Since Magna Carta, and before, the development of English society has been marked by a progression of key conflicts and advances. These advances have been recorded in, or made possible by, a series of vital documents – religious, political, constitutional, and social – which moulded the course of our history, sometimes even to our own day. The names of most of these documents are household words, but how many people have ever had the opportunity to read them?

          The second volume covers thirteen key documents, from the Act of Uniformity 1559 to the Statute of Westminster 1931, and includes the Bill of Rights 1689, the Reform Act 1832, and the Chadwick Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population 1842.