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It is perhaps in the sphere of political institutions that the English have been most original in their native invention, from the time of Magna Char… - G. M. Trevelyan
" "It is perhaps in the sphere of political institutions that the English have been most original in their native invention, from the time of Magna Charta downwards, or even from the time of William the Conqueror. Certainly it is in politics that the world at large has borrowed most from us; for our literature, though as great as the Greek or Latin, has had relatively little influence outside the English-speaking nations. In politics modern Italy, under Cavour, went to school in England, borrowing thence her constitutional monarchy and parliament. Yet even in the realm of political ideas, where we have taught more than we learned, how much we owed to Ancient Rome! The Conservative idea of respect for law and of the sovereign regal power was throughout our history sanctioned by the glamour of classical association hanging round the words Lex, Rex, Imperator. Our Plantagenet and our Tudor foundations were built on the Roman model. And no less in the realm of Liberal thought, the ideal of Roman Republican virtue, perpetuated in Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus, did as much to inspire Milton, Sidney, and the opponents of the Stuarts as the Old Testament itself.
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About G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was an English historian and academic.
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Alternative Names:
George Macauley Trevelyan
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George Macaulay Trevelyan
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Additional quotes by G. M. Trevelyan
As contrasted with our treatment of Ireland and our dealings with America, the Scottish Union stands out in the Eighteenth Century as a thing apart, an unwonted and surprising act of wise Imperial initiative. The men who made the Union of 1707 (Marlborough, Godolphin, Somers and Harley for England, Queensberry and Argyle for Scotland) were not selfless patriots—it was not an age productive of such. They were shrewd, worldly men, capable of looking the real facts of a situation in the face. And they studied the interest of their respective countries all the better because, unlike Fletcher of Saltoun, they could do so without too much zeal. They were, moreover, free from the religious and political fanaticisms of the previous century, which had so often stood in the way of agreement by mutual concession.
The Charter was regarded as important because it assigned definite and practical remedies to temporary evils. There was very little that was abstract in its terms, less even than later generations supposed.... A King had been brought to order, not by a posse of reactionary feudalists, but the community of the land under baronial leadership; a tyrant had been subjected to the laws which hitherto it had been his private privilege to administer and to modify at will. A process had begun which was to end in putting the power of the Crown into the hands of the community at large.
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The greatest gains with which Britain emerged from the war did not appear in the treaties. There were the unrivalled supremacy of our navy and of our mercantile marine; the reputation of having been the only Power that consistently withstood Napoleon; the possession of a Parliamentary system now more than ever the envy of "less happier lands" since the relative failure of "French principles" of liberty. With these advantages we faced the coming era.
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