Freedom In Service Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government

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Title: Freedom In Service

Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government

Author: Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw

Release Date: May 19, 2008 [EBook #25522]

Language: English

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FREEDOM IN SERVICE

SIX ESSAYS ON MATTERS CONCERNING

BRITAIN'S SAFETY AND GOOD

GOVERNMENT

By F. J. C. HEARNSHAW,

M.A., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF MEDIÆVAL HISTORY IN THE

UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1916

To the Glorious and

Immortal Memory

of

Lord Roberts

CONTENTS

PREFACE

I.—THE ANCIENT DEFENCE OF ENGLAND

I. UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE

II. THE OLD ENGLISH MILITIA

III. MEDIÆVAL REGULATIONS

IV. TUDOR AND STUART DEVELOPMENTS

V. THE LAST TWO CENTURIES

VI. CONCLUSION

II.—COMPULSORY SERVICE AND LIBERTY

I. THE PLEA OF FREEDOM

II. THE TERM LIBERTY

III. LIBERTY AS FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN CONTROL

IV. LIBERTY AS SYNONYMOUS WITH RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT

V. LIBERTY AS ABSENCE OF RESTRAINT

VI. LIBERTY AS OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE

III.—THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE

I. THE IDEA OF VOLUNTARISM

II. ITS ESTABLISHMENT

III. THE RESULT

IV. THE PRESENT SITUATION

V. THE FUTURE

IV.—PASSIVE RESISTANCE

I. THE NEW PERIL

II. PASSIVE RESISTANCE AS REBELLION

III. THE RIGHT OF REBELLION

IV. REBELLION AGAINST A DEMOCRACY

V. THE DUTY OF THE STATE

V.—CHRISTIANITY AND WAR

I. A CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS

II. THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE

III. THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH

IV. FORCE AS A MORAL INSTRUMENT

V. THE IDEAL OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

VI. THE PACIFICIST SUCCESSION

VII. CONCLUSION

VI.—THE STATE AND ITS RIVALS

I. THE IDEA OF THE STATE IN ENGLAND

II. THE RIVALS OF THE STATE

III. WHAT THE STATE IS AND DOES

IV. THE SPHERE OF NATIONAL SERVICEY

ADVERTISEMENTS

PREFACE

The first three essays in this little book appeared originally as special articles in the Morning Post. I am greatly indebted to the Editor of that paper for his courteous and ready permission to reprint them. The Freedom dealt with in these essays is political freedom, and the Service advocated is universal military service. These limitations are due to the fact that the original newspaper articles were contributions to the controversy respecting methods of enlistment which took place during the autumn of 1915.

The remaining three essays appear now for the first time. They have a more general scope, although they are vitally connected with the theme of their predecessors. The essay on Passive Resistance has special reference to the opposition offered by the No-Conscription Fellowship to the principle of compulsory military service; but its argument applies equally well to the older antagonists of the authority of the State. The essay on Christianity and War tries to meet those conscientious objections to military service which form the basis of the propaganda of the Fellowship of Reconciliation; but it deals with the problem in the broadest manner possible within the limits of its space. The concluding essay, on the State and its Rivals, emphasizes the imperative need that the authority of the Democratic National State should be recognized and accepted if internal anarchy is to be avoided, and if the peace and well-being of the World are to be secured.

F. J. C. Hearnshaw.

King's College, Strand, W.C.

January 12th, 1916.

FREEDOM IN SERVICE

I

THE ANCIENT DEFENCE OF ENGLAND[1]

[Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the Morning Post of August 20th, 1915.]

I. UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE

The military system of the Anglo-Saxons is based upon universal service, under which is to be understood the duty of every freeman to respond in person to the summons to arms, to equip himself at his own expense, and to support himself at his own charge during the campaign.[2]

With these words Gneist, the German historian of the English Constitution, begins his account of the early military system of our ancestors. He is, of course, merely stating a matter of common knowledge to all students of Teutonic institutions. What he says of the Anglo-Saxon is equally true of the Franks, the Lombards, the Visigoths, and other kindred peoples.[3] But it is a matter of such fundamental importance that I will venture, even at the risk of tedious repetition, to give three parallel quotations from English authorities. Grose, in his Military Antiquities, says: By the Saxon laws every freeman of an age capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency obliged to join the army.[4] Freeman, in his Norman Conquest, speaks of the right and duty of every free Englishman to be ready for the defence of the Commonwealth with arms befitting his own degree in the Commonwealth.[5] Finally, Stubbs, in his Constitutional History, clearly states the case in the words: The host was originally the people in arms, the whole free population, whether landowners or dependents, their sons, servants, and tenants. Military service was a personal obligation ... the obligation of freedom; and again: Every man who was in the King's peace was liable to be summoned to the host at the King's call.[6]

There is no ambiguity or uncertainty about these pronouncements. The Old English fyrd, or militia, was the nation in arms. The obligation to serve was a personal one. It had no relation to the possession of land; in fact it dated back to an age in which the folk was still migratory and without a fixed territory at all. It was incumbent upon all able-bodied males between the ages of sixteen and sixty. Failure to obey the summons was punished by a heavy fine known as fyrdwite.[7]

There is another point of prime significance. Universal service was, it is true, an obligation. But it was more: it was the mark of freedom. Not to be summoned stamped a man as a slave, a serf, or an alien. The famous Assize of Arms ends with the words: "Et praecepit rex quod nullus reciperetur ad sacramentum armorum nisi liber homo."[8] A summons was a right quite as much as a duty. The English were a brave and martial race, proud of their ancestral liberty. Not to be called to defend it when it was endangered, not to be allowed to carry arms to maintain the integrity of the fatherland, was a degradation which branded a man as unfree.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] This chapter has been issued as a pamphlet by the National Service League, 72, Victoria Street, S.W.

[2] Gneist, R. Englische Verfassungsgeschichte, p. 4.

[3] Cf. the Frankish Edict of A.D. 864: Ad defensionem patriæ omnes sine ulla excusatione veniant. (Let all without any excuse come for the defence of the fatherland.)

[4] Grose, F. Military Antiquities, vol. i, p. 1.

[5] Freeman, E. Norman Conquest, vol. iv, p. 681.

[6] Stubbs, W. Const. Hist., vol. i, pp. 208, 212.

[7] Oman, C.