In those instances in which the monarch finally prevailed over
his vassals, his success was chiefly owing to the tyranny of those
vassals over their dependents. The barons, or nobles, equally the
enemies of the sovereign and the oppressors of the common people, were
dreaded and detested by both; till mutual danger and mutual interest
effected a union between them fatal to the power of the aristocracy. Had
the nobles, by a conduct of clemency and justice, preserved the fidelity
and devotion of their retainers and followers, the contests between them
and the prince must almost always have ended in their favor, and in the
abridgment or subversion of the royal authority.
This is not an assertion founded merely in speculation or conjecture.
Among other illustrations of its truth which might be cited, Scotland
will furnish a cogent example. The spirit of clanship which was, at an
early day, introduced into that kingdom, uniting the nobles and their
dependants by ties equivalent to those of kindred, rendered the
aristocracy a constant overmatch for the power of the monarch, till the
incorporation with England subdued its fierce and ungovernable spirit,
and reduced it within those rules of subordination which a more rational
and more energetic system of civil polity had previously established in
the latter kingdom.
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