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Growth of the English Constitution from the Earliest Times
Growth of the English Constitution from the Earliest Times Author:Edward A. Freeman Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. In my two former chapters I have carried my brief sketch of the history of the English Constitution down to the great events of the seventeen... more »th century. I chose that point as the end of my consecutive narrative, because the peculiar characteristic of the times which have followed has been that so many and such important practical changes have been made- without any change in the written Law, without any re-enactment of the Law, without any fresh declaration of its meaning. The movements and revolutions of former times, as I have before said, seldom professed to seek in the acknowledged Law, they rather sought its more distinct enactment, its more careful and honest administration. This was the general character of all the great steps in our political history, from the day when William of Normandy renewed the Laws of Eadward to the day when William of Orange gave his royal assent to the Bill of Rights. But, though each step in our progress took theshape, not of the creation of a new right, but of the firmer establishment of an old one, yet each step was marked by some formal and public act which stands enrolled among the landmarks of our progress. Some Charter was granted by the Sovereign, some Act of Parliament was passed by the Estates of the Realm, which set forth in legal form the nature and measure of the rights which were to be placed on a firmer ground. Since the seventeenth century things have in this respect greatly altered. The work of legislation, of strictly constitutional legislation, has never ceased ; a long succession of legislative enactments stand out as landmarks of political progress no less in more recent than in earlier times. But alongside of them there has also been a series of political changes, changes of no less moment than those which...« less