He was merely the semi-hereditary general and representative of the people, of royal stock, but elected by the free suffrages of the freemen.

Only as the kingdoms coalesced, and as the power of meeting became consequently less, did the king acquire his greater prerogatives.

From the first, however, he seems to have possessed the right of granting public lands, with the consent of the freemen, to particular individuals; and such book-land, as the early English called it, after the introduction of Roman writing, became the origin of our system of private property in land.
Every township had its moot or assembly of freemen, which met around the sacred oak, or on some holy hill, or beside the great stone monument of some forgotten Celtic chieftain.

Every hundred also had its moot, and many of these still survive in their original form to the present day, being held in the open air, near some sacred site or conspicuous landmark.

And the colony as a whole had also its moot, at which all freemen might attend, and which settled the general affairs of the kingdom.