In a land of liberty it is extremely dangerous to make a distinct order of the profession of arms. In absolute monarchies this is necessary for the safety of the prince, and arises from the main principle of their constitution, which is that of governing by fear; but in free states the profession of a soldier, taken singly and merely as a profession, is justly an object of jealousy. In these no man should take up arms, but with a view to defend his country and its laws; he puts not off the citizen when he enters the camp; but it is because he is a citizen, and would wish to continue so, that he makes himself for a while a soldier. The laws therefore and constitution of these kingdoms know no such state as that of a perpetual standing soldier, bred up to no other profession than that of war; and it was not till the reign of Henry VII that the kings of England had so much as a guard about their persons. In the time of our Saxon ancestors, as appears from Edward the Confessor's laws, the military force of this kingdom was in the hands of the dukes or heretochs, who were constituted through every province and county in the kingdom; being taken out of the principal nobility, and such as were most remarkable for being "_sapientes, fideles, et animosi_." Their duty was to lead and regulate the English armies, with a very unlimited power; "_prout eis visum fuerit, ad honorem coronae et utilitatem regni_." And because of this great power they were elected by the people in their full assembly, or folkmote, in the manner as sheriffs were elected; following still that old fundamental maxim of the Saxon constitution, that where any officer was entrusted with such power, as if abused might tend to the oppression of the people, that power was delegated to him by the vote of the people themselves. So, too, among the ancient Germans, the ancestors of our Saxon forefathers, they had their dukes, as well as kings, with an independent power over the military, as the kings had over the civil state. The dukes were elective, the kings hereditary; for so only can be consistently understood that passage of Tacitus, "_reges ex nobilitate, duces ex virtute sumunt_"; in constituting their kings, the family or blood royal was regarded; in choosing their dukes or leaders, warlike merit; just as Caesar relates of their ancestors in his time, that whenever they went to war, by way either of attack or defense, they elected leaders to command them. This large share of power, thus conferred by the people, tho intended to preserve the liberty of the subject, was perhaps unreasonably detrimental to the prerogative of the crown; and accordingly we find ill use made of it by Edric, Duke of Mercia, in the reign of King Edmund Ironside, who, by his office of duke or heretoch, was entitled to a large command in the king's army, and by his repeated treacheries at last transferred the crown to Canute the Dane.