"[T]he Charter was demanded by those who complained of the irregular and arbitrary violence of King John, and the restrictions it imposed upon the Crown's action became the corner stone of English freedom. Its provisions, never repealed, though varied and to some extent amplified in subsequent instruments similarly extorted from subsequent monarchs, were solemnly reasserted in the famous declaration by Parliament in 1628 which we call the Petition of Right, and were finally re-enacted in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Thus the Charter of 1215 was the starting-point of the constitutional history of the English race, the first link in a long chain of constitutional instruments which have moulded men's minds and held together free governments not only in England but wherever the English race has gone and the English tongue is spoken."
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Presidents of the Board of Trade (United Kingdom)Academics from Northern IrelandPoliticians from Northern IrelandChief Secretaries for IrelandBritish Ambassadors to the United States
Original Language: English
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'Preface', Henry Elliot Malden (ed.), Magna Carta Commemoration Essays (1917), pp. xii-xiii
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Bryce%2C_1st_Viscount_Bryce
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James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce, OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FBA (10 May 1838 – 22 January 1922) was an Ulster-born academic, jurist, historian, and Liberal politician.
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