legislative assembly, although the number of the slaves in that state exceeds that of the free population. An Aristocracy, therefore, may be defined to be a form of government in which the sovereign power is divided among a number of persons less than half the adult males of the entire community where there is not a class of subjects or slaves, or the dominant community where there is a class of subjects or slaves. France from the reign of Louis XIV. to the revolution of 1789, have often been called the aristocracy, although the government was during that time purely monarchical; so a class of persons has by many historians been termed the aristocracy in aristocratical republics, as Venice, and Rome before the admission of the plebeians to equal political rights: and in democratical republics, as Athens, Rome in later times, and France during a part of her revolution. It would therefore be an error if any person were to infer from the existence of an aristocracy (that is, an aristocratical class) in a state, that the form of government is therefore aristocratical, though in fact that might happen to be the case. The use of the word aristocracy to signify a class of persons never occurs in the Greek writers, with whom it originated, nor (as far as we are aware) is it ever employed by Machiavelli and the revivers of political science since the middle ages: among modern writers of all parts of Europe this acceptation has, however, now become frequent and established. There is scarcely any political term which has a more vague and fluctuating sense than aristocracy; and the historical or political student should be careful to watch with attention the variations in its Sometimes the word aristocracy is used to signify not a form of government, but a class of persons in a state. In this sense it is applied not merely to the persons composing the sovereign body in a state of which the government is aristocratical, but to a class or political party in any state, whatever be the form of its government. When there is a privileged order of persons in a community having a title or civil dignity, and when no person, not belonging to this body, is admitted to share in the sovereign power, this class is often called the aristocracy, and the aristocratic party or class; and all persons not belonging to it are called the popular party, or, for shortness, the people. Under these circumstances many rich persons would not belong to the aristocratic class; but if a change takes place in the constitution of the state, by which the disabilities of the popular order are re-meaning: observing, first, whether it moved, and the rich obtain a large share of the sovereign power, then the rich become the aristocratic class, as opposed to the middle ranks and the poor. This may be illustrated by the history of Florence, in which state the nobili popolani, or popular nobles (as they were called), at one time were opposed to the aristocratic party, but by a change in the constitution became themselves the chiefs of the aristocratic, and the enemies of the popular party. In England, at the present time, aristocracy, as the name of a class, is generally applied to the rich, as opposed to the rest of the community: sometimes, however, it is used in a narrower sense, and is restricted to the nobility, or members of the peerage. The word aristocracy, when used in this last sense, may be applied to an order of persons in states of any form of government. Thus, the privileged orders in means a form of government or a class of persons: if it means a form of government, whether the whole community is included, or whether there is also a class of subjects or slaves: if it means a class of persons, what is the principle which makes them a political party, or on what ground they are jointly opposed to other orders in the state. If attention is not paid to these points, there is great danger, in political or historical discussions, of confounding things essentially different, and of drawing parallels between governments, parties, and states of society, which resemble each other only in being called by the same name. It has been lately proposed by Mr. Austin, in his work on The .Province of Jurisprudence,' to use the term aristocracy as a general name for governments in which the sovereignty belongs to several persons, that is, to all governments which are not monarchies. There would, however, be much inconvenience in deviating so widely from the established usage of words, as to make democracy a kind of aristocracy; and it appears that the word republic has properly the sense required, being a general term including both aristocracy and democracy, and signifying all governments which are not monarchies or despotisms. (Journal of Education, Part viii. p. 299; and REPUBLIC and DEMOCRACY.) A'RMIGER. [ESQUIRE.] ARMORIAL BEARINGS. ALDRY.] tion into divisions and regiments remained, though actually consisting of not more than a single regiment with its full complement of men and officers. In this state it is sometimes not unaptly called the skeleton of an army. An army is the great instrument in the hands of the governments of modern Europe, by which, in the last extremity, they enforce obedience to the laws at home, and respect from other powers who show a disposition to do them wrong. When the efforts of the ministers of peace and [HER-justice at home are inadequate to enforce submission to the laws:--when the correspondence of cabinets and the conferences of ambassadors fail in composing disputes which arise among nations, the army is that power which is used to maintain order at home and rights abroad. ARMY. The word army, like many other military terms, has come to us from the French. They write it armée, "the armed," the "men in arms," which is precisely what the English word army means. An army is ill defined by Locke to be a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. There are various definitions given by writers on the Law of Nations. The word army is not used to designate a simple regiment or battalion, or any small body of armed men. An army is a large body of troops distributed in divisions and regiments, each under its own commander, and having officers of various descriptions to attend to all that is necessary to make the troops effective when in action. The whole body is under the direction of some one commander, who is called the commander-in-chief, the general, and sometimes the generalissimo, that is, the chief among the generals. The whole military force of a nation constitutes its army, and it is usual to estimate the comparative strength of nations by the number of well-appointed men which they are able to bring into the field. In another sense, an army is a detachment from the whole collected force; a number of regiments sent forth on a particular expedition under the command of some one person who is the general for that especial purpose. Instances of this latter sense of the word occur in the expressions "Army of Italy," "the Army of Spain," &c., as formed by Napoleon. Such a detachment may be a large or a small army; and should it return with its ranks greatly thinned and without many of its officers, it would still be an army, if the distribu The legitimate purposes for which an army is maintained are essential to the well-being of a state, and every nation that has attained any high degree of civilization, has always maintained such a force, at least for protection and defence. But to have an army always appointed and always ready for the field can only be effected when the various other offices in a great community are properly distributed and filled. No better proof can be afforded of the high civilization of Egypt and other countries in early times than the well-appointed and powerful armies which they were able to bring into the field. This was effected in Egypt by having a particular caste or class of soldiers, corresponding pretty nearly to the Kshatriyas of India. (Herodotus, ii. 164, &c.) The armies of the Greeks, especially in the post-Alexandrine period, those of Carthage under the command of Hannibal, and the armies of Rome in the best days of the Republic and the Empire, were not inferior to any of modern times in numbers, appointments, discipline, or the military skill of their commanders. It is not, however, to them that we are to trace the origin or the history of our modern armies. An army, meaning by that term a body of men distinct from the rest of the nation, constantly armed and disciplined, was unknown in the early periods of the English and the other modern European nations. The whole male population was the army; that is, every person learned the use of arms, was ready to defend himself, his family, and his possessions; and in time of common danger, to go out to war under the command of some one chief chosen from among the heads of the tribes. Such were the vast armies which presented themselves from time to time on the Roman frontier, or contended against Cæsar when he was endeavouring to subjugate Gaul; and such was the power which, on so short a warning, was arrayed against him on the British coast under the command of Cassibelaunus, when he made that descent from which neither honour accrued to the Roman arms nor benefit to the Roman state. In all these nations the warline spirit was kept up by the sense of danger, not so much from foreign invaders, as from neighbouring and kindred tribes. In the writings of Cæsar and Tacitus, the two authors from whom we derive our best acquaintance with the manners of the Germanic and the Western nations of Europe, we see the warlike character of those nations, and the principles on which their military affairs were conducted. A whole male population trained to arms; confederating in time of common danger under some one chief; with little defensive armour, and no offensive weapons except darts, spears, and arrows; throwing up occasionally earth-works to strengthen a position-this is the outline of their military proceedings. (Tacitus, Annal. ii. 14.) There is little peculiar in the military system of the ancient Britons; yet it must have been by long practice that their warriors attained that degree of skill which they showed at the time of Cæsar's invasion. of the distribution of the whole Roman army; and we see, in particular, how Britain was then divided for military purposes, and what were the fixed stations of particular portions of the Roman legions. It was the policy of Rome, in the latter part of the Republic, and more particularly under the Empire, to recruit its legions from among the barbarous nations, but to employ such soldiers in countries to which they did not belong. Thus, in the inscriptions relating to military affairs which have been found in England, many tribes of Gaul, of Spain, and Portugal are named as those to which particular soldiers, or particular bodies of troops, belonged. And so in foreign inscriptions, the names of British tribes are sometimes found. The grounds of this policy are apparent. The military portion of these nations was thus drawn away. There remained only the quiet and the peaceable, or the females, the young, the infirm, and the aged. As long as the Roman army was sufficient for their protection, it was well. But when that army was withdrawn, we see, as in the case of Britain, that a people so weakened would easily fall a prey to nations which had never been subdued by the Roman arms; and we see also what was probably the true reason of the difference between the spirited resistance which was made to Cæsar on his two landings in Britain. and the clamorous complaint and feeble resistance with which the people of Bri, tain met the Picts and the Saxons. From this time we lose sight of any entire British population of the part of the island called England. The conquests made by the Saxons appear to have been complete, and their maxims of policy and war became the principles of English When Britain was reduced to the form polity. They seem to have been at first of a Roman province, a regular army was in that state of society in which every introduced and permanently settled in the man is a soldier; and the different soveisland, for the purpose of enforcing sub-reignties which they established were the mission, and of defence against foreign occasion of innumerable contests. invaders. Many of the remains of Roman have, however, little information on this authority in Britain, as roads, walls, subject; and even the supposed policy of encampments, and inscriptions, are mili- Alfred, in the separation of a portion of tary. In that curious relic of Roman time, the people for military affairs, in the the 'Notitia,' which is referred to the age form of a national militia, is a part of his of the Roman emperors Arcadius and history on which we have not any very Honorius, we have a particular account satisfactory information. We We find, however, that the Saxon kings had powerful armies at their command; and the most probable account of the mode in which they were got together seems to be this: the male population were exercised in military duties, under the inspection of the earls, and their deputies, the sheriffs, or vicecomites, in the manner of the arrays and musters of later timesbeing drawn out occasionally for the purpose, and being thus ready to form, at any time when their services were required, an efficient force. We see from that curious remain of those times, a piece of needle-work representing the wars and death of Harold, that the Saxon soldiers were not those halfclothed and painted figures which had presented themselves on the shores of Britain when the Roman armies made their first descent. We see them clothed from head to foot in a close-fitting dress of mail. They have cavalry, but no chariots. The archers are all infantry. Both infantry and cavalry are armed with spears, to some of which little pennons are attached. Some have swords, and others carry bills or battle-axes. They have shields, the bosses on which are surrounded with flourishes and other ornaments; and there are sometimes other devices, but nothing which can be regarded as more than the very rudiments of those heraldic devices which were afterwards formed into a kind of system by the heralds who attended the armies, and by which the chiefs were distinguished from each other, when their persons were concealed by the armour. The piece of needle-work representing the wars of Harold is supposed to be the work of Matilda, the queen of William the Conqueror, and the ladies of her court. It is preserved in the cathedral of Bayeux, whence it is commonly called the Bayeux tapestry. One of the many valuable services rendered to historical literature by the Society of Antiquaries has been the publication of a series of coloured prints, in which we have, on a reduced scale, a perfectly accurate representation of this singular monument of ancient English and Norman manners. A great change took place in the military system of England at the Conquest. | It is to that period that the introduction of fiefs is to be referred, a system which provided, among other things, for an army ever ready at the call of the sovereign lord. The king, reserving certain tracts as his own demesne, distributed the greater portion of England among his followers, to hold by military service that is, for every knight's fee, as they were called, the tenant was bound to find the king one soldier ready for the field, to serve him for forty days in each year. The extent of the knight's fee varied with the qualities and value of the soil. In the reign of Edward I. the annual value in money was 201. The number of knights' fees is said by old writers to have been 60,060. The king had thus provision made for an army of 60,000 men, whom he could call at short notice into the field, subject them when there to all the regulations of military discipline, and keep them for forty days without pay, which was usually as long as their service would be required in the warfare in which the king was likely to be engaged. When their services were required for any longer time, they might continue on receiving pay. Writs of military summons are found in great abundance in what are called the "Close Rolls," which contain copies of such letters as the king issues under seal. But this system, it is evident, had many inconveniences; and the kings of England had a better security for the protection of the realm against invasion, and for the maintenance of internal tranquillity, in that which seems to be a relic of Saxon polity. We allude to the liability of all persons to be called upon for military service within the realm; to the power which the constitution gave to the sheriff to call them out to exercise, in order that they might be in a condition to perform the duty when called upon; and to the obligation which a statute of Edward I. imposed on all persons to provide themselves with certain pieces of armour, which were changed for others by a statute of James I. We see in this system at once the practice of our remoter ancestors, and the beginning of that drafting of men to form the county militia, which is a part of the military polity of the country at present. The sheriffs were the persons to whom the care of these affairs was committed; but it was the practice of the early kings to send down into the several shires, or to select from the gentry residing in them, persons whose duty it was to attend the musters or arrays, which were a species of review of these domestic troops, and who were intended, as it seems, to be a check upon the sheriffs in the discharge of this part of their duty. The persons thus employed were usually men experienced in military affairs; and when the practice became more general, there was a permanent officer appointed in each county, who had the superintendence of these operations, and was called the lieutenant: this is the origin of the present lord-lieutenant of counties, an officer who cannot be traced to a period earlier than the reign of Henry VIII. Foreigners were also sometimes engaged to serve the king in his wars; but these were purely mercenary troops, and were paid out of the king's own revenues. We see, then, that the early kings of England of the Norman and Plantagenet races had three distinct means to which they could have recourse when it was necessary to arm for the general defence of the realm: the quota of men which the holders of the knights' fees were bound to furnish; the posse-comitatûs, or whole population, from sixteen to sixty, of each shire, under the guidance of the sheriffs; and such hired troops as they might think proper to engage. But as the posse-comitatûs could not be compelled to leave the kingdom, and only in particular cases the shire to which they belonged, the king had only his feudal and mercenary troops at command when he car ied an army to the continent, or when he had to wage war against even the Scotch or Welsh. We are not to suppose that troops so levied, especially when there were only contracted pecuniary resources for the hiring of disciplined troops of other nations, would have been sufficient to make head against the power of such a potentate as the king of France, and once to gain possession of that throne. And this leads us to another important part of the subject. The mutual inconveniences attendant on the nature of the military services due from those who held the feudal tenures of the crown disposed both parties to consent to frequent commutations. Money was rendered instead of service, and thus the crown acquired a revenue which was applicable to military purposes, and which was expended in the hire of native-born subjects to perform service in the king's armies in particular places and for particular terms. The king covenanted by indenture with various persons, chiefly those of most importance in the country, to serve him on certain money-terms with a certain number of followers, and in certain determinate expeditions. There appears little essential difference between this and the modern practice of recruiting armies. It was chiefly by troops thus collected that the victories of Creci, Poictiers, and Agincourt were gained. In the office of the Clerk of the Pells in the Exchequer, Dugdale perused numerous indentures of this kind, and he has made great use of them in the history which he published of the Baronage of England. A few extracts from that work will show something of the nature of these engagements. Michael Poynings, who was at the attle of Creci, entered into a contract with King Edward III. to serve him with fifteen men-at-arms, four knights, ten esquires, and twelve archers, having an allowance of twenty-one sacks of the king's wool for his and their wages. Three years after the battle of Creci, King Edward engaged Sir Thomas Ughtred to serve him in his wars beyond sea, with twenty men-at-arms and twenty archers on horseback, taking after the rate of 2001. per annum for his wages during the continuance of the war. the second year of King Henry IV., Sir William Willoughby was retained to attend the king in his expedition into Scotland, with three knights besides himself, twenty-seven men-at-arms, and one hundred and sixty-nine archers, and to continue with him from June 20th to the 13th of September. When Henry V. had determined to lead an army into France, John Holland was retained to serve the king in his "voyage royal" into France for one whole year, with forty In |