There are few students of history who have not taken up that report with eager curiosity and laid it down with disappointment.

The question between the Houses was argued on both sides as a question of law.

The objections which the Lords made, to the resolution of the Commons were verbal and technical, and were met by verbal and technical answers.

Somers vindicated the use of the word abdication by quotations from Grotius and Brissonius, Spigelius and Bartolus.

When he was challenged to show any authority for the proposition that England could be without a sovereign, he produced the Parliament roll of the year 1399, in which it was expressly set forth that the kingly office was vacant during the interval between the resignation of Richard the Second and the enthroning of Henry the Fourth.