THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION _FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES_. [Illustration] THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION _FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES_. BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., HON. D.C.L., LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD. ‘Concedis justas leges et consuetudines esse tenendas, et promittis eas per te esse protegendas et ad honorem Dei roborandas, _quas vulgus elegerit_ secundum vires tuas?’—ANCIENT CORONATION OATH. ‘Rex habet superiorem, Deum. Item Legem, per quam factus est Rex. Item curiam suam.’—BRACTON. ‘Igitur communitas regni consulatur, Et quid universitas sentiat sciatur.’ POLITICAL POEM, _XIII. Cent._ _SECOND EDITION._ London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1873. [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is reserved._] LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. 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.