ning, it has been the constant endeavour of her wisest and greatest statesmen to enable her to maintain. She became an integral part, in spite of her " salt"water girdle" (h), of the European system, and daily more and more connected her interest with that of the commonwealth of Christendom. Every fresh war and revolution on the Continent, every political and religious movement, rendered that interest indissoluble. The closer the bond of international intercourse became, the more urgent became the necessity for some International Law, to whose decisions all members of the commonwealth of Christendom might submit. The rapid advance of civilization, bringing with it an increased appreciation of the blessings of peace, and a desire to mitigate even the necessary miseries of war, contributed to make this necessity more sensibly felt. A race of men sprang up, in this and in other countries, whose noble profession it became to apply the laws of natural justice to nations, and to enforce the sanction of individual morality upon communities. But the application of these laws and sanctions to independent States, and still more any approach towards securing obedience to them, was no easy achievement. No one nation, it was obvious, had any right to expect another to submit to the private regulations of her municipal code; and yet, according to the just and luminous observation of Sir James Mackintosh, "In proportion as they "approached to the condition of provinces of the "same empire, it became almost as essential that (h) Cymbeline, act. iii. sc. 1. "Europe should have a precise and comprehensive "code of the law of nations, as that each country "should have a system of municipal law" (i). It was, as has been said, soon after the era of the Reformation that the science of International Law began to flourish on the Continent; and it has been said that this epoch was on the whole unfriendly to its study in this island. It remains to show by what means any vestiges of it have been preserved; and how a profession, whose duty it was to be "lawyers "beyond seas" (k), has been maintained in these islands, where honour and emolument have ever, with few exceptions, attended the knowledge and practice of a distinct and isolated system of municipal law. Long before the Reformation there existed an ancient society of Professors and Advocates, not a corporate body, but voluntarily associated for the practice of the Civil and Canon Law. In 1587, Dr. Henry Hervey, Master of Trinity Hall in the University of Cambridge, purchased from the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, for the purpose of providing a fixed place of habitation for this society, an old tenement, called Mountjoy House, on the site of which the College of Advocates at Doctors' Commons now stands. In this sequestered place the study and practice of laws proscribed from Westminster Hall took root and flourished. The Tudors, who, with all their faults, were unquestionably the most accomplished and lettered race which as yet has occupied the English throne, always looked with a favourable eye upon civilians, employed VOL. I. (i) Lecture on the Law of Nature and Nations, p. 13. them in high offices of state, and set especial value on their services in all negotiations with foreign countries. Few, if any, matters of embassy or treaty were concluded without the advice and sanction of some person versed in the Civil Law. The enmity of Henry VIII. to the Canon, as has been observed, materially injured the profession of the Civil Law; but this was a result neither contemplated nor desired by that monarch. He founded, as has been said, a Professorship of Civil Law at both Universities, and in many respects befriended the maintenance and culture of this science. In 1587, Albericus Gentilis (1), an illustrious foreigner, was appointed to the Professorship of Civil Law at Oxford; his work, De Jure Belli, was in truth the forerunner of Grotius. According to the emphatic language of the learned Fulbeck, he it was "who by his great industrie hath "quickened the dead body of the civil law written by "ancient civilians, and hath in his learned labours "expressed the judgment of a great State, with the "soundnesse of a deep phylosopher, and the skill of a "cunning civilian. Learning in him hath showed "all her force, and he is therefore admirable because "he is absolute" (m). During the earlier period of the Tudor sway ecclesiastics, many of them of high renown, were advocates of the civil law, but towards the close of Elizabeth's reign the profession became, and has ever since been, composed entirely of lay members (n). During (1) He came from the University of Perugia, died 1609.- Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 858 (ed. Gutch). (m) A Direction or Preparative to the Study of the Law, f. 266 (Lond. 1620, 8vo.). Irving's Introd. to the Civil Law, s. 97. (n) An unsuccessful attempt was made in Highmore's case (8 East's this reign a nice question of International Law was raised in the case of the Bishop of Ross, ambassador to Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth submitted to Drurye, Lewes, Dale, Aubrey, and Johnes, advocates in Doctors' Commons, that most difficult and important question as to the propriety and lawfulness of punishing an ambassador for exciting rebellion in the kingdom to which he was sent. Civilians were also consulted as to the power of trying (o) the unhappy Mary herself; and Mr. Hallam seizes on the facts, with his usual sagacity, to demonstrate that the science of International Law was even at this period cultivated by a distinct class of lawyers in this kingdom. James I., who, besides his classical attainments, imbibed a strong regard for the Civil Law from his native country, protected its advocates to the utmost that his feeble aid would extend (p). To this monarch Sir Thomas Ridley dedicated his View of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Law, a work of very considerable merit and of great learning; it had for its object to demonstrate the pettiness and unreasonableness of the jealousy with which the common lawyers had then begun to regard the civilians, and the law which they administered at Doctors' Commons-and it appears to have been by no means Reports, 213) to obtain a mandamus from the archbishop commanding the Dean of the Arches to admit Dr. Highmore a member of the College of Advocates. This was in 1807. (0) Constitutional History, vol. i. pp. 218, 219; Strype, 360-362. (p) Cowell, who was Professor of Civil Law at Cambridge, had acquired a profound knowledge of this law, and had in consequence been chosen Master of Trinity Hall (an office at this moment filled by the learned Judge of the Arches), published a dictionary of law, in imitation of Calvin's Lexicon Juridicum, a work of much learning, but containing extravagant dicta about the king's prerogative. James shielded him from the wrath of Coke unattended with success; for it was perhaps a consequence of this able work that, about the year 1604, each of the two Universities was empowered by royal Charters to choose two members to represent them in Parliament, and by the same Charters they were admonished to select such as "were skilful in the "Imperial Laws" (q). The reign of the First Charles produced two civilians of great eminence, whose reputation, especially that of the latter, was as great on the Continent as in these islands-Arthur Duck and Richard Zouche. The former steadily adhered to the fortunes of his unhappy sovereign; and his work, De Usu ac Authoritate Juris Civilis, has never ceased to maintain its deserved authority. Zouche, who held several high appointments, submitted to the authority of the Parliament (r). In 1653, the famous case of the Portuguese ambassador happened: Don Pantaleon de Sa, having deliberately murdered an English subject in London, took refuge in the house of his brother, the Portuguese ambassador. That high functionary insisted on the exemption of his brother from punishment on account of the inviolable character which the law of nations impressed upon the dwelling of an ambassador. Cromwell, however, caused him to be tried before a commission composed of Sir H. Blunt, Zouche, Clerk, and Turner, Advocates of Civil Law, and others; before whom he was convicted of murder and riot, and for these offences was executed at (9) Vide infra, pp. 49, 50. (r) Zouche had received a patent from King James, assigning to him a stipend of 407. per annum, and all emoluments and privileges enjoyed by "Albericus Gentilis, Frauncis James, and John Budden." A copy of this patent is to be found in Rymer's Fœdera. |