know, for his assertion of doctrines of the Church of Rome; yet he retained it after his separation from the Roman Catholic communion, and after it had been formally revoked and withdrawn by Pope Paul III. in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII., upon the King's apostacy in turning suppressor of religious houses. In 1543, the Reformation legislature and the anti-papal King, without condescending to notice any Papal Bulls, assumed to treat the title the Pope had given and taken away, as a subject of Parliamentary gift, and annexed it for ever to the English crown by statute 35 Hen. VIII. c. 3, from which I make the following extract, as its language bears upon the question: "Whereas our most dread, &c. lord the King hath heretofore been, and is justly, lawfully, and notoriously knowen, named, published, and declared to be King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of England, and also of Ireland, in earth Supreme Head; and hath justly and lawfully used the title and name thereof as to his Grace appertaineth. Be it enacted, &c., that all and singular his Grace's subjects, &c. shall from henceforth accept and take the same his Majesty's style. . . . viz., in the English tongue by these words, Henry the Eighth, by the grace of God King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and of the Church of England, and also of Ireland, in earth the Supreme Head; and that the said style, &c. shall be, &c. united and annexed for ever to the imperial crown of his highness's realms of England."

By the supposed authority of this statute, and notwithstanding the revocation of the title by Pope Paul III., and its omission in the Bull addressed by Pope Julius III. to Philip and Mary, that princess, before and after her marriage, used this style, and the statute having been re-established by 1 Eliz. c. 1., the example has been followed by her royal Protestant successors, who wished thereby to declare themselves Defenders of the anti-papal Church. The learned Bishop Gibson, in his "Codex" (i. 33., note), treats this title as having commenced in Henry VIII. So do Blount, Cowel, and such like authorities.

Since writing the above, I have found (in the nineteenth volume of "Archæologia," pp. 1–10) an essay by Mr. Alexander Luders on this very subject, in which that able writer, who was well accustomed to examine historical records, refers to

many examples in which the title "Most Christian King" was attributed to, or used by, English sovereigns, as well as the kings of France; and to the fact, that this style was used by Henry VII. as appears from his contract with the Abbat of Westminster, (Harl. MS. 1498.) Selden tells us that the emperors had from early times been styled "Defensores Ecclesiæ;" and, from the instances cited by Mr. Luders, it appears that the title of “Most Christian" was appropriated to kings of France from a very ancient period; that Pepin received it (A.D. 755) from the Pope, and Charles the Bald (A.D. 859) from a Council: and Charles VI. refers to ancient usage for this title, and makes use of these words: "nostrorum progenitorum imitatione-evangelicæ veritatisDEFENSORES—nostra regia dignitas divino Christianæ religionis titulo gloriosius insignitur―

Mr. Luders refers to the use of the words "Nos zelo fidei catholicæ, cujus sumus et erimus Deo dante Defensores, salubriter commoti," in the charter of Richard II. to the Chancellor of Oxford, in the nineteenth year of his reign, as the earliest instances he had met with of the introduction of such phrases into acts of the kings of England. This zeal was for the condemnation of Wycliff's "Trialogus." In the reign of Henry IV. the writ "De Hæretico. comburendo" had the words "Zelator justitiæ et fidei catholicæ cultor;" and the title of " Très Chrêtien " occurs in several instruments of Henry VI. and Edward IV. It appears very probable that this usage was the foundation of the statement made by Chamberlayne and by Mr. Christopher Wren: but that the title of Defender of the Faith was used as part of the royal style before 1521, is, I believe, quite untrue.

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5. USE OF NORMAN-FRENCH IN PARLIAMENTARY

FORMS.

["John Bull" newspaper, November, 1851.]

A CORRESPONDENT of the "Morning Chronicle," whose nom de plume is "Clio," has recently protested against our allowing the language of William the Conqueror to linger in the constitutional forms of the British Parliament. He suggests that it is a violation of our feelings of nationality to use what he calls the dialect of conquerors in making the English laws, and asks why should not the victory of the English tongue over the usurping NormanFrench be complete? Now I presume that no one can seriously desire that our composite and copious language should be reduced to what it was before the coming of the Normans, or contemplate the possibility of such a "victory of the English tongue;" and I cannot see how our feelings of nationality are violated by using the harmless phrases of Norman-French which have so long lingered by the fountain of legislation. At the risk of being accounted a "musty legal antiquary, blindly attached to old forms," I must ask your permission to say a few words on their behalf, not because I have to confess any attachment to those particular phrases, or think their use a matter of any importance in itself, but because the correspondent of the "Morning Chronicle" appears to me to be wrong in representing the use of Norman-French as a badge of subjection. The use of NormanFrench in England during some centuries, is not to be regarded as a mark of subjection to the dictates of a conqueror. A taste for Norman fashions and language had, indeed, arisen among the higher classes in England before the Conquest; and the Norman tongue came into use, not because it was imposed on the Saxons, but because it was the language of the churchmen, lawyers, and courtiers of the day. The great Norman soldier and lawgiver grafted the Norman branch upon the Saxon stock, and is marked as a founder rather than a destroyer in the records of our polity, our language, and our nation. He proscribed neither the Saxon language nor the Saxon laws; but the gradual influence of his race moulded the Anglo-Saxon dialect into our English language.

USE OF NORMAN FRENCH IN PARLIAMENTARY FORMS. 305

More than a century elapsed since the death of King William before his language became impressed on that of England; and the Norman-French did not supersede the Latin as the common language of public ordinances and acts of state on record until the reign of Edward I. Yet the French language and manners probably predominated in the memorable field of Runymede, and the former was made the vehicle of declaring our English rights and liberties in the great Charter of King John. It was not until the line of Anjou reigned that the French tongue had come entirely to supplant the Latin in our statute-rolls. From that time it was almost invariably their language, down to the 5th Ric. II., from which period English occasionally appears; but the French was not superseded until the reign of Richard III. It was not until the reign of Henry VII. that statutes were commonly made in English.

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The constitutional forms of Parliament-by which I mean the forms used in making the statutes-seem to have come in with the House of Plantagenet, and may, therefore, be regarded as relics of the royal race of Anjou, as fragments that have come down to us on the stream of English laws, as things associated with periods great and glorious in our history, and on those accounts venerable in the eyes of Englishmen. A lawyer naturally loves the stability of old forms of procedure, and cannot see why you might not as well banish from our jurisprudence the words "Assize," "JUSTICE," and a hundred other terms of the language in which Britton, in the reign of Edward I., wrote his celebrated treatise of our laws, as the old phrases which are still used in some Parliamentary forms. I suppose it is from their antiquity that a sort of talismanic value seems to be attributed to them, and, though this mysterious virtue might not be lost if they were to be translated, I would say, "Let us stand upon the ancient ways," until good reason is shown for forsaking them. I find it stated, curiously enough, in Mr. May's excellent treatise on the "Law and Usage of Parliament," that during the usurpation called the "Commonwealth " the Lord Protector gave his assent to Bills in English (a reason, as I dare say many of your readers. will agree, why Queen Victoria should not do so), and that on the Restoration the old form of words was reverted to. It further

X

appears that only one attempt has since been made to abolish it, viz., in 1706, when the Lords passed a Bill "for abolishing the use of the French tongue in all proceedings in Parliament and Courts of Justice," which Bill dropped in the House of Commons; "and although," says Mr. May," an Act passed in 1731 for conducting all proceedings in Courts of Justice in English, no alteration was made in the old forms used in Parliament." The use of ancient forms was as distasteful to the Revolution mob in France as it had been to Cromwell, and they enacted that certain old phrases should give place to new forms. But custom ere long re-asserted its ancient sway; and I would urge that it be not interfered with in the case of the harmless relics of antiquity which have so long lingered on our statute-rolls. Finally, the correspondent of the "Chronicle" uses against them the cui bono argument; but the use which it has become the fashion to make of that argument does not by any means recommend it; and I cannot forbear from protesting on every opportunity against an argument which the utilitarian school is fond of applying to ancient things, and has unfortunately applied to matters of greater value than the use of the phrases in question.

6. VALIDITY OF OATHS.

["Durham County Advertiser," February, 1857.]

A FEW weeks since, a case came before a County Court, in which it was ruled that the evidence could not be received of a person tendered for examination who said he believed in the existence of a Supreme Being, but would not give a direct answer to the questions whether he believed in God, or in a future state of rewards and punishments, or in the existence of heaven and hell. He was the plaintiff in the case, and was called to prove his demand, which was for papers sold for some Chartist reading-room.

I often hear the rejection of his evidence discussed and disapproved of, and I believe there were articles in various news