Courtiership

“ The courtiers having thus enriched themselves we find, in page 61, that "our gentry, possessed of patronages, considering how much the lords and great men of the court had improved their fortunes by the suppression of those chantries and other foundations which had been granted to the king, conceived themselves in a capacity to do the like, by taking into their hands the yearly profits of those benefices of which by law they were only intrusted with the presentations. ”

“ A courtier is a member of the king's court; that is to say, a person charged with some function or domestic duty in the palace—either chamberlain, equerry, or gentleman of the antechamber—receiving a salary, and addressing his master with all the deference and ceremonial obsequiousness proper to such an employment. ”

“ The courtier, the trader, and the scholar, should all have an equal pretension to the denomination of a gentleman. That tradesman who deals with me in a commodity which I do not understand, with uprightness, has much more right to that character than the courtier who gives me false hopes, or the scholar who laughs at my ignorance.
The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behaviour in them. ”

“ I never yet have seen a courtier whom a prince has appointed governor of a wealthy province, given a first-rate place, or a large pension, who does not protest, either through vanity, or to show himself disinterested, that he is less pleased with the gift than with the manner in which it was given. ”

“ Why was there a house of peers, in which noble lords formed a part of the legislature? Why were there commoners, who sat as representatives of the [Pg 314] people? Precisely because custom had ordered it so. Custom was the author of the law and the law-makers. Custom authorized the king, lords, and commons, to enact laws for the government of this realm. All property, all dignity, all offices existed, because they were sanctioned by prescriptive custom, or because custom gave a prescriptive right to create them.
Saturday.—The Privy Council resumed this morning, soon after ten o'clock. ”

“ Versatility as a courtier may be almost decisive to you hereafter; that is, it may conduce to, or retard your preferment in your own destination. The first reputation goes a great way; and if you fix a good one at Hanover, it will operate also to your advantage in England. The trade of a courtier is as much a trade as that of a shoemaker ”

“ And thus the legislature of England has universally promoted the grand ends of civil society, the peace and security of individuals, by steadily pursuing that wise and orderly maxim, of assigning to every thing capable of ownership a legal and determinate owner. ”

“ The chief of these are the following: the relation of vassal and lord; the principle that every holder of land is a tenant and not an owner, until the highest rank is reached, sometimes even the conception rules in that rank; that the tenure by which a thing of value is held is one of honourable service, not intended to be economic, but moral and political in character; the principle of mutual obligations of loyalty, protection and service binding together all the ranks of this society from the highest to the lowest ”

“ The nobility and gentry; (2) the merchants and first-rate tradesmen; (3) the lawyers and physicians; and (4) inferior tradesmen, attorneys, clerks, apprentices, coachmen, carmen, chairmen, watermen, porters, and servants.
The first class may not only be divided into nobility and gentry, but into either such as have dependence on the Court, or such as have none. Those who have offices, places, or pensions from the Court, or any expectations from thence, constantly attend the levées of the prince and his ministers, which takes up the greatest part of the little morning they have. ”

“ But some kinds of law have already been established by certain custom, such as those relating to covenants, equity, formal decisions. A covenant is that which is agreed upon between two parties, because it is considered to be so just that it is said to be enforced by justice, equity is that which is equal to all men, a formal decision is that by which something has been established by the declared opinion of some person or persons authorized to pronounce one. ”

“ Thus magistrates, having become hereditary, contracted the habit of considering their offices as a family estate, and themselves as proprietors of the communities of which they were at first only the officers, of regarding their fellow-citizens as their slaves, and numbering them, like cattle, among their belongings, and of calling themselves the equals of the gods and kings of kings. ”

“ We have granted moreover to the same our Barons for ourselves and our heirs that they may have for ever this liberty, namely, that neither we nor our heirs shall have wardship or marriages of their heirs by reason of their lands which they hold within the liberties and ports aforesaid, for which they do their service aforesaid, and of which neither we nor our predecessors have had wardship or marriages in times past. ”

“ The guardian of the land of an heir who is under age shall take from it only reasonable revenues, customary dues, and feudal services. He shall do this without destruction or damage to men or property. If we have given the guardianship of the land to a sheriff, or to any person answerable to us for the revenues, and he commits destruction or damage, we will exact compensation from him, and the land shall be entrusted to two worthy and prudent men of the same ‘fee’, who shall be answerable to us for the revenues, or to the person to whom we have assigned them. ”

“ The liberty of alienation without the consent of the lords having been allowed before that statute, it became customary for a tenant who sold his land, and parted with his whole estate in it, to reserve the tenure of the vendee, not to his superior lord and his heirs, but to himself and his heirs; whereby he retained many advantages to himself, by continuing the vendee’s lord, such as the right of escheat, if the tenant died without heirs, and the benefit of the wardship and marriage, if it was held by knight’s service. ”

“ In England, courts of equity adhere to the principle which has its origin in the Roman law, 'that a trustee shall not profit by his trust,' and therefore that a trustee shall have no allowance for his care and trouble. ”

“ The gentry must be rewarded for their adhesion, and enabled to maintain their pre-eminence, by handing over to them the patronage, not in part or in fractions, but wholly and solely. Every civil appointment must be filled up by them,—the Church, the law, the revenue, the police, must all be theirs. ”

“ How many courtiers there are who go into the presence of the king a hundred times, not to speak to him or listen to him, but merely to be seen by him, and to show by this assiduity that they are his servants. ”

“ If any one happen to fall into my amercement he may be reasonably fined by my bailiff and the faithful burgesses of the court. Furthermore, whatever merchants they have brought with them for the improvement of the town, I command that they have peace, and that none do them injury or unjustly send them into court. But if any foreign merchant shall have done anything improper in the town that same may be regulated in the portimote before the aforesaid justice without a suit at law. ”

“ Being dependent upon the king, before the days of charter rights the citizens were often sorely fleeced upon the slightest pretence, and in order to protect themselves they in process of time formed guilds or fraternities of different trades. ”

“ The free companionship of man and woman had begun. Then and forever ended the old system of courtship, which seems so laughable and even incredible today. One was no longer expected to pay court to one's beloved, sitting stiffly on straight-backed chairs in a chill drawing-room in the non-conducting, or non-conducive, presence of still chillier maiden aunts. ”

“ Civil Compact We whose names are hereunder, desirous to inhabit in the town of Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active and passive obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for public good of the body in an orderly way, by the major consent of present inhabitants, masters of families, incorporated together in a Towne fellowship, and others whom they shall admit unto them only in civil things. ”

“ His lands be in statutes: you merchants were wont to be merchant staplers; but now gentlemen have gotten up the trade; for there is not one gentleman amongst twenty but his lands be engaged in twenty statutes staple."
Act i. Sc. 3. And in the very first speech of the first scene of the same play, the husband of this virtuous and careful dame says of the same "Gerardine," (who, as he is poor and a gentleman, it need hardly be said, is about the only honest man in the piece,) —"His lands be in statutes." ”

“ To the Sheriff of Lincoln.
Order to cause proclamation to be made that all persons having fairs by charters of the king or of his progenitors or otherwise, shall cause the fairs to be held in the manner and form and on the days and times according to the tenor of the charters, or as they ought to do according to the title, to wit from time out of mind, and upon no other days and times, and to summon all persons claiming to have fairs to be before the king's council at Westminster. ”

“ Other relations in life, as, e.g., those of trustee and beneficiary, or principal and surety, impose a duty to act in accordance with the highest standards which a man of the most delicate conscience and the nicest sense of honor might impose upon himself. In such cases, to enforce adherence to those standards becomes the duty of the judge. Whether novel situations are to be brought within one class of relations or within the other must be determined, as they arise, by considerations of analogy, of convenience, of fitness, and of justice. ”

“ I’ the commonwealth I would by contraries
Execute all things; for no kind of traffic
Would I admit; no name of magistrate;
Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,
145 And use of service, none; contract, succession,
Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;
No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;
No occupation; all men idle, all;
And women too, but innocent and pure;
II. 1. 150 No sovereignty;—
Seb.
Yet he would be king on’t.
Ant. The latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning. ”

“ Therefore, Our Will and Pleasure is, that in any Suit or Suits commenced, or to be commenced in any of our Courts at Westminister, or elsewhere, by the said Treasurer and Company, or otherwise against any such persons, that our Judges for the Time being, both in our Court of Chancery, and at the Common Pleas do favour and further the said Suits so far forth as Law and Equity will in any wise further and permit. ”

“ There were always a set of needy or greedy courtiers ready, if they had favour enough to beg, or otherwise to buy at an under rate, the wardships of minor tenants, of which they were sure to make the most advantage; marrying the most opulent heirs to their own children, or relations, or extorting extravagant sums for their consent. ”

“ The wardship and marriage were granted away to such a person as could offer the Treasury a satisfactory sum for the privilege; and if the heir took it upon himself to marry without licence of such person, he incurred a heavy fine.325.2 Thus was the most sacred of all 326 human relations made a matter of traffic and sale, and the best feelings of the human heart were systematically crushed by considerations the most sordid. ”

“ Speaking of the doctrine of comity, Mr. Justice Story says: 'Every nation must be the final judge for itself, not only of the nature and extent of the duty, but of the occasions on which its exercise may be justly demanded.' Story, Confl. L. § 33.
The doctrine of comity has been the subject of frequent discussion in the courts of this country when it has been sought to assert rights accruing under assignments for the benefit of creditors in other states as against the demands of local creditors, by attachment or otherwise in the state where the property is situated. ”

“ Almost all the real property of this kingdom is by the policy of our laws supposed to be granted by, dependent upon, and holden of some superior lord, by and in consideration of certain services to be rendered to the lord by the tenant or possessor of this property. ”

“ Therefore, We for Us, Our Heirs and Successors, do give and grant by these Presents, Power, License and Liberty unto all the Leige People of Us, our Heirs and Successors in our Kingdom of England, or elsewhere, within any other our Dominions, Islands, Colonies or Plantations; (excepting those who shall be especially forbidden) to transport themselves and Families into the said Province or Territory, with convenient Shipping, and fitting Provisions; and there to settle themselves, dwell and inhabit, any Law, Act, Statute, Ordinance, or other Thing to the contrary in any wise, notwithstanding. ”

“ Beneath whom, there will again be the landlords, resident each in his own district; under these, the land agents, tenantry, tradesmen, and hired labourers, some of whom will be Companions, others Retainers, and others free tenants: and outside all this there will be of course an irregular cavalry, so to speak, of more or less helpful friends, who, without sharing in the work, will be glad to further it more or less, as they would any other benevolent institution.
The law that a Companion shall derive no profit from his companionship does not touch the results of his own work. ”