Freedom In Service. F. J. C. Hearnshaw

articles were contributions to the controversy respecting methods of enlistment which took place during the autumn of 1915.

      The remaining three essays appear now for the first time. They have a more general scope, although they are vitally connected with the theme of their predecessors. The essay on Passive Resistance has special reference to the opposition offered by the No-Conscription Fellowship to the principle of compulsory military service; but its argument applies equally well to the older antagonists of the authority of the State. The essay on Christianity and War tries to meet those conscientious objections to military service which form the basis of the propaganda of the Fellowship of Reconciliation; but it deals with the problem in the broadest manner possible within the limits of its space. The concluding essay, on the State and its Rivals, emphasizes the imperative need that the authority of the Democratic National State should be recognized and accepted if internal anarchy is to be avoided, and if the peace and well-being of the World are to be secured.

      F. J. C. Hearnshaw.

      King's College, Strand, W.C.

       January 12th, 1916.

FREEDOM IN SERVICE

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I

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      THE ANCIENT DEFENCE OF ENGLAND[1]

      [Reprinted, with the addition of References, from the Morning Post of August 20th, 1915.]

I. UNIVERSAL OBLIGATION TO SERVE

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"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:

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      [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 patriæ 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.)

II. THE OLD ENGLISH MILITIA

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      This primitive national militia was not, it must be admitted, a very efficient force. It lacked coherence and training; it was deficient both in arms and in discipline; it could not be kept together for long campaigns. The Kings, therefore, from the first supplemented it by means of a band of personal followers, a bodyguard of professional warriors, well and uniformly armed, and practised in the art of war. Nevertheless, the main defence of the country rested with the "fyrd." The Danish invasions put it to the severest test and revealed its military defects. It was one of the most notable achievements of Alfred to reorganize and reconstitute it. Thus reformed, with the support of an ever-growing body of King's thegns, it wrought great deeds in the days of Alfred, Edward and Athelstan, and recovered for England security and peace. In the days of their weaker successors, however, all the forces that England could muster failed to keep out Sweyn and Canute, and, above all, failed to hold the field