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Freedom In Service / Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government by F. J. C. Hearnshaw
Chapter 1 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 patri? 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. W. C. Art of War in the Middle Ages, p. 67.
[8] Stubbs, W. Select Charters, p. 156. (The King orders that no one except a freeman shall be admitted to the oath of arms.)
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Chapter 1 UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE
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Chapter 2 THE OLD ENGLISH MILITIA
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Chapter 3 MEDI VAL REGULATIONS
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Chapter 4 TUDOR AND STUART DEVELOPMENTS
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Chapter 5 THE LAST TWO CENTURIES
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Chapter 6 CONCLUSION
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Chapter 7 THE PLEA OF FREEDOM
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Chapter 8 THE TERM LIBERTY
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Chapter 9 LIBERTY AS FREEDOM FROM FOREIGN CONTROL
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Chapter 10 LIBERTY AS SYNONYMOUS WITH RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
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Chapter 11 LIBERTY AS ABSENCE OF RESTRAINT
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Chapter 12 LIBERTY AS THE OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE
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Chapter 13 THE IDEA OF VOLUNTARISM
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Chapter 14 ITS ESTABLISHMENT
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Chapter 15 THE RESULT
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Chapter 16 THE PRESENT SITUATION
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Chapter 17 THE FUTURE
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Chapter 18 THE NEW PERIL
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Chapter 19 PASSIVE RESISTANCE AS REBELLION
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Chapter 20 THE RIGHT OF REBELLION
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Chapter 21 REBELLION AGAINST A DEMOCRACY
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Chapter 22 THE DUTY OF THE STATE
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Chapter 23 A CONFLICT OF CONVICTIONS
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Chapter 24 THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE
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Chapter 25 THE DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE OF THE CHURCH
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Chapter 26 FORCE AS A MORAL INSTRUMENT
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Chapter 27 THE IDEAL OF THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
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Chapter 28 THE PACIFICIST SUCCESSION
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Chapter 29 CONCLUSION 29
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Chapter 30 THE IDEA OF THE STATE IN ENGLAND
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Chapter 31 THE RIVALS OF THE STATE
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Chapter 32 WHAT THE STATE IS AND DOES
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Chapter 33 THE SPHERE OF NATIONAL SERVICE
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