THE EARLY STRUGGLES AGAINST THE ABSOLUTISM OF THE CROWN THE GREAT CHURCHMEN We are far from any thoughts of democracy in the early struggles against the absolutism of the Crown.

The old love of personal liberty that is said to have characterised the Anglo-Saxon had no political outlet under Norman feudalism.

What we note is that three Archbishops of Canterbury were strong enough and brave enough to stand up against the unchecked rule of kings, and the names of these great Archbishops--Anselm, Thomas a Becket, and Stephen Langton--are to be honoured for all time for the services they rendered in the making of English liberties.

Not one of the three was in any sense a democrat.

It is not till the latter part of the fourteenth century that we find John Ball, a wandering, revolutionary priest, uttering for the first time in England a democratic doctrine.