The highlands of Scotland
have long been entitled by law to every privilege of British subjects;
but it was not till very lately that the common people could in fact
enjoy these privileges.
The powers of all the members of the Anglo-Saxon government are disputed
among historians and antiquaries: the extreme obscurity of the subject,
even though faction had never entered into the question, would naturally
have begotten those controversies. But the great influence of the lords
over their slaves and tenants, the clientship of the burghers, the total
want of a middling rank of men, the extent of the mon archy, the loose
execution of the laws, the continued disorders and convulsions of the
state,--all these circumstances evince that the Anglo-Saxon government
became at last extremely aristocratical; and the events, during the
period immediately preceding the conquest, confirm this inference or
conjecture.
Both the punishments inflicted by the Anglo-Saxon courts of judicature,
and the methods of proof employed in all causes, appear somewhat
singular, and are very different from those which prevail at present
among all civilized nations.
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