The legal necessity for legislation in accordance with the agreement was, nevertheless, on a special reference, submitted to the privy council, whose decision affirmed the advisibility of legislation and the need for validating retrospectively marriages not supported by either Maltese or English common law.
In the Chronicle the title is given to Ecgbert, king of the English, "the eighth king that was Bretwalda," and retrospectively to seven kings who ruled over one or other of the English kingdoms. The seven names are copied from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, and it is interesting to note that the last king named, Oswiu of Northumbria, lived 150 years before Ecgbert.
The practical result of giving effect to this contention would be that an international tribunal could make new law and apply it retrospectively.
That is to say, Grote supposes that for at least eight and forty years, from 447 to 399, the paid professors had no professional title; that, this period having elapsed, a youthful opponent succeeded in fastening an uncomplimentary title not only upon the contemporary teachers, but also, retrospectively, upon their predecessors; and that, artfully enhancing the indignity of the title affixed, he thus obscured, perverted and effaced the records and the memories of the past.
The kingdom of Chilperic was retrospectively given this name, and in contemporary usage it was given to the kingdom of Clovis II., as opposed to that of Sigebert III., the two sons of Dagobert; and after that, the princes reigning in the West were called kings of Neustria, and those reigning in the East, kings of Austrasia.
