FALL OF THE OLD ORDER 367

lisation and progress. The future was to belong to peoples
rather than to princes.

Greenidge has said that the soul of Greek history is its
constitutionalism. The same may be asserted about Eng-
land of all modern countries. As the Reformation move-
ment culminated in the Netherlands in the political libera-
tion of its people, so too in England it was to get merged
in its constitutional struggle. This last was England's sup-
reme gift to the world. "While Germany boasts her Re-
formation and France her Revolution," says Trevdyan,
"England can point to her dealings with the House of
Stuart-----During the seventeenth century a despotic-
scheme of society and government was so firmly established
in Europe, that but for the course of events in England
it would have been the sole successor of the medieval1
system."1 But the reader will do well to remember that
the movement for constitutional liberty had its beginnings
very early in English history. What the Stuart century
revealed was only the critical stage in a long process. The
end came very much later.

We have earlier referred to the Magna Carta (1215)
which may be considered as the first great landmark, though
it has always ranked as the sheet-anchor of English liberty.
Other charters which followed in succeeding centuries only
sought to secure and extend what had already been laid doro
in that basic document. The barons who fought against King
John for their feudal rights and privileges were really the
unconscious parents of the English parliamentary system.
The committee they set up to safeguard those rights and'
privileges developed into the " Mother of Parliaments." The
two great ages in the growth of Parliamentary power, says.

1. G. M. Trevdyan, England Under the Stuarts, p. 1.