established at a very early period, as the severe judgments
pronounced and executed on many royal favourites sufficiently
prove. It is, however, certain that the rights of individuals
were often violated by the Plantagenets, and that the injured
parties were often unable to obtain redress. According to law no
Englishman could be arrested or detained in confinement merely by
the mandate of the sovereign. In fact, persons obnoxious to the
government were frequently imprisoned without any other authority
than a royal order. According to law, torture, the disgrace of
the Roman jurisprudence, could not, in any circumstances, be
inflicted on an English subject. Nevertheless, during the
troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the
Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political
necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such
irregularities that the English monarchs were, either in theory
or in practice, absolute. We live in a highly civilised society,
through which intelligence is so rapidly diffused by means of the
press and of the post office that any gross act of oppression
committed in any part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed
by millions. If the sovereign were now to immure a subject in
defiance of the writ of Habeas Corpus, or to put a conspirator to
the torture, the whole nation would be instantly electrified by
the news. In the middle ages the state of society was widely
different. Rarely and with great difficulty did the wrongs of
individuals come to the knowledge of the public. A man might be
illegally confined during many months in the castle of Carlisle
or Norwich; and no whisper of the transaction might reach London.
It is highly probable that the rack had been many years in use
before the great majority of the nation had the least suspicion
that it was ever employed. Nor were our ancestors by any means so