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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The proverb “qui s’excuse s’accuse” is so regularly turned against any author who gives any account of the origin of his work that it may be well to prevent its quotation by quoting it oneself. I have to ask that these three Chapters and their accompanying Notes may not be judged by the standard of a book. If I were to write a book on the English Constitution, it would be different in form and, in many points, different in style. What the reader has here is a somewhat extended form of two Lectures given at Leeds and Bradford last January. I had thought that they might be worth printing in the shape of two magazine-*papers; others thought that they might do good in their present shape. I therefore expanded the latter part of the second Lecture, which had to be cut very short in delivery, so as to make a third Chapter, and I added such notes and references as seemed to be needed.

I say all this, in order that what I have now written may be judged by the standard of lectures, not by the standard of a book. In a popular lecture it is impossible to deal with everything with which it is desirable to deal; it is impossible to go to the bottom of those things which one picks out to deal with. It is enough – because it is all that can be done – if the choice of subjects is fairly well made, and if the treatment of those that are chosen, though necessarily inadequate, is accurate as far as it goes. Many things must be left out altogether; many things must be treated very imperfectly; the attention of the hearers must be caught by putting some things in a more highly wrought shape than one would choose at another time. The object is gained, if the lecturer awakens in his hearers a real interest in the subject on which he speaks, and if he sends them to the proper sources of more minute knowledge. If I can in this way send every one who wishes to understand the early institutions of his country to the great work of Professor Stubbs – none the less great because it lies in an amazingly small compass – my own work will be effectually done. In Mr. Stubbs’ “Documents Illustrative of English History,” the ordinary student will find all that he can want to learn; while he who means to write a book, or to carry out his studies in a more minute way, will find the best of guidance towards so doing. The great documents of early English history, hitherto scattered far and wide, are now for the first time brought together, and their bearing is expounded in a continuous narrative worthy of the unerring learning and critical power of the first of living scholars.

For my own part, my object has been to show that the earliest institutions of England and of other Teutonic lands are not mere matters of curious speculation, but matters closely connected with our present political being. I wish to show that, in many things, our earliest institutions come more nearly home to us, and that they have more in common with our present political state, than the institutions of intermediate ages which at first sight seem to have much more in common with our own. As the continuity of our national life is to many so hard a lesson to master, so the continuity of our political life, and the way in which we have so often fallen back on the very earliest principles of our race, is a lesson which many find specially hard. But the holders of Liberal principles in modern politics need never shrink from tracing up our political history to its earliest beginnings. As far at least as our race is concerned, freedom is everywhere older than bondage; we may add that toleration is older than intolerance. Our ancient history is the possession of the Liberal, who, as being ever ready to reform, is the true Conservative, not of the self-styled Conservative who, by refusing to reform, does all he can to bring on destruction. One special point on which I have dwelt is the way in which our constitutional history has been perverted at the hands of lawyers. It is perfectly true that the history of England must be studied in the Statute-Book, but it must be in a Statute-Book which begins at no point later than the Dooms of Æthelberht.

As I have often had need to take facts and doctrines for granted which I believe myself to have proved in my larger works, I have in the Notes given frequent references to those works, instead of bringing in the evidence for the same things over again. And in the more modern part of the subject, I have given several extracts at full length, even from very familiar authors, because I know that a reader is often well pleased to have a striking passage set before him at once, without having to seek for it in the original. On the other hand, I have given at full length several extracts from statutes and other documents which most readers are not likely to have at hand. The historical portions of any Act of Parliament can be studied only in the Acts themselves, and not in the summaries of lawyers. Legal writers and speakers seem constantly to repeat what has been said before them, without any reference to the original sources. A memorable example is to be found in the assertion of Blackstone and of a crowd of lawyers after him, in Parliament and out of Parliament, that the King or Queen is by Law Head of the Church. I need hardly say that that title was used by Henry, Edward, and Mary, but that it was given up by Mary, and was not taken up again by any later Sovereign.

Somerleaze, Wells,

March 25, 1872.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

In this Second Edition I have made a few verbal corrections and improvements, and I have made two or three additions to the Notes. Otherwise the book is unchanged.

Somerleaze, Wells,

October 30, 1872.