Let me remark, this place yet gives title to the present Lord Viscount
Dudley and Ward, as descended, by the female line, from the great
Norman Barons, the Fitz-Ausculfs, the Paganalls, the Somerys, the
Suttons, and the Dudleys, successively Lords paramount, whose original
power is reduced to a name.
MANOR HOUSE.
(The Moat.)
The natural temper of the human mind, like that of the brute, is given
to plunder: This temper is very apt to break forth into action. In all
societies of men, therefore, restraints have been discovered, under the
name of laws, attended with punishment, to deter people from infringing
each others property. Every thing that a man can possess, falls under
the denomination of property; whether it be life, liberty, wealth or
character.
The less perfect these laws are, the less a people are removed from the
rude state of nature, and the more necessity there is for a man to be
constantly in a state of defence, that he may be able to repel any force
that shall rise up against him.
It is easy to discover, by the laws of a country, how far the people are
advanced in civilization. If the laws are defective, or the magistrate
too weak to execute them, it is dangerous for a man to possess property.
But when a nation is pretty far advanced in social existence; when the
laws agree with reason, and are executed with firmness, a man need not
trouble himself concerning the protection of his property--his country
will protect it for him.
The laws of England have, for many ages, been gradually refining; and
are capable of that protection which violence never was.
But if we penetrate back into the recesses of time, we shall find the
laws inadequate, the manners savage, force occupy the place of justice,
and property unprotected. In those barbarous ages, therefore, men sought
security by intrenching themselves from a world they could not trust.
This was done by opening a large ditch round their habitation, which
they filled with water, and which was only approachable by a
draw-bridge. This, in some degree, supplied the defect of the law, and
the want of power in the magistrate. It also, during the iron reign of
priesthood, furnished that table in lent, which it guarded all the year.
The Britons had a very slender knowledge of fortification. The camps
they left us, are chiefly upon eminences, girt by a shallow ditch,
bordered with stone, earth, or timber, but never with water. The moat,
therefore, was introduced by the Romans; their camps are often in
marshes; some wholly, and some in part surrounded by water.
These liquid barriers were begun in England early in the christian æra,
they were in the zenith of their glory at the barons wars, in the reign
of king John, and continued to be the mode of fortification till the
introduction of guns, in the reign of Edward the fourth, which shook
their foundation; and the civil wars of Charles the first totally
annihilated their use, after an existence of twelve hundred years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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