Book account

The age of Earl Simon had been fertile in new
ideals and principles of government. Edward held to the best of the
traditions of his youth, and his task was not one of creation so much
as of selection. His age was an age of definition. The series of great
laws, which he made during the earlier half of his reign, represented a
long effort to appropriate what was best in the age that had gone
before, and to combine it in orderly sequence. The same ideals mark the
constitutional policy of his later years. The materials for the future
constitution of England were already at his hand. It was a task well
within Edward's capacity to strengthen the authority of the crown by
associating the loyal nobles and clergy in the work of ruling the
state, and to build up a body politic in which every class of the
nation should have its part. Yet he never willingly surrendered the
most insignificant of his prerogatives, and if he took the people into
partnership with him, he did so with the firm belief that he would be a
more powerful king if his subjects loved and trusted him.


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304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328