In Freeman’s “Norman Conquest,” it appears that the old English town, or borough, is purely of Teutonic origin.  In this, local self-government is distinctly recognized, although it subsequently was controlled by the parish priest and the lord of the manor under the influence of the papacy and feudalism; in other words, the ancient jurisdiction of the tun-mot—­or town-meeting—­survived in the parish vestry and the manorial court.  The guild system, according to Kendall, had its origin in England at a very early date, and a great influence was exercised on popular liberty by the meetings of the various guilds, composed, as they were, of small freemen.  The guild law became the law of the town, with the right to elect its magistrates.  “The old reeve or bailiff was supplanted by mayor and aldermen, and the practice of sending the reeve and four men as the representatives of the township to the shire-moot widened into the practice of sending four discreet men as representatives of the county to confer with the king in his great council touching the affairs of the kingdom.”  “In 1376,” says Taylor, “the Commons, intent upon correcting the evil practices of the sheriff, petitioned that the knights of the shire might be chosen by common election of the better folk of the shires, and not nominated by the sheriff; and Edward III. assented to the request.”

I will not dwell further on the origin and maintenance of free institutions in England while Continental States were oppressed by all the miseries of royalty and feudalism.  But beyond all the charters and laws which modern criticism had raked out from buried or forgotten records, there is something in the character of the English yeoman which even better explains what is most noticeable in the settlement of the American Colonies, especially in New England.  The restless passion for personal independence, the patience, the energy, the enterprise, even the narrowness and bigotry which marked the English middle classes in all the crises of their history, stand out in bold relief in the character of the New England settlers.  All their traits are not interesting, but they are English, and represent the peculiarities of the Anglo-Saxons, rather than of the Normans.  In England, they produced a Latimer rather than a Cranmer,—­a Cromwell rather than a Stanley.  The Saxon yeomanry at the time of Chaucer were not aristocratic, but democratic.  They had an intense hatred of Norman arrogance and aggression.  Their home life was dull, but virtuous.  They cared but little for the sports of the chase, compared with the love which the Norman aristocracy always had for such pleasures.  It was among them that two hundred years later the reformed doctrines of Calvin took the deepest hold, since these were indissolubly blended with civil liberty.  There was something in the blood of the English Puritans which fitted them to be the settlers of a new country, independent of cravings for religious liberty.  In their new homes in the cheerless climate of New