during his banishment, and when he was in the service of a Lancastrian King, he asserted them again in his work upon Political Monarchy, after he was restored to his Country, and his allegiance was plighted to a Prince of the House of York: and it will be seen in the course of the ensuing pages, that the spirit of the ancient government of England, as pourtrayed in this treatise, derives ample confirmation both from domestic authorities, and from foreign testimony. It may not appear a useless or unimportant task to have labored for the preservation of this early record of those simple and intelligible truths, which ought to form the basis of every rational government; and the importance of which is manifested by the fatal consequences arising from the neglect of them that are legible in our national history.
The remarks of Fortescue upon the legal institutions which are the subject of his panegyric, may be productive of other beneficial effects, if they satisfy the reader, that much of the ancient part of our law requires a serious revisal and amendment. It is impossible to peruse the Chancellor's observations in the course of the present treatise, without perceiving the extraordinary change which time has occasioned in the circumstances, the manners and the opinions of the English People. This obvious reflection may tend to confirm an impression, that the intricacy and want of rationality,