The great roll of English Statutes reaches back in unbroken series to the Statutes of Edward.
The routine of the first Henry, the administrative changes which had been imposed on the nation by the clear head and imperious will of the second, were transformed under Edward into a political organization with carefully-defined limits, directed not by the king's will alone but by the political impulse of the people at large.

His social legislation was based in the same fashion on principles which had already been brought into practical working by Henry the Second.

It was no doubt in great measure owing to this practical sense of its financial and administrative value rather than to any foresight of its political importance that we owe Edward's organization of our Parliament.

But if the institutions which we commonly associate with his name owe their origin to others, they owe their form and their perpetuity to him.
[Sidenote: Constitutional Aspect of his Reign] The king's English policy, like his English name, was in fact the sign of a new epoch.

England was made.