Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/181

 5. JENKS: EDWARD I 167 poral and the commons in Parliament assembled ; " ^ but this consummation became clearly inevitable, from the day on which the Model Parliament assembled at Westminster in November, 1295. To explain all that it means it would be necessary to write the comparative history of the States of Western Europe, and to show how the history of Eng- land has been so different from the history of France, of Italy, of Germany, and of Spain. Briefly put, to close an already overlong chapter, it meant the creation of that na- tional and political unity which, until quite modern days, was the highest achievement of European statesmanship; it meant the appearance on the world's horizon of that new star, which was to light the nations on their march to free- dom. For the ideals and principles adopted by the English people under the rule of Edward, were not merely the ideals and principles which nerved the arm of the Puritan soldier, and raised the banner of defiance against Napoleon. They were the ideals and principles which, despite the excesses of the French Revolution, struck the fetters of tyranny from the limbs of Western Europe, and breathed the spirit of justice and freedom into the mighty Commonwealths of America and Australia. CUu/dLCmm^CU^Cud^Gi'* in 1318. But the Statute of Carlisle came very near it.
 * The first equivalent seems to be the preamble of the Statute of York