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Nor can the argument used by Priestley ,10 and in effect by the protesting Peers that Septennial Parliaments were at first a direct usurpation of the rights of the people ; for by the same authority that one Parliament prolonged their own power to seven years , they might have continued it to twice seven , or like the Parliament of 1641 have made it perpetual be treated as a blunder grounded simply on the " ignorant assumption " that the Septennial Act prolonged the original duration of Parliament.ai The contention of Priestley and others was in substance that members elected to serve for three years were constitutionally so 8 Lord Mahon , History of England , i. p. 302 . a law introducing some system of so-called tariff reform , shall be passed , from the totally different question , whether Mr. No doubt the House of Lords did very rarely either alter or reject any Money Bill , and though the Lords have always claimed the right to alter or reject such a Bill , they have only on very special occasions exercised this power . These advantages are surely not owing to the soil of this island , nor to the latitude in which it is placed ; but to the spirit of its laws , from which , through various means , the characteristic independence and industrious-ness of our nation have been derived . It must again be remembered that the Lords , of recent years at least , have at times rejected Bills supported by the majority of the House of Commons which , as has been proved by the event , had not received the support of the electors . But the question [ 369 ] remains whether this identification bore fruit in other parts of the law also , or whether it was confined to one particular branch , where the Roman law was grafted upon the English stock . It would aid our studies if we could say that wherever assigns are to get the benefit of a covenant as privies in estate with the covenantee , they must be mentioned in the covenant . " This distinction differs essentially , it should be noted , from the distinction between " written law " ( or statute law ) and " unwritten law " ( or common law ) . The Repealers , as led by O'Connell , and still more the Free Traders , as led by Cobden91 are early examples of such 90 I choose these old expressions which have been in use , at any rate from 1689 till the present day , because they make it easier to keep somewhat apart from the burning controversies of 1914 . But this presumption may , they have always maintained , be rebutted if any strong ground can be shown for holding that the electors did not really wish such a Bill to become an Act of Parliament . It also appears that the plaintiff was trying to stand on two grounds ; first , privity , as descendant and assign of the covenantee ; second , that the service was attached to the manor by covenant or by prescription , and that he could maintain covenant as tenant of the manor , from whichever source the duty arose . Peel also was able to show that while he and his followers were prepared to resist any further changes in the constitution , they fully accepted the Reform Act of 1832 , and , while utterly rejecting a policy of reaction , were ready to give the country the benefits of enlightened administration .