[220]. Prof. F. W. Maitland, Social England, I., 409.
[221]. Cf. Gneist, Const. Hist., Chapter XVIII.: “By Magna Carta English history irrevocably took the direction of securing constitutional liberty by administrative law.”
[222]. A. V. Dicey, Law of the Constitution, Part II.
[223]. Const. Hist., I. 571. Cf. Ibid., I. 583, “The act of the united nation, the church, the barons, and the commons, for the first time thoroughly at one.” Who were “the commons” in 1215? The question is a difficult one to answer. Cf. also Mr. Prothero, Simon de Montfort, 18, “The spirit of nationality of which the chief portion of Magna Carta was at once the product and the seal.”
[224]. This is the view of Mr. L. O. Pike, House of Lords, 204.
[225]. Details of this scheme, and a fuller discussion of its defects will be found infra under chapter 61.
[226]. Magna Carta has been described, in words already quoted with approval, as “an intensely practical document,” Professor Maitland, Social England, I. 409; but this requires some qualification. If it was practical in preferring the condemnation of definite practical grievances to the enunciation of philosophical principles, it was unpractical in omitting to provide machinery for giving effect to its provisions.
[227]. Except in so far as affected by cc. [12] and [16].
[228]. Mr. Prothero estimates much more highly the constitutional value of Magna Carta: "The constitutional struggles of the following half-century would to a great extent have been anticipated had it retained its original form."—Simon de Montfort, 14.