of England and Scotland both being ruled by women, had no mean influence over the destinies of Europe. The young queen of Scotland was contracted to the Dauphin of France; the "balance of Europe" was thus thought to be distributed by these two powers arrayed against England; and policy induced the British government to borrow Philip of Spain as a co-executor with Mary in the management of British affairs. Certainly, the country so far preferred the rule of an English woman to that of a Spanish man, that a more unpopular measure was scarcely ever forced upon the nation. But Philip, when he arrived in London, addressed the people; assured them, on his honour, he was come to reside among them as a native of England; drank their healths in a tankard of ale; and scattered dollars among the hungry crowd. The historians write, that he was a handsome man, richly apparelled, and was popular with the ladies. (Noailles, iii. 284; Contin. Fabian, 561; Pollinini, 362.) All these influential things gradually reconciled the gentlemen of England.

John Knox, that vehement and unbending reformer, still stuck to his text. He preached before Lord Darnley, at Edinburgh, in 1564, and boldly inveighed against the popery of the two Marys: he told the people, that "for their sins and ingratitude, God had set over them boys and women." He was the unwearied advocate of the incapacity of women to exercise the sovereign authority. In the reign of Philip and Mary he published his First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women." In this blast he taught that the rule of a woman was "repugnant to nature, a contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and, finally, the subversion of all equity and justice." In this fulmination he threatened two other blasts still more sweeping, and not foreseeing that the death of Mary and Catholicism would make them very mal-apropos. On the succession of Elizabeth, the friend of the Reformation, the wind changed, and the powers of the rising sun dispersed the two lowering and gathering storms. Knox then acknowledged to Cecil, that Elizabeth was an exception to the general rule;

that her whole life was a miracle, proving that she had been chosen by God; that the office, unlawful for other women, was lawful for her. (Strype, 121.)

Goodman, another of the early reformers, advocated the political incapacity of females; he, also, recanted his obnoxious doctrine on the dawn of the new light. On Elizabeth's accession the protestant exiles, who, unluckily, had made this hypothesis of ultra-masculinism (to coin an expression) the grand battery against her predecessor, in great consternation appointed Aylmer to propitiate the queen, by entering the lists in favour of female government against Knox and Goodman,— thus severing themselves from their old advocates. Aylmer immediately published "An Harborowe for faithful and trewe Subjectes against the late blowne blaste concerning the Government of Women, MDLIX. Strasborowe, 26 April." This retrograde movement made Aylmer's fortune: it landed him safely at home, in the pleasant harbour of a bishopric; and, when reminded of his former opinions, he quoted with simplicity, 1 Cor. xiii. 2, "when I was a child, I thought as a child; but, when I became a man, I put away childish things." Elizabeth, however, was too shrewd a politician to throw herself into the lap of these subtle and headstrong controversialists: she kept them for some time across the water, cooling in the sea breezes of the Flemish coast; not choosing that her popularity and the ecclesiastical reformation should be at the mercy of their fanatical and ill-conditioned zeal.

This was the last memorable contest on the subject of the female claim to the throne. We have not room for many interesting and amusing particulars connected with the party spirit of the age; but the period has been recently treated with so much candour, and with the aid of so many original collections by Dr. Lingard, that we shall refer the reader to his luminous volumes of the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth.

Having now closed the history of the female right to the first estate of the constitution, we proceed to their rights and privileges in the second,-the House of Lords.

Our enquiry into this department was first excited by the following passage in Mr. Mellish's observations on Baron Maseres on Parliaments (Archalogia, vol. ii. p. 348), “I have read, though I cannot at present recollect where, that even women have been summoned to parliament." On reference to Joseph Holland Of the Antiquity of the Parliaments in England, ed. 1685, p. 47, we think Mr. Mellish must have alluded to the following passage:"it is recorded among the commons of parliament in the 35 Edward III. that there is one 'writ de admittendo fide dignos ad colloquium;' and amongst the earls and barons is

returned Marie Countesse de Norfilk, Alianor Countesse de Ormone, Philipp Countesse de March, Agnes Countesse de Pembrook, and Katherine Countesse de Athell." This instance of Mary, Countess of Norfolk, we take for granted, is the same cited by Lord Chancellor West in his Inquiry into the manner of creating Peers, 1719, as a remarkable argument "how strictly the principle of no person's being to be taxed without their own consent was observed, that writs were likewise directed, 35 Ed. III. even to the ladies, who were proprietors of land in Ireland, commanding them to send their proper attornies to consult and consent to what should be judged necessary to be done." This occasion was the confusion of affairs in Ireland. Dugdale has printed the writ directed to the Earl of Northampton in his Collection of Writs of Summons to Parliament: · many of these writs, however, are not parliamentary writs, but the summons of particular persons to consult and contribute on particular affairs and districts in which they were specially concerned. The writ to Lady Norfolk is quoted by West (from Rot. Claus. 35 Edward III. m. 36, dorso) as follows:-"Rex, &c. Mariæ Comitissæ Norfolc. Salutem, &c. Vobis in fide et ligeanciâ, &c. mandamus quod-aliquem vel aliquos de quibus confidatis apud Westmon. mittatis-ad loquendum nobiscumsuper dictis negotiis-et ad faciendum et consentiendum nomine vestro, super hoc quod ibidem contigerit ordinari."

The grand principle of taxation and representation, and the necessary consent of the whole kingdom in affairs relating to the whole kingdom, received a noble and memorable recognition in a writ of summons to parliament, anno 24 Ed. I. (Claus. m. 4. dor.) which we cannot forbear extracting:"Rex, &c. sicut lex justissima providâ circumspectione sacrorum principium stabilita hortatur ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur, sic et innuit evidenter ut communibus periculis per remedia provisa communiter obvietur."

We find this principle not only admitted but respected during this reign in several distinct instances of female representation, where women were the holders of real property, and representatives of chartered rights. Thus, in the 34th Edward I., writs tested at Wynton, on the 5th April, were issued to divers earls and barons, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and several bishops and abbots, and to four abbesses, requiring their attendance at Westminster, on the morrow of the Trinity, for the purpose of treating upon an aid for making the king's eldest son a knight; "ad tractandum et ordinandum una cum aliis prælatis magnatibus et proceribus de regno nostro de auxilio nobis in casu prædicto faciendo et ad consentiendum iis due from every knight's fee held in chief of the king. Of quæ ibidem in hac parte contingerit ordinari." The aid was

qua