Note 14 — Chapter IX

"This most important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the history of Parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. It probably contains nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the Constitution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; that council consisted of the elements that are here specified. But the right had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement thus made seems to have startled even the barons.... It was for the attainment of this right that the struggles of the reign of Henry III. were carried on; and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the reign of his successor. In these clauses the nation had now obtained a comparatively clear definition of the right on which their future political power was to be based."—Stubbs, Constitutional History.