tant fact, now generally admitted, that the national life of the English people, both natural and political, began with the coming of the Teutonic invaders who, during the fifth and sixth centuries, transferred from the Continent into Britain their entire scheme of barbaric life. In 1839 Kemble began the publication of his "Codex Diplomaticus Ævi Saxonici," whereby "upwards of fourteen hundred documents, containing the grants of kings and bishops, the settlements of private persons, the conventions of landlords and tenants, the technical forms of judicial proceedings, have been placed in our hands." In 1840 Thorpe published his "Ancient Laws and Institutes of England; and in 1848 Kemble published his "Saxons in England," in which was embodied the first effort ever made to state in a systematic form the results of the new sources of knowledge which he had done so much to bring to light. A co-worker with Kemble was Sir Francis Palgrave, who in 1832 published "The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth," and in 1851-64 the "History of Normandy and England." Kemble may have been guilty of exaggeration; he may at times have been misty in his conclusions. Sir Francis was no doubt often fanciful; at times he was certainly garrulous. And yet the fact remains that these pioneer scholars were the path-breakers who opened the way for the coming of the two English historians who have raised the science of history to as high a pitch, perhaps, as it has ever reached in ancient or modern times. Not until Mr. Freeman had completed his "History of the Norman Conquest," not until Bishop Stubbs had completed the "Constitutional History," the "Select Charters," and "the wonderful prefaces," did the grand inquest into the early and mediæval history of England, which Kemble and Palgrave had inaugurated, reach a definite and final result. Not until the head waters of the mighty river had thus been reached, not until the direction of the stream during its earlier course had been clearly mapped out by competent hands, did it become possible either for the general student of the history of the English people, or for the special student of the English constitution, to begin with the sources, and trace them without interruption to their ultimate conclusion. Until the analysis had ended, it was impossible for the synthesis to begin.

The advent of the new learning touching the early and mediæval history of England - which has rendered obsolete and worthless.

nearly all of the older disquisitions made before the fresh sources of knowledge had become available - has rendered necessary a reconsideration of nearly every branch of English history from a new point of view. Not until the early periods, which contain the starting-points of everything, had been fully mastered, was it possible to firmly establish the premises upon which every far-reaching argument touching the social or political life of the English nation must necessarily proceed. One of the first to perceive the necessity for a recasting of English history as a whole, from the new point of view, was the late John Richard Green, the gentle scholar, whose master hand was the first to trace the entire course of the history of the English people from its long-hidden sources in the "village-moots of Friesland or Sleswick," across the Northern Ocean into Britain, and across the Atlantic into North America. Several years before the publication of the "History of the English People," the author of this work undertook the humbler and narrower task of drawing out, in the light of the new learning, the entire historic development of the English constitution, a task which, up to that time, no one had ever attempted. Since then has appeared the now famous "History of the English Constitution," by Dr. Rudolph Gneist, Professor of Law at the University of Berlin; and also a work entitled "English Constitutional History," by the late Thomas Pitt Taswell-Langmead, sometime Professor of Constitutional Law and History at University College, London. It is to the author rather a source of pleasure than of regret that the publication of these meritorious works should have preceded his own. All attempts so far made to write a complete history of the English constitution are merely tentative, the historian who is to cast the entire theme in its final form is yet to come. His coming will finally be made possible through a series of imperfect efforts to execute his task by a succession of historical students, each one of whom will make some advance toward the common goal by utilizing all that is strongest, and by discarding all that is weakest, in the works of his predecessors.

The history of the growth of the English constitution, extending as it does through the annals of fourteen centuries, is by far too vast a theme for any one mind to assail in the way of original research. The best of the modern historical schools recognize the fact that the study of the history even of a single country can only proceed in a

truly scientific manner through a system of coöperation based upon a division of labor. Each epoch must first be made the subject of thorough investigation by specialists who work upon the sources (what the Germans call Quellenstudien), and extract from them, through a kind of laboratory process, their full and true significance. Not until the original documents and other sources have been taken from the mine and purged of their dross by these special workers do the facts which they contain become available to those who desire to build upon them broad and comprehensive generalizations. In the collection of the materials which have entered into the structure of this work the author has striven to select out of the mass with which the subject is encumbered only such as have passed through the crucible of the latest and most enlightened criticism. In the attempt which has been made to work the materials thus collected into such a combination as will reveal a natural and unbroken sequence of constitutional growth, the method of the historical school has been followed, a school which dogmatizes but little, which has little or nothing to do with à priori theories, and which teaches, with Sir James Macintosh, that "constitutions are not made, they grow." Only by the aid of this method, which recognizes the law of growth as the law of constitutional life, is it possible to trace the mighty stream of Teutonic democracy from its sources in the village-moots and state assembles of Friesland and Sleswick across the Northern Ocean into Britain, and across the Atlantic into North America. Only by the aid of this method is it possible to demonstrate the fact that the federal republic of the United States is the lineal descendant of those ancient German tribal federations of which we catch our first glimpses in the pages of Cæsar and Tacitus. When, in the light of this method, we contemplate this vast and unbroken development, which has affected so profoundly the destiny of mankind, we

"Doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns." Although the historical method, which teaches the unity of all history, necessarily ignores such arbitrary divisions as sever the history of ancient from that of modern times, it nevertheless recognizes the fact that in the history of peoples, and of their institutions, there are epochs of growth so marked that they may be made the subject of separate and distinct treatment. The history of the growth of the

English constitution may be broken into two broad and well-defined periods. The first, which extends from the Teutonic conquest to the end of the Middle Ages, may be termed the formative period, — the period of "the making of the constitution." Although it may be true in a vague and general sense that the struggle of the constitution for existence came to an end in the reign of Edward I., it can hardly be maintained that its structure was complete in any full and perfect sense until its vital organ, the parliament, had developed all of its powers and privileges, a result which was not reached earlier than the reigns of the Lancastrian kings. To this formative period — which has been made the subject of Bishop Stubbs's "Constitutional History," in three volumes - the author has devoted his first part or volume. To the second period, entitled "the after-growth of the constitution," one part of which has been treated by Hallam, in three volumes, and another, by Sir Thomas Erskine May, in three volumes, — the author has devoted his second part or volume. Each part of this work may, therefore, be regarded as a complete treatise upon a distinct period of constitutional growth usually considered separately. And yet each part is so constructed that, when the two are taken together, they embrace a consecutive and harmonious treatment of the entire theme viewed as one unbroken development.

During the years which have passed by since the preparation of this work began, the author has received so much of sympathy, encouragement, and helpful criticism from historical scholars, not only in his own but in foreign lands, that he might be justly deemed ungracious should he now fail to make fitting acknowledgments to those from whom he has received special consideration. Some years ago it was his good fortune, during Mr. Freeman's last visit to the United States, to form a cordial acquaintance with the Nestor historian, who has made perhaps the largest and most invaluable contributions to the historical science of modern times. While that lamented and illustrious scholar for a long time consciously contributed very much to this undertaking in the form of encouragement, suggestion, and criticism, he unconsciously revealed to the author the fact that he was a master of that somewhat rare art of bestowing kindness without condescension. To his brother-scholar, the Rt. Rev. William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, the obligations of the author, although of a less personal, are not of a less serious character. To the master of the constitutional his

tory of the Middle Ages, who sits alone at the head of his serene science, all students of the English constitution must go for the key, before they can hope to enter into its inner mysteries. While the pages of the "Constitutional History" and the "Select Charters" may not be inviting to the careless inquirer, to the earnest student they are mines of fact and of thought which may be worked without limit and without exhaustion. To Dr. Rudolph Gneist, Professor of Law at the University of Berlin, and to M. Boutmy, member of the Institute, and Director of the School of Political Sciences of Paris, the author desires to make special acknowledgments. Amongst those of his own countrymen who have generously aided him with judicious criticism and friendly encouragement, it is no less a pleasure than an honor to name Mr. John Fiske, of Cambridge; Hon. J. Randolph Tucker, of Virginia; Dr. H. B. Adams, Professor of History and Politics at the Johns Hopkins University; the late Mr. Alexander Johnston, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy at Princeton; Mr. S. M. Macvane, University Professor of History at Harvard; Dr. James C. Welling, President of Columbia College, Washington, D. C.; the late Judge John A. Campbell, of Baltimore, and his peerless daughter, Mrs. Henrietta Campbell Lay; Mr. Richard M. Venable, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland; Mr. Wm. Preston Johnston, President of the Tulane University of Louisiana; Mr. Alfred Goldthwaite, of New Orleans, La. ; the Hon. John T. Morgan, United States Senator from Alabama; and the Hon. N. H. R. Dawson, National Commissioner of Education. In his own home the author desires to express his thanks to his friends, the Hon. John Little Smith, the Hon. Fredrick G. Bromberg, and Peter J. Hamilton, Esq., three scholars of whom any city might be proud. And, last and most of all, may he not indicate, even in this public way, to his good wife, whose loving hands have, during a period of many years, lessened the pain incident to feeble eyesight by transcribing these pages, often again and again, a sense of gratitude which he "can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."

MOBILE, ALABAMA, September 12, 1889.