Note 46 — Chapter III

"For the English laws, although not written, may, as it should seem, and that without any absurdity, be termed laws, (since this itself is law—that which pleases the prince has the force of law,) I mean those laws which it is evident were promulgated by the advice of the nobles and the authority of the prince, concerning doubts to be settled in their assembly. For if from the mere want of writing only, they should not be considered laws, then, unquestionably, writing would seem to confer more authority upon laws themselves, than either the equity of the persons constituting, or the reason of those framing them."—Glanville's Preface, p. 38. (Glanville was chief justice of Henry II., 1180.) 2 Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, 280.