[********] Such respect was then
paid to the ecclesiastics! It must be understood, that where a
person was unable or unwilling to pay the fine, he was put out of the
protection of law, and the kindred of the deceased had liberty to punish
him as they thought proper.
Some antiquaries [*********] have thought that these compensations were
only given for manslaughter, not for wilful murder.
[* LL. Edm. sect,. 1. Wilkins, p. 73.]
[** LL. Edm. sect. 3.]
[*** LL. Edm. sect. 2.]
[**** LL. Edm. sect. 4.]
[***** LL. Edm. sect. 7,]
[****** Tit. 63.]
[******* Wilkins, p. 71, 72]
[******** LL. Elthredi, apud Wilkins, p. 110.]
[********* Tyrrel, Introduct. vol. i. p. 120. Carte vol i.
p. 366.]
But no such distinction appears in the laws; and it is contradicted
by the practice of all the other barbarous nations,[*] by that of the
ancient Germans,[**] and by that curious monument above mentioned of
Saxon antiquity, preserved by Hickes. There is indeed a law of Alfred's
which makes wilful murder capital;[***] but this seems only to have been
an attempt of that great legislator towards establishing a better police
in the kingdom, and it probably remained without execution.
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