ABSTRACT
The history of England during the fourteenth century was singularly devoid of any of those great movements in the growth of the constitution which had marked the two previous centuries. There was no great period of legal reform and definition like the reigns of Henry II and Edward I. There was no great movement which was to culminate in a Magna Carta or a Model Parliament. This absence of great events and outstanding movements does not prove that regarded strictly from the view-point of constitutional history the century was not of great importance. The constitution is built upon precedent, upon rights slowly acquired and privileges laboriously won, upon the extension of functions and the adoption of new ones, and not solely or chiefly upon great combats between opposing theories and conflicting parties. Constitutional progress can take place without great disturbance, without a great directing mind or a strong controlling hand. The fourteenth century had constitutional problems of its own; not perhaps as imposing or attractive as those before or after, but no less important on that account. It has been said that "the whole constitutional struggle of the fourteenth century raged round the vexed question of the royal prerogative1." On the one hand stood the king possessing great power and large prerogatives, on the other hand stood the barons anxious to weaken or control that power and lessen the prerogatives which supported and were supported by it.
