instrument, under the name of the Bill of Rights, became a part of the law of the land. Specific denial was made in it of a long list of prerogatives to which the last Stuart had laid claim those, in particular, of dispensing with laws, establishing ecclesiastical commissions, levying imposts without parliamentary assent, and maintaining a standing army under the exclusive control of the crown. In it also were guaranteed certain fundamental rights which during the controversies of the seventeenth century had been repeatedly brought in question, including those of petition, freedom of elections, and freedom of speech on the part of members of Parliament.1 The necessity of frequent meetings of Parliament was affirmed, and a succession clause was inserted by which Roman Catholics and persons who should marry Roman Catholics were excluded from the throne. In the Bill of Rights were thus summed up the essential results of the Revolution, and, quite as truly, of the entire seventeenthcentury liberal movement. The supremacy of Parliament was vindicated; the will of the nation became, in both law and fact, the controlling force in government. Kingship was continued as a natural and useful institution. But thereafter the royal tenure was not by inherent or vested right, but conditioned upon the consent of the nation as expressed through Parliament. Divine right was dead.

SELECTED REFERENCES

G. B. Adams, The Origin of the English Constitution (New Haven, 1912); ibid., Outlines of English Constitutional History (New Haven, 1918); A. B. White, The Making of the English Constitution, 449-1485 (New York, 1908); A. D. Innis, England under the Tudors (London, 1905); G. M. Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts (London, 1904); W. S. McKechnie, Magna Carta (Glasgow, 1905); J. N. Figgis, The Theory of the Divine Right of Kings (Cambridge, 1896); G. P. Gooch, History of English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1898); G. B. Smith, History of the English Parliament, 2 vols. (London, 1892); A. T. Carter, Outlines of English Legal History (London, 1899); G. B. Adams and H. M. Stephens, Select Documents of English Constitutional History (New York, 1906); G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents Illustrative of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I (Oxford, 1898).

1 In this connection should be mentioned the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, by whose terms the right of an individual, upon arrest, to have his case investigated without delay was effectually guaranteed.

CHAPTER X

THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION

I. DEVELOPMENT IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH

CENTURIES

Elements of Stability and of Change. The framework of the English governmental system was substantially complete by the close of the seventeenth century. The limited monarchy, the ministry, the two houses of parliament, the courts of law, and the local administrative authorities then presented the same general appearance that they present to-day. The fundamental principles, furthermore, upon which the government is nowadays operated were already securely established. Laws could be made only by "the king in parliament "; taxes could be levied only in the same manner; the liberty of the individual was protected by a score of specific and oft-renewed guarantees. In point of fact, however, the English constitution of. 1689 was very far from being the English constitution of 1918. The overturn by which the last Stuart was driven from the throne not only marked the culmination of the revolution begun in 1640; it formed the beginning of a more extended revolution, peaceful but thoroughgoing, by which the governmental system of the realm was expanded, carried in new directions, and continuously readapted to fresh and changing conditions. At no time from William III to George V was there a deliberate overhauling of the political machinery as a whole. The American plan of holding specially chosen conventions to revise an entire constitution, or even to make a new one, is quite unknown to English practice. The changes were made gradually, cautiously, sometimes hardly consciously; and, save in occasional parliamentary enactments and judicial decisions, they but rarely found expression in formal documents. Nevertheless, it is hardly too much to say that of the rules and practices which

make up the working constitution of the United Kingdom to-day, almost all owe their form and character to developments of the past two hundred years. Before speaking of the characteristics of the constitution as a whole it will be well, therefore, to follow up the historical survey contained in the preceding chapter with an account of a few of the most important of these developments between 1689 and 1900. Equally weighty changes of more recent date will be described in succeeding chapters devoted to the governmental system as it now is. The Diminished Authority of the Sovereign. — First may be mentioned the gradual eclipse of the king and the establishment of complete and unquestioned ascendancy on the part of Parliament. In consequence of the Revolution of 1688-1689 the sovereign was shorn once for all of a number of important prerogatives. William III, however, was no figurehead, and the monarch was far from having been reduced to impotence. Understanding perfectly the conditions upon which he had been received in England, William none the less did not attempt to conceal his innate love of power. He claimed prerogatives which his Whig supporters were loath to acknowledge, and he habitually exercised in person, and with telling effect, the functions of sovereign, premier, foreign minister, and military autocrat. His successor, Anne, although apathetic, was hardly less attached to the interests of strong monarchy. It was only with the accession of the Hanoverian dynasty, in 1714, that the bulk of those powers of government which the sovereign had hitherto retained slipped finally and completely into the grasp of the ministers and of Parliament. George I (1714-1727) and George II (1727-1760) were not the nonentities they have been painted, but, being alien alike to English speech, customs, and political institutions, they were not in a position to defend the prerogatives which they had inherited. Under George III (1760–1820) there was a distinct revival of the monarchical idea. The king, if obstinate and below the average intellectually, was honest, courageous, and ambitious. He gloried in the name of Englishman, and, above all, he was determined to recover for the crown some measure of the prestige and authority which his predecessors had lost. For a score of years the influence which the sovereign exerted personally upon government and politics

exceeded anything that had been known since the days of William III. In 1780 the House of Commons gave expression to its apprehension by adopting a series of resolutions, the first of which asserted unequivocally that" the influence of the crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished."

After the retirement of Lord North, in 1782, however, the power of the sovereign fell off rapidly, and during the later portion of the reign, clouded by the king's insanity, all that had been gained for royalty was again lost. Under the Regency (18101820) and during the reign of the reactionary George IV (18201830) the popularity, if not the power, of the king reached its nadir. In the days of the genial William IV (1830-1837) popularity was regained, but not power. The long reign of the virtuous Victoria (1837-1901) served completely to rehabilitate the monarchy in the respect and affections of the British people, an achievement whose permanence more recent sovereigns have done nothing to impair. As will be pointed out in another place, the influence which the sovereign may wield, and during the past three-quarters of a century has wielded, in the actual conduct of public affairs is by no means unimportant. But, as will also be emphasized, that influence is only the shadow of the authority which the king once even as late as the opening of the eighteenth century-possessed. It is largely personal rather than legal; it is commonly asserted within the domain of foreign relations rather than within that of domestic affairs; and as against the will of the nation expressed through Parliament it is powerless.

Ascendancy of the House of Commons. A second transformation wrought in the working constitution since 1689 is the shifting of the center of gravity in Parliament from the House of Lords to the House of Commons, together with a notable democratization of the representative chamber. In the days of William and Anne the House of Lords was distinctly more dignified and influential than the House of Commons. During the period covered by the ministry of Robert Walpole (17211742), however, the Commons rose rapidly to the position of the preponderating branch. One cause was the Septennial Act of 1716, whereby the life of a parliament was extended from three years to seven, thus increasing the continuity and attrac

tiveness of membership in the Commons. Another was the growing importance of the power of the purse as wielded by the Commons. A third was the fact that Walpole, throughout his extended ministry, sat steadily as a member of the lower chamber and made it the scene of his remarkable activities. The establishment of the supremacy of the Commons as then constructed did not, however, mean the triumph of popular government. It was but a step toward that end. The House of Commons in the eighteenth century was composed of members elected in the counties and boroughs under a severely restricted franchise, or appointed outright by closed corporations or by individual magnates, and it remained for Parliament during the nineteenth century, by a series of memorable statutes, to extend the franchise successively to groups of people hitherto politically powerless, to reapportion parliamentary seats so that political influence might be distributed with some fairness among the voters, and to regulate the conditions under which campaigns should be carried on, elections conducted, and other operations of popular government undertaken. Of principal importance among the pieces of legislation by which these things were accomplished are the Reform Act of 1832, the Representation of the People Act of 1867, the Ballot Act of 1872, the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883, the Representation of the People Act of 1884, and the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885. The nature of these measures, and of their notable successor, the Representation of the People Act of 1918, will be explained presently.1

Rise of the Cabinet. The period under review is further important because it produced the most remarkable feature of the English constitutional system of to-day, i.e., the cabinet. The creation of the cabinet was a gradual process, and both the process and the product are utterly unknown to the letter of English law. It is customary to regard as the immediate forerunner of the cabinet the so-called "cabal" of Charles II, i.e., the shifting group of persons whom that sovereign selected from the Privy Council and took advice from informally, in lieu of the Council itself. In point of fact, by reason principally of the

1 See pp. 225-236.

2 That is, the large body of advisers and administrators, historically descended from the Great, or Common, Council.