A Statute of 1369 (42 Edward III. c. 1), requires special notice, since it commands that “the Great Charter and the Charter of the Forest be holden and kept in all points, and if any statute be made to the contrary that shall be holden for none.” Parliament in 1369 thus sought to deprive future Parliaments of the power to effect any alterations upon the terms of Magna Carta. Yet, if Parliament in that year had the power to add anything by a new legislative enactment to the ancient binding force of the Great Charter, it follows that succeeding Parliaments, in possession of equal powers, might readily undo by a second statute what the earlier statute had sought to effect. If Parliament had power to alter the sacred terms of Magna Carta itself, it had equal power to alter the less sacred statute of 1369 which declared it unalterable. The terms of that statute, however, are interesting as perhaps the earliest example on record of the illogical theory (frequently reiterated in later years) that the English Parliament might use its present legislative supremacy in such a manner as to limit the legislative supremacy of other Parliaments in the future. II. Magna Carta and the Reforms of Edward I. The Great Charter, alike from its excellences and from its defects, exercised a potent influence on the trend of events throughout the two succeeding reigns. It is hardly too much to say that the failure of Magna Carta to provide adequate machinery for its own enforcement is responsible for the spirit of unrest and for the protracted struggles and civil war which made up the troubled reign of Henry III.; while the difference of attitude assumed by Henry and by his son Edward respectively towards the scheme of reform it embodied explains the fundamental difference between the two reigns—why the former was so full of conflicts and distress, while the latter was so prosperous and progressive. To trace the history of these reigns in detail lies outside the scope of this Historical Introduction. It seems necessary, however, to emphasize such outstanding events as have an obvious and close connection with the Great Charter, and also to outline the policy of Edward, which led ultimately to the triumph of its underlying principles. The fundamental difference between the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. lies in this, that while Henry, in spite of numerous nominal confirmations of Magna Carta, never loyally accepted the settlement it contained, Edward, on the contrary, acquiesced in the main provisions of the Great Charter, under many subtle modifications it is true, yet honestly on the whole, and with a sincere intention to carry them into practice.