If you ask the immense majority of the Queen's subjects by what right she rules, they would never tell you that she rules by Parliamentary right, by virtue of 6 Anne, c. 7.
Walter Bagehot: “If you ask the immense majority of the Queen's subjects by what right she rules, they would never tell you that she…”
Editor's note · Context
This passage questions the legitimacy of the Queen's rule, suggesting that most subjects do not recognize parliamentary authority as the basis for her reign.
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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.
I own that I do not entirely sympathise with the horror of these anomalies which haunts some of our best critics.
The lessons are good where its primitive assumptions hold, but may be false where those assumptions fail.
Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.





