But we remember that it was just precisely in the reign of Richard II that the Peasants' War, following upon the changes wrought by the visitations of the Great Plague, virtually destroyed serfdom as a personal status.

The 'Little' or 'Barebones' Parliament, summoned by Oliver Cromwell to meet at Westminster on 4th July, 1653, after the dissolution of the remains of the Long Parliament, may have been an unpractical body, so far as the task of administration in troublous times was concerned. But it seems quite possible that the wealth of contumely and scorn which has been poured upon it was, originally, due quite as much to the fierce anger of vested interests against outspoken criticism, as to any real vagueness or want of practical wisdom in the plans of the House itself.

Is it surprising that modern English land law should resemble a chaos rather than a system?

It is true, that a Law of Contract based on causae will always be an arbitrary and inelastic law; but it is a kind of law with which some great nations are satisfied at the present day.

The process of specialization tends, almost inevitably, to narrow the sources from which the rules of any science are drawn; and English law is no exception from this rule.

It was natural that the direct wielders of the royal prerogative, men who sat in the Star Chamber and the Privy Council, who knew the secrets of the State and the necessity for prompt action, should despise the merely declaratory character of a good deal of Common Law process. To them we doubtless owe those four great pillars of Chancery jurisdiction, the injunction, the decree, the sequestration, and the commission of rebellion.

The man who has been wounded by a chance arrow must not shoot at sight the first man he happens to meet.