clergy, who were so much more weighty in the balance, which is
that of all other whence a state or order in a government is
denominated. Wherefore this monarchy consisted of the King, and
of the three ordines regni, or estates, the lords spiritual and
temporal, and the commons; it consisted of these, I say, as to
the balance, though, during the reign of some of these kings, not
as to the administration.
For the ambition of Turbo, and some of those that more
immediately succeeded him, to be absolute princes, strove against
the nature of their foundation, and, inasmuch as he had divided
almost the whole realm among his Neustrians, with some
encouragement for a while. But the Neustrians, while they were
but foreign plants, having no security against the natives, but
in growing up by their princes' sides, were no sooner well rooted
in their vast dominions than they came up according to the
infallible consequence of the balance domestic, and, contracting
the national interest of the baronage, grew as fierce in the
vindication of the ancient rights and liberties of the same, as
if they had been always natives: whence, the kings being as
obstinate on the one side for their absolute power, as these on
the other for their immunities, grew certain wars, which took
their denomination from the barons.
This fire about the middle of the reign of Adoxus began to
break out. And whereas the predecessors of this King had divers
times been forced to summon councils resembling those of the
Teutons, to which the lords only that were barons by dominion and
tenure had hitherto repaired, Adoxus, seeing the effects of such
dominion, began first not to call such as were barons by writ
(for that was according to the practice of ancient times), but to
call such by writs as were otherwise no barons; by which means,
striving to avoid the consequence of the balance, in coming
unwillingly to set the government straight, he was the first that
set it awry. For the barons in his reign, and his successors,
having vindicated their ancient authority, restored the
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