To others and themselves the British have a reputation for being conservative——not in the narrow political sense, but in the sense of adherence to accepted ideas and unwilling to question them.The reputation comes partly from their 1 .For 900 2 they have suffered 3 invasion nor revolution (except in 1649 4 1688) nor disastrous defeat in 5 .Their monarchy (君主政体) survives 6 serious question.Under its normal 7 the political arrangements have been 8 stable that, except for the 9 interruptions in the seventeenth 10 , they have been adopted throughout 11 centuries to meet changing needs without violent 12 .Britain, in 1978, was 13 in managing without 14 written constitution; some fragmentary definitions of 1688 still 15 .There had been 16 quarrels, social and economic as well 17 political, but the quarrels had been 18 , usually 19 compromise.The underlying 20 had not been broken.