On the record
Considering the power and position of the titled aristocracy, you will perhaps be astonished at the small degree in which it contributes to the active part of our governing assembly.
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Walter Bagehot
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gutenberg.orgWalter Bagehot: “Considering the power and position of the titled aristocracy, you will perhaps be astonished at the small degree in…”
Editor's note · Context
Bagehot points out the surprising minimal influence of the titled aristocracy in the governing assembly, despite their historical power.
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More from Walter Bagehot
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
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