Rights (1689) and the Act of Settlement (1701) are the foundation-stones
of the modern constitutional system.

What, broadly, was established was the dependence of the crown upon
Parliament. Finance and the army were brought under Parliamentary
control by the simple expedient of making its annual summons essential.
The right of petition was re-affirmed; and the independence of the
judges and ministerial responsibility were secured by the same act which
forever excluded the legitimate heirs from their royal inheritance. It
is difficult not to be amazed at the almost casual fashion in which so
striking a revolution was effected. Not, indeed, that the solution
worked easily at the outset. William remained to the end a foreigner,
who could not understand the inwardness of English politics. It was the
necessities of foreign policy which drove him to admit the immense
possibilities of the party-system as also to accept his own best
safeguard in the foundation of the Bank of England. The Cabinet,
towards the close of his reign, had already become the fundamental
administrative instrument. Originally a committee of the Privy Council,
it had no party basis until the ingenious Sunderland atoned for a score
of dishonesties by insisting that the root of its efficiency would be
found in its selection from a single party. William acquiesced but
doubtfully; for, until the end of his life, he never understood why his
ministers should not be a group of able counsellors chosen without
reference to their political affiliations. Sunderland knew better for
the simple reason that he belonged to that period when the Whigs and
Tories had gambled against each other for their heads. He knew that no
council-board could with comfort contain both himself and Halifax; just
as William himself was to learn quite early that neither honor nor
confidence could win unswerving support from John Churchill. There is a
certain feverishness in the atmosphere of the reign which shows how many