In expounding the origin of the Charter, it is necessary briefly to narrate how the scattered Anglo-Saxon and Danish tribes and territories, originally unconnected, were gradually welded together and grew into England; how this fusion was made permanent by the growth of a strong form of centralized monarchical government which crushed out all attempts at local independence, and threatened to become the most absolute despotism in Europe; and how, finally, the Crown, because of the very plenitude of its power, challenged opposition and called into play forces which set limits to royal prerogatives and royal aggressions, and at the same time laid the foundations of the reign of law. A short survey of the early history of England forms a necessary preliminary to a right understanding of Magna Carta. Such a survey makes prominent two leading movements, one of which succeeds the other; namely, the establishment of a strong monarchy able to bring order out of anarchy, and the subsequent establishment of safeguards to prevent this source of order degenerating into an unrestrained tyranny, and so crushing out not merely anarchy but legitimate freedom as well. The later movement, in favour of liberty and the Great Charter, was the natural complement, and, in part, the consequence of the earlier movement in the direction of a strong government able to enforce peace. In historical sequence, order precedes freedom. These two problems, each forming the counterpart of the other, necessarily arise in the history of every nation, and in every age; the problem of _order_, or how to found a central government strong enough to suppress anarchy, and the problem of _freedom_, or how to set limits to an autocracy threatening to overshadow individual liberty. Neither of these problems can ever be ignored, not even in the twentieth century; although to-day the accumulated political experience of ages has enabled modern nations, such at least as are sufficiently educated in self-government, to thrust them into the background, out of view. Deep political insight may still be acknowledged in Æsop’s fable of Jupiter and the frogs. King Log proves as ineffective against foreign invasion as he is void of offence to domestic freedom; King Stork secures the triumph of his subjects in time of war, but devours them in time of peace. All nations in their early efforts to obtain an efficient government have to choose between these two types of ruler—between an executive, harmless but weak; and one powerful enough effectively to direct the business of government at home and abroad, but ready to turn the powers entrusted to him for the good of all, to his own selfish uses and the trampling out of his subjects’ liberties.