Page images
PDF
EPUB

SELECT DOCUMENTS

OF

ENGLISH CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

of

English Constitutional History

EDITED BY

GEORGE BURTON ADAMS

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN YALE UNIVERSITY

AND

H. MORSE STEPHENS

PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY

New York

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.

1939

JN

A2

COPYRIGHT, 1901,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

All rights reserved -no part of this book may be
reproduced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes
to quote brief passages in connection with a review
written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper.

• PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Undergraduate
Library

Zoe no

11-2226

to

PREFACE

THE pressure felt by two teachers of English history for a comprehensive volume of documents bearing on the development of the English constitution has led to the compilation of this volume. No source book for the illustration of English history yet published has met the needs of the student of constitutional history. The excellent selections made by the late Bishop of Oxford, Mr. G. W. Prothero, Mr. S. R. Gardiner, and Messrs. Gee and Hardy only cover limited periods, or deal with one aspect of the subject. Excellent as those selections are, they are too advanced or too partial to be used in a college undergraduate course covering a single year. The University of Pennsylvania Reprints and the Old South Leaflets contain too little material to illustrate a full course of English constitutional history. The editors have been guided in the present selection by their practical experience in undergraduate work, and it is hoped that it may meet the demands of similar courses of study in other colleges, and also of courses pursued in some secondary and in many law schools.

Every teacher of history has his own ideas of the relative importance of documents, and this compilation cannot expect to escape criticism either for its selections or for its omissions. There was no difficulty in deciding upon the insertion of the most famous documents, such as Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, but the selection of documents of lesser importance to form illustrations of the growth of constitutional customs and traditions was of greater difficulty. The editors have kept in mind in making the selection that they were dealing with constitutional and legal, and not with political, economic, and social questions, and under this ruling many important documents, like the Grand

« PreviousContinue »