6 quotes
Among the first truths which the historical student, or indeed any scientific scholar, learns to recognise, this is perhaps the most important, that no theory or principle works in isolation.
The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)
[T]he whole of the constitutional history of England is little more than a commentary on Magna Carta.
The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)
But although English society was divided by sharp lines, and broad intervals, it was not a system of caste either in the stricter or in the looser sense. It had much elasticity in practice, and the boundaries between the ranks were passable.
The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)
No legislation turned the free owner into the feudal tenant: whatever changes in that direction took place were the result of individual acts, or of very gradual changes of custom arising indirectly from the fact that other relations were assuming a territorial character.
The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)
There are no constitutional revolutions, no violent reversals of legislation; custom is far more potent than law, and custom is modified infinitesimally every day. An alteration of law is often the mere registration of a custom, when men have recognised its altered character. The names of offices and assemblies are permanent, whilst their character has imperceptibly undergone essential change.
The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)
The Great Charter is the first great public act of the nation, after it has realised its own identity: the consummation of the work for which unconsciously kings, prelates, and lawyers have been labouring for a century. There is not a word in it that recalls the distinctions of race and blood, or that maintains the differences of English and Norman law. It is in one view the summing up of a period of national life, in another the starting-point of a new, not less eventful, period than that which it closes.
The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development, Vol. I (1874)