All these unconnected and independent parts were only linked together by
a common council: and here religion interposed. Their priests, the
Druids, having a connection throughout each state, united it. They
called the assembly of the people: and here their general resolutions
were taken; and the whole might rather be called a general confederacy
than a government. In no other bonds, I conceive, were they united
before they quitted Germany. In this ancient state we know them from
Tacitus. Then follows an immense gap, in which undoubtedly some changes
were made by time; and we hear little more of them until we find them
Christians, and makers of written laws. In this interval of time the
origin of kings may be traced out. When the Saxons left their own
country in search of new habitations, it must be supposed that they
followed their leaders, whom they so much venerated at home; but as the
wars which made way for their establishment continued for a long time,
military obedience made them familiar with a stricter authority. A
subordination, too, became necessary among the leaders of each band of
adventurers: and being habituated to yield an obedience to a single
person in the field, the lustre of his command and the utility of the
institution easily prevailed upon them to suffer him to form the band of
their union in time of peace, under the name of King. But the leader
neither knew the extent of the power he received, nor the people of that
which they bestowed. Equally unresolved were they about the method of
perpetuating it,--sometimes filling the vacant throne by election,
without regard to, but more frequently regarding, the blood of the
deceased prince; but it was late before they fell into any regular plan
of succession, if ever the Anglo-Saxons attained it. Thus their polity
was formed slowly; the prospect clears up by little and little; and this
species of an irregular republic we see turned into a monarchy as
irregular. It is no wonder that the advocates for the several parties