has always given to the claim for free expression of opinion. Tennyson has caught the leading conception of liberty which has prevailed amongst us at all times when he describes England as—
A land where girt by friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will.
Englishmen have always been more concerned with saying what they would than in being or doing what they would. There is more outspokenness and expression of purely individual opinions and judgments in the mediæval chronicles of England than in those of other countries. From the days of Walter Mapes, there was a series of writers who gave their views about current affairs in political songs and satires. At the beginning of English literature stands Langland, burning with a simple Englishman's desire of saying his say about things in general. Hugh of Lincoln took Richard I. by his coat and gave him a good shaking, when he petulantly refused to listen to him. Grosseteste hunted Henry III. from place to place, as the king fled before the scolding which he knew was in store for him. Englishmen always longed to speak out what was in their minds.
With this went a tolerance of opinions, which again distinguishes England from other countries. It was not till the end of the fourteenth century that England troubled itself to discover heresy, and then the motive was to arrest outbreaks of social disturbance. The notion of strict inquiry into opinions, and the infliction of punishment for them, was always very distasteful to Englishmen. It has been pointed out
