In proportion as this idea gains ground, the influence of the king in every detail of public life necessarily increases, and the regalia or royal rights become more varied and numerous: he is looked upon as the protector of the stranger, who has no other natural guardian, inasmuch as no stranger can be a member of any of those associations which are the guarantee of the freeman. He has the sole right of settling the value and form of the medium of exchange: through his power of calling out the armed force, he obtains rights which can only consist with martial law,—even the right of life and death[285]: the justice of the whole country flows from him: the establishment of fiscal officers dependent upon himself places the private possessions of the freeman at his disposal. The peculiar conservancy of the peace, and command over the means of internal communication enable him to impose tolls on land- and water-carriage: he is thus also empowered to demand the services of the freemen to receive and conduct travelling strangers, heralds or ambassadors from one royal vill to another; to demand the aid of their carts and horses to carry forage, provisions or building-materials to his royal residence. Treasure-trove is his, because where there is no owner, the state claims the accidental advantage, and the king is the representative of the state. It is part of his dignity that he may command the aid of the freemen in his hunting and fishing; and hence that he may compel them to keep his hawks and hounds, and harbour or feed his huntsmen. As head of the church he has an important influence in the election of bishops, even in the establishment of new sees, or the abolition of old established ones. His authority it is that appoints the duke, the geréfa, perhaps even the members of the Witena-gemót. Above all, he has the right to divest himself of a portion of these attributes, and confer them upon those whom he pleases, in different districts. ----- Footnote 285: I may again refer to the story of the vase at Soissons. Clovis put the soldier to death on pretext of a breach of discipline; in reality, because the man had opposed him with respect to the booty. But, except in the field, it is not to be imagined that Clovis could have taken his life; and certainly not without a legal conviction and condemnation by the people. ----- The complete description of the rights of Royalty, in all their detail, will find a place in the Second Book of this work; they can only be noticed cursorily here, inasmuch as they appertain, in strictness, to a period in which the monarchical spirit, and the institutions proper thereto, had become firmly settled, and applied to every part of our social scheme. But whatever extension they may have attained in process of time, they have their origin in the rights permitted to the king, even in the remotest periods of which we read.