All along the line which separates the functions of the prince from those of the legislator there was long a disputed territory.

Encroachments were perpetually committed, and, if not very outrageous, were often tolerated.

Trespass, merely as trespass, was commonly suffered to pass unresented.

It was only when the trespass produced some positive damage that the aggrieved party stood on his right, and demanded that the frontier should be set out by metes and bounds, and that the landmarks should thenceforward be punctiliously respected.
Many of those points which had occasioned the most violent disputes between our Sovereigns and their Parliaments had been finally decided by the Bill of Rights.

But one question, scarcely less important than any of the questions which had been set at rest for ever, was still undetermined.