It had produced seditions, impeachments, rebellions, battles, sieges, proscriptions, judicial massacres.

Sometimes liberty, sometimes royalty, had seemed to be on the point of perishing.

During many years one half of the energy of England had been employed in counteracting the other half.

The executive power and the legislative power had so effectually impeded each other that the state had been of no account in Europe.

The King at Arms, who proclaimed William and Mary before Whitehall Gate, did in truth announce that this great struggle was over; that there was entire union between the throne and the Parliament; that England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power of the first rank; that the ancient laws by which the prerogative was bounded would henceforth be held as sacred as the prerogative itself, and would be followed out to all their consequences; that the executive administration would be conducted in conformity with the sense of the representatives of the nation; and that no reform, which the two Houses should, after mature deliberation, propose, would be obstinately withstood by the sovereign.