The Presidency College Magazine September 1933

The history of Rome is the marvellous story of the subordination of a world to a city and though administrative order was better secured in the Roman Empire than in any other ancient state yet its very foundation was the non-recognition of the claim of a people to have a government of its own. [...] As Professor Trevelyan remarks The new judicial prbcedure that he introduced was destined to shape the future of English society and politics and to give distinctive habits of thought to all the English-speaking nations in states unborn and accents yet unknown." The strengthening of the royal courts and the growth of common law led to the gradual abolition of feudal courts. [...] And the possession of about one-fourth of the territories of France by the English was a gigantic hindrance to centralisation on the part of the French kings. [...] The accession of Charles V to the throne of Spain in the sixteenth century joined her to the continent and the discovery of America made her for almost a century the most powerful of European States. [...] Towards the close of the Middle Ages Ivan III freed Rtissia from the domination of the Mongols and the oveshadowing influence of the barons and the first step towards centraisation was laid.