The Spirit of the British Constitution

Parliamentary Reform from the Civil War to the Great Reform Act

Max Skjönsberg

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9780691245669
  9780691245652
• eBook ISBN:
  9780691295190
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

How ideas of parliamentary reform aiming to restore the spirit of the constitution defined political debate at a pivotal moment in British history

Eighteenth-century Britain was ruled by landed Protestant gentlemen who were united in their embrace of the country’s constitution, common law, and system of rights that had been confirmed by milestones such as Magna Carta in 1215, the Petition of Right in 1628, and the Glorious Revolution in 1688. Yet the British elite and the public at large were divided on fundamental political questions, such as how the constitution should work in practice and what reforms, if any, were needed to make reality cohere with theory.

In this panoramic book, Max Skjönsberg provides the most comprehensive study to date of the history of parliamentary reform in Britain from the seventeenth century to the First Reform Act in 1832. At the heart of the book is the idea of the spirit of the British constitution, which was invoked by widely different political actors and thinkers throughout this period to argue for an array of reforms for the security of liberty. What this precisely entailed was deeply contested, with key figures such as Bolingbroke, Edmund Burke, Catharine Macaulay, William Pitt the Younger, and William Cobbett interpreting the spirit of the constitution in diverse ways, all the while seeking to remain within a constitutional framework.

A landmark account of the English political and constitutional tradition, The Spirit of the British Constitution challenges us to rethink eighteenth-century history as well as the relationship between tradition, history, and freedom.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on the Text
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. The Roots of the Liberty Tree
• Chapter 2. From Glorious Revolution to Hanoverian Succession
• Chapter 3. The Septennial Act and the Ancient Constitution
• Chapter 4. Tory Reformism in the Reign of George II
• Chapter 5. Oppositional Whiggism After the Accession of George III
• Chapter 6. Parliamentary Whigs in the Age of the American Revolution
• Chapter 7. The Historical Radicals in Britain and America
• Chapter 8. Protestant Dissent and Constitutionalism
• Chapter 9. Reform Associations and Societies, 1779–89
• Chapter 10. William Pitt the Younger and Charles James Fox
• Chapter 11. Reform and Radicalism After the French Revolution
• Chapter 12. The First Reform Act
• Bibliography
• Index