The barons, having thus shut out the law, made continual inroads upon each other, and spread war, rapine, burning, and desolation throughout the whole kingdom.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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Then was seen to arise in every corner of the kingdom, in every petty seigniory, an inconceivable multitude of strongholds, the seats of violence, and the receptacles of murderers, felons, debasers of the coin, and all manner of desperate…
Thus, instead of removing, they in fact doubled the mischief.
Every resolution of government required a sort of civil war to put it in execution.
The measures which the king hitherto pursued were dictated by sound policy; but he took another step to secure his throne, which in fact took away all its security, and at the same time brought the country to extreme misery, and to the…
Henry trusted, by the promotion of two persons so near him in blood, and so bound by benefits, that he had formed an impenetrable fence about the succession; but he only inspired into Stephen the design of seizing on the crown by bringing…
Although the authority of the crown had been exercised with very little restraint during the three preceding reigns, the succession to it, or even the principles of the succession, were but ill ascertained: so that a doubt might justly…
But when, the Barbarians, after destroying the Empire, had at length submitted their necks to the Gospel, their kings and great men, full of zeal and gratitude to their instructors, endowed the Church with large territories and great…
He made continual progresses into all parts of his kingdom, and brought the royal authority and person home to the doors of his haughty barons, which kept them in strict obedience during his long and severe reign.
The adherence to the title of Robert was a cause, or a pretence, of depriving many of their vast possessions, which were split or parcelled out amongst the king's creatures, with great injustice to particulars, but in the consequences with…
No circumstance could be more dishonorable to a prince; but happily, like many other great abuses, it gave rise to a great reform, which went much further than its immediate purposes.
But nothing called for redress more than the disorders in the king's own household.
The king no longer doubted his fortune, and therefore no longer respected his promises or his charter.
Order and justice took place, until everything was reduced to obedience; then a severe and regular oppression succeeded the former disorderly tyranny.
Two other steps he took, equally prudent and politic: he confirmed and enlarged the privileges of the city of London, and gave to the whole kingdom a charter of liberties, which was the first of the kind, and laid the foundation of those…
Great designs may be started and the spirit of them inspired by enthusiasts, but cool heads are required to bring them into form.
It is hard to say which was most unpopular, the king or his minister.
This principle, once established, opened a large field for various lucrative abuses; nor could it be supposed, whilst the vacancy turned to such good account, that a necessitous or avaricious king would show any extraordinary haste to put…
The security he began to enjoy from this success, and the strength which government receives by merely continuing, gave room to his natural dispositions to break out in several acts of tyranny and injustice.
He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius,--and avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth,--the other governed his age.
He knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice.
Unlearned in books, he formed his understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated experience.
A rupture ensued, and he died at Rouen, after showing a desire of making amends for his cruelty by restitutions to the towns he had destroyed, by alms and endowments, the usual fruits of a late penitence, and the acknowledgments which…
The king was not inclined to give up to force what he had refused to reason.
But as his new acquisition did not seem so secure as it was great and magnificent, he was far from any thoughts of resigning his hereditary dominions, which he justly considered as a great instrument in maintaining his conquests, and a…
Politicians like Edmund Burke
