And when we are told to consider the glories of the French Revolution let us not forget that there is a secret treasure of subtle riches which Englan… - Herbert Butterfield

Because many English institutions have century upon century of the past, lying fold upon fold within them—because they preserve somewhat in the present all the previous stages of their being—they possess not merely the kind of romantic colouring which is so dear to the historical novelist, but something like the life of organic creatures; they show therefore greater elasticity in the face of those crises which are beyond prediction than do the paper constructions of yesterday. Such institutions, in their customary acceptance and in the common sentiment that they inspire, provide also the basis for at least a minimum of national unity.

It is always difficult to represent the place that power actually holds in the workings of politics and in the processes of history. Some men seem ready to speak as though power did not exist (because in their view it ought not to exist); and if others are emphatic about the reality of its presence they are assumed to be in favour of force, merely because they recognise its operation in the world.

I wonder nowadays whether the neglect of military history and war does not have the effect of giving some people an anaemic and unreal idea of the deeper processes of mundane history. Indeed, it is possible that our conventional history-teaching underestimates the part played by war in the development of our civilisation and our economy, as well as in the rise of the modern state. It has been noted that great constitutional concessions were won from English kings who were usually unsuccessful in their foreign policy; and certainly it is not easy to know what would have happened if King John or Charles I or James II had been more fortunate in this field. Ranke thought that the disgrace suffered by the French monarchy in its foreign policy had much to do with the outbreak of the French Revolution.