-century expectations or understandings of the English constitution. They are distinguished as expectations of method, national specificity … of the rule of law, relative to comparable earlier leading writings on the English constitution, answered those … expectations. Dicey's expectation of congruity of the constitution's first principles is shown to have been of particular strength …

Dicey's view of the English constitution as historical was traditional, but he promoted, and imported to that … constitution, a history that was comparative, critical and modernist. His promotion of history as comparison affected his treatment … his exposition of the rule of law marked its modernisation in the English historical constitution, and to illustrate …