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II. Legal Sovereignty in the Brady Controversy*

Part of: Retrospect: The Ancient Constitution and the Languages of Political Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Corinne Comstock Weston
Corinne Comstock Weston
Affiliation:
Lehman College, City University of New York.
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A Major source of difficulty in interpreting the political thought of Dr Robert Brady, the high tory historian who imparted a new dimension to the political quarrels of late Stuart England, arises out of a limitation that he imposed upon himself in writing history. He deliberately included very little political reflection in his writings, observing that he would not ‘inlarge further upon the great Use and Advantage Those that read Old Historians may make of these Discourses, but leave that to the Judgment of Understanding Readers’. This limitation may be offset, it is suggested here, by placing Brady securely within the intellectual framework created by the contemporary theories of legal sovereignty mat had originated during the English civil war and were fast becoming tradition by the late years of Charles II. When Brady made his researches public, almost all the elements were present that were required for fashioning a theory of legal sovereignty on the lines made famous in Blackstone. Englishmen were reading Sir Thomas Smith and Sir Edward Coke on the uncontrollable authority that resided in parliament for making, confirming, repealing, and expounding laws; and many of them were by this time accustomed to associating the legislative power, itself a new expression, with sovereignty in the state. They had also learned during the civil war years to recognize law-making as the characteristic function of their high court of parliament. All that remained for the whole to fall

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1972 , pp. 409 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

References

1 ‘The Episde to the Reader’, An Introduction to the Old English History (London, 1684),Google Scholar no pagination. This tract and other Brady writings are discussed by Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Robert Brady, 1627–1700: A Cambridge Historian of the Restoration’, Cambridge Historical Journal, X, No. 2 (1951), pp. 193–6, 199,Google Scholar and ch. VIII ‘The Brady Controversy’, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 182–228.Google Scholar The Ancient Constitution was reprinted in the Norton Library in 1967. The reader interested in a fuller account of the Brady controversy than this article supplies should consult Pocock.

2 Bulstrode Whitelocke, Notes Uppon the Kings Writt… Being Disquisitions on the Government by King, Lords and Commons, ed. Morton, Charles (London, 1766), 11, 333–5.Google Scholar Whitelocke was writing shortly after the restoration of Charles II. Henry Care, English Liberties (London, 4th ed., 1719), pp. 120–5.Google ScholarBrydall, John, Speculum Juris Anglicani, Or, A View of the Laws of England (London, 1683), pp. 7–8.Google ScholarNathaniel Johnston, Excellency of Monarchical Government (London, 1686), p. 247.Google Scholar See also Gough, J. W, Fundamental Law in English Constitutional History (Oxford, 1961), p. 8off.Google Scholar and Weston, C. C., ‘Concepts of Estates in Stuart Political Thought’, in Repre- sentative Institutions in Theory and Practice, Brussels, 1970, pp. 87–130.Google ScholarThis is vol. XXXIX of Studies presented to the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parlia- mentary Institutions. The changing views of parliament's functions can be seen easily by comparing William Prynne's comment in a tract published in 1654 with that of SirAtkyns, Robert in The Power, Jurisdiction and Priviledges of Parliament and the Antiquity of the House of Commons Asserted (London, 1689), pp. 36–40.Google ScholarPrynne's comment is discussed in an illuminating way by Charles Howard Mcllwain, The High Court of Parliament and Its Supremacy (New Haven, 1910), p. 158, note 2.Google Scholar

3 Stumbling-block of Disobedience and Rebellion (London, 1658), p. 273.Google Scholar This tract written in 1644 was published for the first time in 1658. It was republished in 1681 as part of a collection of Heylyn's tracts.

4 Case of our Affaires in haw, Religion and Other Circumstances briefly Examined (Oxford, 1643), pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

5 ‘Reflections by the Lord Cheife Justice Hale on Mr. Hobbes His Dialogue of the Lawe’, printed in Holdsworth, W. S., History of English Law (London, 1903-1938), V, 508.Google Scholar

6 Consult the article on Nathaniel Bacon in the DNB. Bolingbroke, , A Dissertation upon Parties (London, 1749), pp. 251, 253.Google Scholar See also the comments on mixed monarchy in Weston, C. C., English Constitutional Theory and the House of Lords (London, 1965), pp. 24–43.Google ScholarThe principle of co-ordination is discussed at length in Weston, ‘Concepts of Estates’, op. cit. pp. 87–130.Google Scholar

7 An Examination of the Political Part of Mr Hobbs his Leviathan (London, 1657), p. 31.Google Scholar

8 ‘Preface’, Jus Anglorum ab Antiquo, Or, A Confutation of an Impotent Libel against the Government by King, Lords, and Commons (London, 1681), no pagination.Google ScholarPetyt, William, The Pillars of Parliament Struck at by the Hands of a Cambridge Doctor (London, 1681), pp. 7–8. After noting the comparative rarity of this tract, Pocock stated that the writings of Petyt's friends and enemies alike make no reference to it. Known only through the learning of bibliographers, it apparently survives in the form of but two copies, one in the Bodleian, the other in the Advocates Library, Edinburgh. It may be that the government seized the tract while it was in the press since the two surviving copies are incomplete.Google Scholar

9 Pocock, , Ancient Constitution, pp. 220–1.Google Scholar There are similar statements in ibid. p. 218 and in Cambridge Historical Journal, pp. 200–1.Google Scholar See also ibid. p. 199.

10 Bodin, Jean, The Six Booths of a Commonweale: A Facsimile reprint of the English translation of 1606, ed. McRae, Kenneth Douglas (Cambridge, Mass., 1962),CrossRefGoogle Scholar Introduction, A14. The editor of the English translation of 1606 was Richard Knowles.

11 Six Books of a Commonweale, pp. 84, 96, 98, 155, 162.Google ScholarSalmon, J. H. M., The French Religious Wars in English Political Thought (Oxford, 1959), pp. 22–3, 58, 88–96.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. pp. 90–6. Filmer's, Necessity of the Absolute Power of all Kings: And in Particular, of the King of England (published 1648, reprinted 1680)Google Scholar was taken almost entirely from Bodin, Six Books of a Commonweale, Introduction, A64. This tract of Filmer's appeared a few months after the Freeholders Grand Inquest, which has in recent years been attributed to Filmer. Whether the latter wrote it or not, Brady borrowed from it directly. Filmer and Heylyn were friends, and the latter's Stumbling-block of Disobedience has a number of explicit references to Bodin. Ibid. pp. 233, 259, 266, 278. Brady recommended this tract to his readers, citing in particular chs. 2, 3, 4 and 6. Ch. 6 of Stumbling-block of Disobedience discusses such subjects as ‘the King of England always accounted heretofore for an absolute Monarch’, ‘no part of Soveraignitie invested legally in the English Parliaments’, ‘the three Estates assembled in the Parliament of England, subordinate unto the King, not co-ordinate with him’, and ‘the Legislative power of Parliaments is properly and legally in the King alone’. The republication of Heylyn's tract in 1681 reveals deep concern on the part of the court, or at the least its supporters, at the spread of the principle of co-ordination. As first published, the tract had this tide: The Stumbling-block of Disobedience and Rebellion cunningly laid by Calvin in the subjects way, discovered, censured and removed. When reprinted, the tide read: The Stumbling-Block of Disobedience and Rebellion, proving the Kingly Power to be neither Co-ordinate with nor subordinate to any other upon Earth. The point that was being made must surely have been apparent to Brady's understanding readers. Brady's recommendation is in his True and Exact History of the Succession of the Crown of England, which was printed in a second edition in the Introduction to the Old English History. Ibid. p. 343. Brady also expressed admiration for another civil war tract hostile to the principle of co-ordination. This was John Maxwell's Sacro-Sancta Regum Majestas, published at Oxford in 1644 and reprinted in 1680. Ibid. p. 349. In an ‘Episde dedicatory’ addressed to the earl of Ormonde, Maxwell condemned the activity of parliamentarian writers who were attempting to erect ‘a co-ordinate, a coequall, a corrivall power with Soveraignitie’ so as to create a ‘Regnum in regno, two Soveraignes, a thing incompatible with Supremacie and Monarchic’. After Brady attributed this tract to Archbishop James Ussher, he was corrected by SirDugdale, William, Life and Correspondence of … Dugdale, ed. Hamper, William (London, 1827), pp. 436–7.Google Scholar Bodin's influence went beyond the royalist writers. For his influence on Prynne, see Six Books of a Commonweale, Introduction, A63.

13 Stumbling-block of Disobedience, pp. 267–71. Heylyn's pattern of argument much resembled that of Brady writing at a later date.Google Scholar

14 ‘Episde to the Reader’, An Introduction to the Old English History. Tyrrell, James, ‘Introduction’, The General History of England both Ecclesiastical and Civil, from the Beginning of the Reign of King William I. (Commonly called the Conqueror) to the end of the Reign of King Henry the Third (London, 1700), II, XXX.Google Scholar Brady was writing about the human source of the law or laws.

15 The whig references to ‘despotick’ monarch and ‘despotical’ right to make or change laws seem to be new. Petyt, , ‘Preface’, The Antient Right of the Commons of England Asserted (London, 1680), p. 54.Google ScholarTyrrell, , Bibliotheca Politica: Or, An Enquiry into the Antient Constitution of the English Government (London, 2nd ed., 1727), p. 499.Google Scholar Tyrrell was well aware that he was dealing with arguments drawn from Bodin on the part of Brady and his fellow Tory historians. He has a spokesman for his ideas state in a dialogue: ‘I have already proved … that our King is not an Absolute Despotick Monarch, but is limited and tied up by the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom, from making of Laws, or raising Taxes without the consent of his People in Parliament; and that our Government is mixed, and made up of Monarchy, with an Allay of Aristocracy, and Democracy in the Constitution; the former in the House of Lords, the latter in the House of Commons, as K. Charles the First himself confesses, in his Answer to the Parliaments 19 Propositions. And I have farther enforced this from divers Authorities out of our Antient as well as Modern Lawyers; viz. Glanvill, Bracton, Fortescue, and Sir Edward Coke. So that since we have such clear Proof for our Constitution from our own Histories and Authors, nay from the King himself, besides the whole Purport and Style of the very Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom, I do not value the authority of Bodin, a foreigner, whose Business it is to set up the Authority of the French Kings to the highest Pitch he could; and therefore being sensible that antiently the Government of France and England were much the same, he could not with any Face make his own an Absolute Despotick Monarchy, unless he had made ours so too...’ Ibid. Pocock has described the close relationship between Petyt and Tyrrell. Ancient Constitution, pp. 187–8, 238.Google Scholar Tyrrell's ideas on government owed much to Philip Hunton's Treatise of Monarchic (1643).

16 Petyt, , The Pillars of Parliament, p. 12;Google Scholar ‘Discourse’, Antient Right of the Commons … Asserted, p. 22. Tyrrell, , ‘Preface to the Appendix’, General History of England … containing the reign of Richard II (London, 1704), III, pt. II, v.Google Scholar Tyrrell thought it not possible ‘to have that real value and esteem for an Institution [the House of Commons] which (as some affirm) proceeded but a few centuries ago from the pure Bounty and free-will of our Kings, as they must have for tie same Constitution, if proved to be as antient as Kingly Government itself ‘.

17 Tyrrell, , ‘General Introduction to the Whole Work’, The General History of England (London, 1696), I, xcix.Google ScholarPetyt, , ‘Discourse’, Antient Right of the Commons … Asserted, pp. 42–4.Google ScholarAtkyns, Power, Jurisdiction and Priviledges of Parliament, pp. 23, 34.Google Scholar Pocock wrote of Petyt and his fellow whig historians as unwilling to date the beginnings of parliament lest its existence be due to the royal will. He wrote: ‘Petyt and Atwood were concerned only to deny the king's sovereignty and smuggle in that of parliament under a thin disguise, and consequendy they expressed the problem in the simplest possible terms. If parliament has a known beginning, it must be in someone's will and therefore the king will be sovereign; but parliament is immemorial (and therefore it is sovereign).’ Ancient Constitution, p. 235.Google Scholar But Pocock's generalization - which is important to his conceptualization of the process by which the idea of parliamentary sovereignty grew in England - becomes suspect when it is noticed that Petyt was in fact quite willing to discuss possible dates for the beginnings of parliament. The whig historian's concern was to establish that these beginnings were prior to the coronation of Richard I. For Petyt's attempts at dating the beginnings of parliament, consult ‘Discourse’, Antient Right of the Commons … Asserted, pp. 67–9.Google Scholar In reaching this conclusion Pocock appears to have given undue weight to the influence of Sir Edward Coke, who earlier in the century had gone further than most commentators in pressing the antiquity of parliament. The chroniclers of early Stuart England often cited as the first parliament Henry I's great council at Salisbury in 1116, their chronicles typically carrying the statement ‘First Parliament, 1116’. The subject is discussed in Evans, E., ‘Of the Antiquity of Parliaments in England: Some Elizabethan and Early Stuart Opinions’, History, XXLII (12 1938), 206–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Under these circumstances it is unlikely that there was a widespread reluctance to date the beginnings of parliament. One of Prynne's comments suggests that the practice was widespread. ‘To the Ingenuous Reader’, Plea for the Lords (London, 1658), no pagination.Google Scholar

18 An Introduction to the Old English History, p. 237.Google Scholar Brady expressed a similar view when he translated Gervase of Tilbury, apparently with approval, writing: ‘When the Famous Subduer of England King William had subjected to his Empire the utmost part of the Island, and by terrible examples had brought to perfect obedience the minds of Rebels, That they might not have liberty of falling into the same errors for the future, he resolved to govern the People subjected to him by written Right and Law. Therefore the English laws being propounded according to their Three-fold distinction, that is, the Mercian-Law, Dane-Law, and West-Saxon Law, he rejected some, and approved others, and added such Transmarine Norman Laws, as seemed most efficacious for to defend the peace of the Kingdom; and as to Matter of Fact, the Reader is referred to the Preface of the Norman History [published soon afterwards in Complete History (1685)], where he will find it fully proved, that the Law used in this Nation after the Conquest, especially as to the Method and Practice of it, was the Norman Law, and so remains to this day in very many things.’ Ibid. p. 252. In another place the tory historian described the laws that the Conqueror had added to those of the Confessor. Ibid. pp. 254–8.

19 Tyrrell, , ‘Preface to the Appendix’, General History of England, III, pt. II, ii.Google Scholar Also, ‘General Introduction to the Whole Work’, General History of England, 1, xcix.Google Scholar‘Introduction’, General History of England, 11, xxx, xxxi.Google Scholar Brady's references to legal memory, expressed in terms of prescription, are in his ‘Epistle to the Reader’, An Introduction to the Old English History and in his preface to his Historical Treatise of Cities, and Burghs or Boroughs (London, 1690).Google Scholar Neither is paged. In the former see the reference to two sorts of turbulent men contending in Brady's day for popular liberty.

20 Stumbling-block of Disobedience, p. 267.Google Scholar

21 Quoted in Wormuth, Francis, The Royal Prerogative (Ithaca, New York, 1939), p. 23.Google Scholar

22 Notes Uppon the Kings Writt, I, 182. Wallace, John M., Destiny his Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell (Cambridge, 1968), pp. 23–7.Google ScholarKliger, Samuel, The Goths in England (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), pp. 137–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Introduction to the Old English History, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar See also Johnston, Nathaniel, Excellency of Monarchical Government, p. 200Google Scholar for his view of what Brady had accomplished. Presumably he was one of Brady's understanding readers. Johnston wrote: ‘What changes William the Conqueror made in the Government, how he brought in the Feudal Laws of Normandy, and many other alterations, Doctor Brady hath proved at large in his Argument Anti-Normanicum [written in answer to Cooke] and the Preface to his Complete History.’

24 Pocock, , Cambridge Historical Journal, p. 201.Google Scholar

23 ‘Preface to the Norman History’, A Complete History of England from the First Entrance of the Romans under the Conduct of Julius Caesar, unto the End of the Reign of King Henry III (London, 1685), p. 181.Google Scholar ‘General Preface’, ibid. p. xlvii. Brady wrote that ‘the whole Feudal Law consisted in customs’, including ‘Laws of Fees’.

26 The account of Brady's political thought and historiography in this article differs in important respects from that in Pocock. The latter considered the Norman conquest important to Brady primarily as the means by which feudal tenures entered England. The essence of Brady's achieve- ment as an historian, according to Pocock, lay in perceiving the vital links between the new tenures and the changed social and political situation after 1066. ‘His willingness to treat feudal tenures as the fundamental reality of Norman and Angevin England and to generalize from it about the nature of law, parliament, and the duties of the subject in the whole of that epoch’ meant that Brady had even exceeded Spelman in some ways as an historian though it was admittedly the latter who had recognized the feudal character of the great council. As for Brady's frequent allusions to the fact of conquest, these were explicable as taunts at his whig adversaries. Pocock, , Ancient Constitution, pp. 195–7;Google ScholarCambridge Historical Journal, p. 194.Google Scholar

27 The language is borrowed from SirPollock, Frederick and Maitland, Frederic William, The History of English Law (Cambridge, 2nd ed., reissued 1968), 1, 79.Google Scholar In their view the Normans possessed no law capable of being brought into England in this fashion.

28 ‘Preface to the Norman History ‘, Complete History, p. 180.Google Scholar

29 Ibid. pp. 155–6. For a contemporary view as to what Brady had demonstrated, see Johnston's comment, op. cit. p. 203. He wrote: ‘The Author of Jus Anglorum ab Antiquo, and the Argumentum Anti-Normanicum, and Mr Petyt, in his Rights of the Commons Asserted, have written largely, to prove, That the Conqueror made little Innovation in our Laws; and on the contrary, the profoundly learned Doctor Brady hath from undeniable Records proved, that he brought in the Feudal Law of Tenures, and much of the Norman Laws...’

30 ‘Preface to the Norman History’, Complete History, p. 157.Google Scholar

31 ‘General Preface’, Complete History, p. lxviii.Google Scholar

32 Ibid. pp. xxiv-xxviii.

33 ‘Preface to the Reader’, Complete History. Introduction to the Old English History, pp. 252, 255, 266.Google Scholar

34 ‘Glossary’, Introduction to the Old English History, p. 51.Google ScholarPetyt, , Pillars of Parliament, pp. 4–5. 35Google Scholar

35 ‘General Preface’, A Complete History of England, p. xxxiv.Google Scholar

36 ‘Preface to the Reader’, A Complete History of England.Google Scholar

37 ‘General Preface’, A Complete History of England, p. xli.Google Scholar See Bibliotheca Politica, p. 237, for the incompatibility of this account with any idea that the two houses were copartners with the king ‘in the Supreme Power’.Google Scholar

38 Tyrrell noted the link between the phrases ‘ By the Authority of this present Parliament’ and ‘Be it Enacted by the King, Lords, and Commons’ and the idea that king, lords, and commons were’ three co-ordinate Estates’. Ibid. pp. 232, 236. Heylyn, Stumbling-block of Disobedience, pp. 270–2.Google ScholarThe Freeholders Grand Inquest Touching Our Sovereign Lord the King, and His Parliament (London, 1648), pp. 40–6.Google Scholar This whole tract is most usefully read as a response to the principle of co-ordination and its implications for a shared legal sovereignty in king, lords, and commons. The argument over co-ordination in law-making laid much stress on the evidence provided in the enacting clauses of statutes. Weston, ‘Concepts of Estates’, op. cit. pp. 90–1. Heylyn was an avid student of statutes or so it appears from the biographical statement attached to his Historical and Miscellaneous Tracts (1681).

39 ‘General Preface’, A Complete History of England, pp. xli-xlii.

40 Ibid. pp. xlvii-xlviii.

41 Ibid. p. xlvii.

42 Tyrrell, , ‘Introduction’, General History of England, II, xxx-xxxi.Google Scholar

43 Tyrrell, , ‘Preface to the Appendix’, General History of England, III, pt. IIGoogle Scholar, i-ii.

44 Pocock, , Ancient Constitution, p. 238.Google Scholar

45 Plato Redivivus (London, 2nd ed., 1681), pp. 108–9.Google Scholar

46 Bibliotheca Politica, p. 237. Petyt made at least one explicit reference to co-ordination when he sarcastically expressed bewilderment as to why the barons if they usurped in 49 Hen. 3 ‘the soveraign power... should so easily and speedily divide and share it with the Commons, constitute a new Court of Parliament, and make them [the Commons] essential and coordinate with them- selves in the Legislative Power...’ ‘A Discourse’, Antient Right of the Commons… Asserted, pp. 61–2.Google Scholar

47 ‘Preface’, Antient Right of the Commons … Asserted, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

48 Ibid. pp. 3–6.

49 Ibid. pp. 6–12, 40, 54.

50 Ibid. pp. 73–4.

51 ‘The Epistle Dedicatory’, ibid. no pagination. Atwood, , ‘Preface’, Jus Anglorum ab Antiquo, and also pp. 45–6.Google Scholar

52 Petyt, , ‘Discourse’, Antient Right of the Commons … Asserted, pp. 146–7.Google ScholarJus Parliamentarians, Or, The Ancient Power, Jurisdiction, Rights and Liberties of the Most High Court of Parliament (London, 1739), pp. 10–12.Google Scholar For a different view of Petyt, see Pocock, , Ancient Constitution, pp. 191–2, 229–31.Google Scholar

53 Jus Parliamentarium, pp. 45, 67.Google Scholar

54 Ogg, David, England in the Reigns of James II and William III (Oxford, 1966), p. 235.Google ScholarWilliams, E. Neville, The Eighteenth-Century Constitution (Cambridge, 1960), pp. 36–8.Google Scholar Prominent in the committee of the House of Commons that changed the coronation oath were parliamentarians familiar with Charles I's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions. Weston, , English Constitutional Theory, pp. 87–123.Google ScholarJournals of the House of Commons, x, 35.Google Scholar

55 Ogg, op. cit. p. 236. This is also the viewpoint of Dunn, John. See his comments on Locke's ‘conventional constitutionalism’. Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 51–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Dunn assumed that the nature of the legislative power was a closed issue in the early 1680s when Locke was writing. But it could hardly have been that. In this connexion, see the interesting comment attributed to William Sacheverell during the Glorious Revolution. Plumb, J. H., Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725 (London, 1967), p. 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56 The Lord Chief Baron Atkyns Speech to Sir William Ashurst, Lord Mayor Elect of the City of London … 13th October, 1693, p. 4.

57 Husband, Edward, An Exact Collection of the Remonstrances … and other Memorable Passages between the Kings most Excellent Majesty and His High Court of Parliament (London, 1643), p. 715.Google Scholar

58 Ibid. p. 712. The coronation oath was also discussed in a declaration of the two houses of 26 May 1642. Ibid. pp. 268–70. See also Zagorin, Perez, The Court and the Country: The Beginning of the English Revolution (London, 1969), p. 310.Google Scholar One of the charges against Laud in his impeach- ment was that he had altered the coronation oath of Charles I in the manner that Atkyns later described. Prynne was responsible for adding this charge.

59 Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes (London, 1643), pt. II, pp. 66–7.Google Scholar This tract when first published was known as Treachery and Disloyalty of Papists to their Soveraigns, and Brady referred to it under this title. An attempt to trace the relationship between this tract and the acceptance of parliamentary sovereignty in early Hanoverian England might well be profitable. It was certainly remembered in the early 1680s, and it was used by Giles Jacob in his Lex Constitutions: Or, The Gentleman's Law (London, 1719).Google Scholar See ibid. pp. xiii-xiv for a very interesting list of the books consulted by Jacob and used in his treatise.

60 Nicolson, William, The English Historical Library (London, 1699), pt. II, pp. 23-8, 56-7. Also consult the 1739 edition of Bacon's work.Google Scholar

61 Whitelocke Notes Uppon the Kings Writt, II, 341.Google Scholar

62 Plato Redivivus, pp. 126–7.Google Scholar

63 Sidney, Algernon, Discourses concerning Government (London, 1698), pp. 458–9, 461.Google Scholar

64 Lex Terrae (London, 1647), pp. 25–6.Google Scholar

65 Freeholders Grand Inquest, pp. 60–5.

66 ‘Discourse’, Antient Right of the Commons … Asserted, pp. 59–61.Google Scholar

67 ‘Glossary’, Introduction to the Old English History, pp. 34–6.Google Scholar

68 Tyrrell saw Brady's work as a unit. ‘Preface to the Appendix’, General History of England, III, pt. II, ii-iii.Google Scholar

69 Pocock noted that Brady had ‘a controversialist's, not a rationalist's approach to history’, but the failure to recognize the Bodinian quality of the tory historian's political thought imposed formidable barriers in the way of appraising the extent of Brady's present-mindedness in his study of the past. See Pocock's, appraisal in the Cambridge Historical Review, pp. 194–5, 198–9;Google ScholarAncient Constitution, p. 196 ff. See also Douglas, David, English Scholars (London, 2nd ed., 1951), pp. 124–31.Google Scholar Douglas praised Brady's scholarship, which he believed to have been underestimated by modern historians because of the tory's partisan zeal, but he made no attempt to deal with the important strand of political thought discussed in this article. Had he done so, he might have hesitated to state about Brady that he was ‘ impatient of abstract theories which could not be justified by the detailed evidence ‘. Ibid., p. 125.