Edmund Burke: “I do not say, (God forbid!) I do not say that the virtues of such men were to be taken as a balance to their crimes; but…”

If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?

We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.

It therefore secures both an hereditary crown and an hereditary allegiance.

An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.