The study of Constitutional History is essentially a tracing of causes and consequences, the examination of a distinct growth from a well-defined ger… - William Stubbs

Among the first truths which the historical student, or indeed any scientific scholar, learns to recognise, this is perhaps the most important, that no theory or principle works in isolation.

The design, as interpreted by the result, was the creation of a national parliament, composed of the three estates, organised on the principle of concentrating local agency and machinery in such a manner as to produce unity of national action, and thus to strengthen the hand of the king, who personified the nation.
This design was perfected in 1295. It was not the result of compulsion, but the consummation of a growing policy. Edward did not call his parliament, as Philip the Fair called the States General, on the spur of a momentary necessity, or as a new machinery invented for the occasion and to be thrown aside when the occasion was over, but as a perfected organisation, the growth of which he had for twenty years been doing his best to guide. Granted that he had in view the strengthening of the royal power, it was the royal power in and through the united nation, not as against it, that he designed to strengthen.

There are no constitutional revolutions, no violent reversals of legislation; custom is far more potent than law, and custom is modified infinitesimally every day. An alteration of law is often the mere registration of a custom, when men have recognised its altered character. The names of offices and assemblies are permanent, whilst their character has imperceptibly undergone essential change.