Footnote 53: Growth of the English Constitution, 19.[(Back)]
Footnote 54: Law and Custom of the Constitution, 4th ed., I., 358.[(Back)]
Footnote 55: Studies in History and Jurisprudence, I., No. 3.[(Back)]
Footnote 56: "In England the Parliament has an acknowledged right to modify the constitution; as, therefore, the constitution may undergo perpetual changes, it does not in reality exist (elle n'existe point); the Parliament is at once a legislative and a constituent assembly." Œuvres Complètes; I., 166-167.[(Back)]
Footnote 57: Lowell, Government of England, I., 2.[(Back)]
Footnote 58: For brief discussions of the general nature of the English constitution see A. L. Lowell, Government of England, 2 vols. (New York, 1909), I., 1-15; T. F. Moran, Theory and Practice of the English Government (new ed., New York, 1908), Chap. 1; J. A. R. Marriott, English Political Institutions (Oxford, 1910), Chaps. 1, 2; J. Macy, The English Constitution (New York, 1897), Chaps. 1, 9; and S. Low, The Governance of England (London, 1904), Chap. 1. A suggestive characterization is in the Introduction of W. Bagehot, The English Constitution (new ed., Boston, 1873). A more extended and very incisive analysis is Dicey, Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution, especially the Introduction and Chaps. 1-3, 13, 14-15.[(Back)]
Footnote 59: From this essential incongruity of theory, form, and fact arises the special difficulty which must attend any attempt to describe with accuracy and completeness the British constitutional system. In the study of every government the divergences of theory and fact must be borne constantly in mind, but nowhere are these divergences so numerous, so far-reaching, or so fundamental as in the government of the United Kingdom.[(Back)]
Footnote 60: The text of the Act of Settlement is printed in Stubbs, Select Charters, 528-531; Adams and Stephens, Select Documents, 475-479; and Gee and Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church History, 664-670, As safeguards against dangers which might conceivably arise from the accession of a foreign-born sovereign the Act stipulated (1) that no person who should thereafter come into possession of the crown should go outside the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without consent of Parliament, and (2) that in the event that the crown should devolve upon any person not a native of England the nation should not be obliged to engage in any war for the defense of any dominions or territories not belonging to the crown of England, without consent of Parliament.[(Back)]
Footnote 61: Lowell, Government of England, I., 17.[(Back)]
Footnote 62: This title was created by Edward I. in 1301. Its possession has never involved the exercise of any measure of political power.[(Back)]