Chapter 4 - Aristocracy

Summary

When England was declared to be governed as a free state, parliament stopped short of defining its precise constitutional form. Although historians, once again, had paid almost no attention to it, there was a lively debate amongst the supporters of the free state about its precise constitutional form, whether it was an aristocracy or democracy. Chapter 4 explores the aristocratic arguments for the free state. The aristocratic defenders of the free state, following a traditional line of argument, argued that, whereas a democracy denoted the direct rule of all the people, in an aristocracy sovereign power was in the hands of the few. Since in the English free state sovereign power was exercised by the House of Commons, it was, for these aristocrats, in the hands of a few, and the free state was, accordingly, an aristocracy. However, the free state was also presented by Ephraim Elcock as an Aristotelian politeia, a perfect mixture of oligarchy and democracy. According to Elcock, in the free state, ‘the peoples election of their Delegates is Democratical, the Government of these Deligates is Oligarchical, they being chosen out of the wealthiest of every County’.