English Bill of Rights

8 Key excerpts on "English Bill of Rights"

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  Human Rights

  The Essential Reference

  • Carol Devine, Carol R. Hansen, Hilary Poole, Ralph Wilde(Authors)
  • 1999(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  The value of the English Bill of Rights lay with its clarification of existing law and its itemization of freedoms from monar- chical infringement. Because the bill checked the absolutist tendencies of mon- archs, it also restricted the overreach of both powerful nobles and senior officials of the crown, who often took their own Chapter One: A History of Human Rights Theory • 17 initiatives in the name of the crown. Most importantly, it reminded Englishmen that they had the right to petition the king, that they could (if they were Protestant) bear arms for their defense, that they need not face excessive bail, fines, or cruel and unusual punishments, and that they enjoyed the right to a jury trial in capital cases, as well as the right to seek redress of grievances and amendment of laws. By contrast, the bill's impact on reli- gion was scarcely better than the king's. Protestants were allowed to worship and could establish teaching centers, although Anglicanism remained the established church and only its followers could hold office. By contrast, Roman Catholics faced discrimination. Not only could they not hold the throne, but like Dissenters^ they could not hold government positions. The 1689 Toleration Act, which promoted religious toleration, somewhat improved the situation. In sum, the significance of this period in English history for the development of mod- ern human rights was twofold: the Magna Carta initiated the first effort to check the absolute power of the monarch and encour- aged subsequent monarchs to work with their barons, who ultimately evolved into a parlia- mentary body. This effort was finally success- ful some four hundred years later with the English Bill of Rights and the Glorious Revolution, when the absolute power of the monarch in England was broken.

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  Three British Revolutions

  1641, 1688, 1776

  • John Greville Agard Pocock(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  See, however, J. P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles (Cambridge, 1977). The pres- ent writer is working on a study of the Declaration of Rights and the Bill of Rights. A Senior Fellowship, to pursue that project, from the National Endowment for the Humanities for 1975 is gratefully acknowledged. 10. The Bill of Rights may be conveniently found in Andrew THE BILL OF RIGHTS 239 Browning, ed., English Constitutional Documents 1660-1714 (Lon- don, 1953), viii, 122-28. It should be compared to the Declaration of Rights in Journals of the House of Commons, 10-28-29 (here- after C.J.). 11. Corinne Weston, "Legal Sovereignty in the Brady Contro- versy," The Historical Journal, 15, No. 3 (1972), 409-31, a recent article revealing the strength of the Tory side. 12. Carter, "The Revolution and the Constitution," p. 40. 13. See Clayton Roberts, "The Constitutional Significance of the Financial Settlement of 1690," The Historical Journal, 20, No. 1 (1977), 59-76. Professor Roberts kindly allowed me to read his article in typescript. 14. Precisely how many tracts and broadsides were printed dur- ing these months is impossible to say, but there must have been several hundred. Over a hundred of the "most considerate" of them were reprinted, in the spring of 1689, in A compleat collec- tion of papers in twelve parts relating to the great revolutions in England and Scotland from the time of the Seven Bishops peti- tioning K. James II, against the Dispensing Power, June 6, 1688, to the coronation of King William and Queen Mary, April 11, 1689 so that they might not "lie buried in a crowd of pamphlets." Many other tracts outside this collection were also printed and are still to be found at the Bodleian Library, the British Library, and the Guildhall Library in England; copies of many of these and a few unique copies are at the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Henry E. Huntington Library in the United States. Aspects of the press are treated in an article by Lois G.

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  The Revolutionary Era

  Primary Documents on Events from 1776 to 1800

  • Carol Sue Humphrey(Author)
  • 2003(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  In England we find the people, with the Barons at their head, exacting a solemn resig- nation of their rights from king John, in their celebrated magna charta, which was many times renewed in Parliament during the reigns of his suc- cessors. The petition of rights was afterwards consented to by Charles the first, and contained a declaration of the liberties of the people. The habeas corpus act, 1 after the restoration of Charles the Second, the bill of rights, which was obtained from the Prince and Princess of Orange on their acces- sion to the throne, and the act of settlement, at the accession of the Hanover family, are other instances to shew the care and watchfulness of that nation, to improve every opportunity, of the reign of a weak prince, or the revolu- tion in their government, to obtain the most explicit declarations in favor of their liberties. In like manner the people of this country, at the revolution, having all power in their own hands, in forming the constitutions of the sev- 164 The Revolutionary Era eral states, took care to secure themselves by bills of rights, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the encroachments of their future rulers upon the rights of the people. Some of these rights are said to be unalienable, such as the rights of conscience: yet even these have been often invaded, where they have not been carefully secured by express and solemn bills and declara- tions in their favor. Before we establish a government, whose acts will be THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND, and whose power will extend to almost every case without exception, we ought carefully to guard ourselves by A BILL OF RIGHTS, against the invasion of those liberties which it is essential for us to retain, which it is of no real use for government to deprive us of; but which in the course of human events have been too often insulted with all the wan- tonness of an idle barbarity.

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  Gun Control

  A Documentary and Reference Guide

  • Robert J. Spitzer(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  1 FOUNDING DOCUMENTS AND GUN RIGHTS 2 The British Bill of Rights, 1689 • Document: The British Bill of Rights, also known as the Declara- tion of Rights; subtitled, “An Act Declaring the Rights and Liber- ties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown” • Date: 1689 • Where: London, England • Significance: This is the first document that expressly references citizen arms-bearing in the context of a statement regarding rights and liberties. DOCUMENT Whereas the late King James the Second, by the assistance of divers evil counsel- lors, judges and ministers employed by him, did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom. . . . By causing several good subjects being Protestants to be disarmed at the same time when papists were both armed and employed contrary to law. . . . That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. . . . SOURCE: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/england.htm ANALYSIS For 13 years in the mid-seventeenth century, professional military forces under the control of Oliver Cromwell ruled England. During this period, the country was Chapter 1 • Founding Documents and Gun Rights 3 ruled by military force. After Cromwell’s overthrow, monarchy was restored under Charles II, who was succeeded by James II. James was a devout Catholic, however, and he attempted to transform Britain into a Catholic nation, referred to as promoting “papism,” by barring Protestants from top civilian and military posts, and appointing Catholics. Contrary to existing law, James tried to disarm Protestants in this mostly Protestant country. James’s oppressive policies on behalf of Catholicism, including a swelling Catholic-led army that might overwhelm local Protestant militias controlled by the landed gentry, eventually led to his overthrow and replacement by William of Orange and Mary II, an event dubbed the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

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  British Government and the Constitution

  Text and Materials

  • Colin Turpin, Adam Tomkins(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Among these statutes are certain great constitutional Acts which were enacted in confirmation of the results of political upheaval or revolution, or as emphatic statements of what were conceived as fundamental rights or privi- leges. The antiquity of these Acts, the great historical events with which they are 162 British Government and the Constitution associated, or the lasting worth of the principles contained in them – or a com- bination of these features – have invested them with a kind of sanctity (in the minds of lawyers and to some extent in public sentiment) which is not unlike that elsewhere attaching to written constitutions. They include Magna Carta 1215, the Habeas Corpus Act 1679, the Bill of Rights 1689, the Act of Settlement 1701, the Act of Union with Scotland 1707 and the Statute of Westminster 1931. The Human Rights Act may in time take its place among them. The following extracts are taken from the Bill of Rights 1689: [The] Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons pursuant to their respective Letters and Elections being now assembled in a full and free Representative of this Nation . . . Does in the first place (as their Ancestors in like Case have usually done) for the Vindicating and Asserting their ancient Rights and Liberties, Declare That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority without Consent of Parliament is illegal. That the pretended Power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regal Authority as it hath been assumed and exercised of late is illegal. ...That levying Money for or to the Use of the Crown by pretence of Prerogative without Grant of Parliament . . . is illegal. ...That the raising or keeping a standing Army within the Kingdome in time of Peace unless it be with Consent of Parliament is against Law. That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law.

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  The Common Good

  N.F.S. Grundtvig as Politician and Contemporary Historian

  • (Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Aarhus University Press

    (Publisher)

  On the other hand, I must remind you that the English government is not divided up according to the present rules of anatomy! Its power, as we know, is divided into three: the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. But with the English everything is at sixes and sevens, so each branch has something of the whole and cannot possibly therefore enforce any constitutional rights without getting into a fight. The king may have only the power to appoint ministers, but with them he has sole power over the army and navy, for instance, and the power to declare war on the whole world and destroy parliamentary negotiations. One of these ministers (the Lord Chancellor) is 371. For Magna Carta see note 354. 372. The Declaration (aka Bill) of Rights listed the wrongs done to the people by James II (1685‑88, deposed) and laid down the citizens’ rights to which all monarchs must agree. King William III accepted the Declaration before acceding to the throne in 1688, in what is known as the Glorious Revolution. The Declaration of Rights was later written into the English Bill of Rights and became part of the English Constitution. CONTENTS This page is protected by copyright and may not be redistributed 1 · W I T H I N L I V I N G M E M O R Y [ 133 ] not only what we would call the head (justarius) of the High Court of Justice, but in many cases he is the High Court in a single person! 373 Parliament thus seems more or less superfluous. If we now turn to Parliament’s constitutional rights, we hear that it has the power of life and death over ministers and can not only arraign them but also judge them; it can arraign and judge anyone who breaches parliamentary privilege, and has the sole right to determine what ‘breach of privilege’ means; and finally, it has the power to grant or refuse all kinds of taxes and impositions.

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  Duelling for Supremacy

  International Law vs. National Fundamental Principles

  • Fulvio Maria Palombino(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Parliament memorialised its new sovereignty in a series of documents, including the Bill of Rights 1689. The Bill of Rights confirmed Parliament’s sovereign authority to make British law. It consolidated case law set down at the beginning of the seventeenth century, which held that the Crown may only change the law in cooperation with Parliament. 42 If the government could establish domestic rights and duties by treaty, and thus bypass Parliament, then this would invert the revolutionary constitutional settlement. This issue has recently been re-litigated in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the Treaty on the European Union. In R (Miller and Dos Santos) v Secretary of State, 43 the government had argued that it could withdraw from the Treaty using the foreign affairs prerogative, without having recourse to Parliament. That withdrawal will probably extinguish some legal rights: for example, it will end the right of British citizens to vote in European elections. The Supreme Court in Miller held that the government could not withdraw without the involvement of Parliament. Philip Sales and Joanne Clement have argued that true rationale for British dualism is the rule that ‘the Crown cannot change domestic law by the exercise of its powers under the prerogative, which is a rule reflecting and supporting the 42 Case of Proclamations (1610) 77 ER 1352. See also John Junior Higgs v Minister of National Security [2000] 2 A.C. 228, 241 (Lord Hoffmann). 43 R (Miller & Dos Santos) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union [2017] UKSC 5 (Miller.). 362 Eirik Bjorge and Ewan Smith sovereignty of Parliament and its primacy as the domestic law-making institution in our constitution’. 44 As Lord Hoffmann puts the point in R v Lyons, ‘[t]he sovereign legislator in the United Kingdom is Parliament. If Parliament has plainly laid down the law, it is the duty of the courts to apply it, whether that would involve the Crown in breach of an international treaty or not’.

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  The Second Creation

  Fixing the American Constitution in the Founding Era

  • Jonathan Gienapp(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Belknap Press

    (Publisher)

  53 Invocations of British constitutionalism best illustrated the change. “The most blind admirer of this Constitution must in his heart confess that it is as far inferior to the British constitution, of which it is an imperfect imita-tion as darkness is to light,” proclaimed a Maryland Anti-Federalist. “In the British constitution,” he went on, “the rights of men, the primary objects of the social Compact—are fixed on an immoveable foundation & clearly defined & ascertained by their Magna Charta, their Petition of Rights & the second creation 102 Bill of Rights.” In comparison to these famous British documents, “in this new Constitution—a complicated System sets responsability at defiance & the Rights of Men neglected & undefined are left at the mercy of events.” Here he recast Britain’s most famous bills of rights in a new light—they possessed authority, not because they articulated fundamental liberties or had been reinforced by custom, but because they systemized rights in a spe-cifically linguistic mode. As the Federal Farmer put it, “when the people of England . . . formed Magna Charta, they did not consider it sufficient, that they were indisputably entitled to certain natural and unalienable rights, not depending on silent titles”; rather, “they made an instrument in writing . . . to fix the contents of it in the minds of the people, as they successively come upon the stage.” Less a continuation of prior constitutional logics, these calls for a bill of rights were an indication that a new kind of constitutional imagination was beginning to take shape. 54 Through a cacophony of arguments—some sprawling, others focused; some devoted to specific clauses, others considering the document as a whole; some obsessed with the contents of the instrument, others with its omissions—Anti-Federalists began insisting that the Constitution was a text, an object whose contents were defined and whose boundaries were limned by its language.

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