HISTORY OF THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION

The British Constitution

The constitutional laws of the United Kingdom is comprised of documents of many hundreds years old and they are still being added to in the present day. The evolution of a constitution arose from conflicts of authority between kings, popes, barons and common people. The first events in this development were noted in England.

Before the Norman Conquest:

The Kingdom of England was made in the mid 9th Century and what is now recognized as being England came about in 927 when the last of the Heptarchy kingdoms fell under the control of the English King. Until 1066 England was ruled by head of stated that were elected by the witan. There were a lot of elements of democracy at a local level too. This ended with the Norman Conquest.

The Norman Conquest:

King Harold was the last Anglo-Saxon king. From William I onwards the rulers of England have all came down from a variety of foreign citizens. The Normans brought in absolutist monarchy. William ruled for 21 years and was replaced by his son William II. There was turmoil and conflict between the three sons of William and the youngest, Henry, ventured a coup in 1091. He did not succeed at that time but eventually succeeded to the throne in 1100.

Henry I

Henry I (c. 1068 - December 1, 1135) was king from 1100 to 1135. When he rose to the throne he granted the Charter of Liberties This document is not a Bill of Rights but a series of decrees and assurances. Probably the most important statement in the charter is at the beginning, where the king acknowledges "that by the mercy of God and the common counsel of the barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of said kingdom". This constitutes a step away from absolutism and a step toward constitutionalism. The king had accepted that the right to rule came not only from God but also from the common counsel of the barons. From this point onward, and more especially between the rule of King John and Charles II, the power structure in England progressed from an essentially absolutist model to an essentially constitutional one.

The Plantagenates:

King John was King of England from 1199 to 1216. He was the youngest brother of Richard I. His reign was full of conflicts. There was conflict between England and the Pope, between England and France and between the King and the barons. Eventually the barons forced John to sign the Magna Carta, often taken as the first truly important document in a long succession of documents over the centuries up to the present day which all together constitute the legal sovereignty of the land now known as the United Kingdom. The constitution of this sovereignty is thus distributed across many historical examples rather than written in one piece.

Henry III replaced his father John. Henry was only nine years of age when he became king and so the country was ruled by regents until Henry reached the age of 20. Under pressure from the barons, led by Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Henry had to consented to the existence of the first English Parliament. In the next century, in the rule of Richard II there was an uprising, the Peasants' Revolt (1381). The revolt came very, very close getting their demands granted by the king but at the end the protestors were deluded out of it all. The revolt remains as an important moment in history, but failed to play a part in the written body of the constitution.

The Tudors:

The first Act of Supremacy (1534) made King Henry VIII the "supreme head" of the Church of England. Henry VIII died in 1547, leaving three children as potential heirs. The first Act of Supremacy had made King Henry VIII the supreme head of the Church of England and the second Act of Supremacy (1559) restored these powers for Elizabeth 1, reversing catholic legislation passed during the reign of Mary, though the title Elizabeth gained was " Supreme Governor of the Church of England" rather than "supreme head" so as not to signify that she had control over the church's doctrine. The act also required all officials and clergy to make an oath of allegiance acknowledging her as the "governor" of the Church of England." It was an age of expanding European empires at the same time as internal religious wars. In 1562 French protestants civil war against French catholics. In the same year England entered the slave trade. The first English slave expedition to Africa was led by John Hawkins.

The monarchy had to get the consent of Parliament in all issues, but with the threat of war looming from Spain, Parliament showed great loyalty toward Queen Elizabeth I since she was a strong leader. When the Spanish Armada was defeated (1588), the Parliament felt safe and thus it decreased its loyalty to the monarchy. The Parliament consisted of two levels of administration: the House of Lords that was made up of the influential Nobles, and the "House of Commons" that was made up of influential and representative members of the middle-class. The "House of Commons" had grown sharply, doubling in size due to the wealth of the middle-class during that time. The Puritans made up the larger part of the "House of Commons," so they began asking for more rights for the Puritans, but Elizabeth I was strong enough not to give in. John Aylmer, a Greek scholar, saw an immediate similarity of the Tudor constitution with that of the classical republic of Sparta. Geoffrey Elton, who wrote 'The Tudor Constitution', gave hearty acceptance to Aylmer's conclusions. It was the Greek scholars, such as Aylmer, that popularized the Greek classical political phraseology and influenced British constitutionalist thought. They brought forward the idea of "mixed" government from classical antiquity and applied it to their form of government.

James I and VI

When Queen Elizabeth I died (1603) without issue, she was succeeded by her cousin James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and he became King James I of England. This was a significant step towards creating a unite kingdom. James I faced a fractious religious England it since contained Puritans, Separatists, and Catholics. He began fighting with them. Puritans were English Calvinists /Presbyterians/Huguenots. They believed in a simplified religion based on individual conscience, the direct authority of the Holy Scriptures, and a society of belief in which preaching played a prominent role.

James I was a believer in the Divine Right of Kings Theory, which stated that Kings were chosen by God and should therefore be absolute and answerable only to God. Though he was Presbyterian, he was against the Presbyterian idea of allowing the congregation to elect their presbyters since it undermined his absolutism. Thus he fought with the Puritans, who were English Presbyterians. He did concede to the Puritans by permitting them to create the "King James Bible" that was both an "English" translation and interpretation of the Bible.' Then James I began fighting with the Catholics, but eventually gave them rights, exempting the Catholics from having to pay the title to the Anglican Church, but this caused a great decrease in Anglican Church revenue, so he quickly took those rights away.

A radical Catholic group planned to kill the Parliament and James I all in one attack, so that they could establish a Catholic administration. They rented a building with a basement that ran underneath the Parliament building, and in it they placed barrels of gunpowder to explode and destroy the Parliament while it was in session (November 5, 1605) with James I present. It was thus called the Gunpowder Plot. The plot was revealed when some of the conspirators wrote notes of warning to their friends in Parliament. An investigation led to the discovery of the basement filled with Guy Fawkes. Fawkes was executed by being hung, drawn and quartered, a method of execution which was still legal then, in the days before the English Bill of Rights (1689). The actions of King James I were unpopular during his reign. James ended a war with the Spanish (1604) under the condition that the English were to stop illegally trading with the Spanish colonies in the New World. This condition angered the Protestant traders. James I tried to marry his son Charles to Maria the daughter of Philip III of Spain in order to create a religious balance, but the Protestant English didn't like that, because Spain was very Catholic. James I's daughter Elizabeth married Frederick V, who was the Elector of the Palatinate. When James's son-in-law Frederick V was fighting the Catholics in the Thirty Years' War, James I wouldn't help him, so the English looked down upon James I for not fighting against the Catholics and for not helping his own son-in-law. James had appointed the Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628) as his Civil Adviser, and he was much hated by the Parliament, because he exercised a great deal of power but was an inadequate, untrained statesman. He worked on getting an alliance for England with Spain by trying to arrange the marriage of James's son Charles to Maria the daughter of Philip III of Spain, but after 8 years of negotiations, the Spanish turned down the marriage. To get back at Spain, the Duke of Buckingham caused a war between the two countries. He did successfully arrange the marriage (1624) of Charles to Henrietta Maria the daughter of Louis XIII of France, but he caused a war between England and France by helping the Huguenots in the French civil war. Thus he caused English to get into a war with Spain and with France. He was an adviser to King Charles I (James I's son), until he was killed by John Felton in 1628.

Charles I and the Civil War:

James was succeeded by his son who became Charles I in 1625. Charles I believed in the Divine Right of Kings Theory, like his father, and thus continued to fight with parliament. The Parliament's main power at this time was its control of the taxes. The Parliament demanded more power over the taxes. Traditionally, Parliament had voted at the beginning of a King's reign on the amount allowed for a King's Tonnage and Poundage, the customs duties that made up a large portion of a king's annual income. Now the Parliament wanted to re- evaluate these taxes annually, which would give them more control over the king. James I didn't allow this and dealt with the situation by dissolving the Parliament when he didn't want to bother with them. Charles I did the same at first and later just ignored its annual assessment. Charles acquired much of his money with forced loans from the nobles. He also received a lot of money through taxes. One important tax that Charles collected was the Ship Money tax that required the counties bordering the sea to fund a navy to protect the English coastline, and the coastal counties were unhappy with it since Charles was collecting the Ship Money tax during a time of peace and since he wasn't using it really to fund the navy. To get even more money, Charles placed the Ship Money tax on the interior counties as well, which angered the English people, because now Charles was creating new taxes without the consent of the Parliament, which was against the (unwritten) law. A man in London named John Hampden, who was also a member of Parliament, refused to pay this "new," interior Ship Money tax, so he was tried for a crime by Charles I and lost with a vote of 7 to 5. Yet, Charles I was in war with France and Spain, and this drained a lot of money from him, so he was forced to call upon Parliament (1629) to make new taxes for him. Parliament would not grant Charles new taxes until he had signed the Petition of Rights that established conditions in which Charles had to submit to the law of the Parliament. It stipulated that:

1. The king could not establish martial law in England during times of Peace.

2. The king could not impose taxes without the consent of the Parliament.

3. The king could not arbitrarily imprison people.

4. The king could not station soldiers in private homes.

After Charles had got the taxes from Parliament (1629), he immediately dissolved Parliament and broke the tenets of the Petition of Rights. William Laud and Thomas Wentworth were charged to fill the vacancy that the Duke of Buckingham left. Charles recruited William Laud (1573-1645) as the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a conscientious and diligent man. He was an Anglican Christian and liked the rich Anglican robes. He also established a standard setup and location for the (A Christian sacrament commemorating the Last Supper by consecrating bread and wine) Eucharistic table complete with a communion rail, which was very Catholic. Thus, the Puritans were angry with him, because he appeared to be a secret Catholic. He further angered the Puritans with his Declaration of Sports, which called for sporting events to take place on Sundays, which the Puritans didn't like because they believed that Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest. King Charles appointed as the Civil Adviser Tomas Wentworth (1593-1641) Earl of Strafford. He believed that the king should be the most powerful government institution. He was hated by older associates as a traitor, because he was more loyal to the king now and thought that the king should be able to do things that Charles I was doing. He governed Ireland. He was against the Parliament's religious intolerance. On top of the wars England had with France and with Spain, Charles I and William Laud began a war with Scotland in an attempt to convert Scotland to the Church of England. This was termed as the Bishops' War (1639-1640) and it had two major parts: The first Bishops' War (1639) concluded in a truce. The second Bishops' War, the following year, began with the Scottish invasion of England in which the Scottish defeated the English and remained stationed in England until their issues were solved. To get the Scottish out, Charles I signed the Treaty of Rippon (1640), which required England to pay an indemnity of £850 for each day that the Scottish were stationed in England. During the second part of the Bishops' War, Charles I had run very low on money, so he was forced to call a Parliament to make new taxes. He and the Parliament could not consent on anything, so after three weeks, Charles I dissolved the Parliament. Then he gravely needed new taxes, so Charles I summoned a Parliament again and it would only help him if he consented to some terms, which ultimately made Charles I a constitutional monarch. It was called the Long Parliament (1640-1660), because it was not officially dissolved by its own vote until1660. These terms were: that Charles I had to impeach Thomas Wentworth and William Laud. He reluctantly placed them under arrest and put them in The Tower, executing Wentworth in 1641 and William Laud in 1645.

Charles I had to conceded to the Triennial Act (1641), which required the Parliament to sit every three years with or without the king's assent. Charles I had to put an end to the Court of the Star Chamber, a royal court controlled completely by Charles I in which the prosecutor was also the judge and it was implied to be used to implement the will of the king legally with a "judicial" façade. It was thought an "extralegal" court. It dealt with odd cases and punishments. Charles I had to put an end to the High Court, which was the same as the Court of the Star Chamber, though it dealt with religious doctrine. It was considered an "extralegal"court. Charles I had to believe the Grand Remonstrance and allow the circulation of its copies, and it was a document that outlined the crimes that officials had accused Charles of committing since the beginning of his reign. Charles I was also never to commit any of those crimes again.

Charles I, most importantly, had to consent never to dissolve a Parliament without the permission of the Parliament. Most of England believed that Parliament had done enough to lessen the power of King Charles I, but the believers in Parliament and the believers around the country wanted to reform the Church of England by getting rid of the bishops and by setting up the Puritans' method of worship as the standard. This caused a political division in Parliament, so Charles I took advantage of it. To arrest five of the Puritans' ringleaders, he then sent 500 soldiers into the House of Commons. The five ringleaders had been tipped off, so they had left Parliament and Charles I was left with only blame for storming Parliament.

King Charles I left London and went to Oxford, and the (Civil war in England between the Parliamentarians and the Royalists under Charles I; 1644-1648) English Civil War took place (1642). The North and West of England took the side on Charles I. They were known as the Cavaliers. Charles I generated an army illegally.

The South and East of England took the side on Parliament and were known as Roundheads, for their haircuts. In reply to Charles I raising an army, they did so as well. Yet, they didn't have the military might that King Charles I had, so they asked for the help of the Scottish with the Solemn League and Covenant that stipulated to impose the Presbyterian religion on the Church of England. They summoned their army the New Model Army and they made its commander Oliver Cromwell, who was at the same time also a member of Parliament. The New Model Army was made up mostly of Presbyterians.

Oliver Cromwell and the Commonwealth:

Though Parliament won, it was clear to the Scots that it was not going to uphold the Solemn League and Covenant by imposing Presbyterianism on England, so the New Model Army, Parliament and the Scots began falling apart. The Scots were paid for their assistance and sent back to Scotland. The Presbyterian Roundheads were interested in freedom to exercise their religion and not in making the Presbyterian religion the state religion. Cromwell put forward that Parliament reinstate the bishops of the Church of England and King Charles I as a constitutional monarch, but allow for the forbearance of other religions. At the end of the war, the people of England could accept Charles I back in office but not religious forbearance. They also wanted the New Model Army dissolved since it was a annoying factor. Thus Parliament disallowed religious forbearance and voted to disband the New Model Army, but the New Model Army showed reluctance to the order. Charles I then made the same agreement that the Roundheads had made with the Scottish and Parliamentary Presbyterians. He appealed the help of Scotland and in return he made a promise to impose Presbyterianism on England. The New Model Army would not permit this deal to be made. Thus a "new" civil war took place in 1648. This time, Scotland, the Parliamentary Presbyterians and the royalists were on the side of Charles I. The New Model Army and the rest of Parliament were against him.

Cromwell and his New Model Army defeated Charles I In the Battle of Preston (1648). Then one of Cromwell's officers, Colonel Pride, ruined the Presbyterian majority in Parliament by driving out of Parliament 143 Presbyterians of the 203. The new Parliament initiated a Rump Parliament, which was a Parliament in which the minority carried on in the name of the majority that was kicked out. The Rump Parliament: Abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords in Parliament generated a republic called the "Commonwealth" that was really just dictatorship run by Cromwell. Scotland was against Cromwell's "Commonwealth" and declared Charles I's son king at Edinburgh as King Charles II, but Cromwell and the New Model Army defeated him (1650) and he fled to France where he stayed until 1660. Cromwell then headed for Ireland to rule it, but was "disgusted" with the Catholics, so he brutally killed many of them and so the Irish revolted against him as well. Cromwell then dissolved the Rump Parliament and declared himself to be the Lord Protector (dictator).

Richard Cromwell and Charles II:

Cromwell died (1658) and was succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell, who tried to keep power militarily and absolutely, but he was also incapable of unifying all of the diverse groups. General George Monk descended from Scotland and overthrew Richard. He then invited the remnants of the Long Parliament to reconstruct. The Long Parliament met and officially ended when it voted to dissolve itself and create a new Parliament. The new Parliament began the Restoration by choosing Charles I's son Charles II to be the King of England.

Popular political movements in United Kingdom:

In 1649 True Levellers, also known as The Diggers, a people's political reform movement, published The True Levellers Standard Advanced: or, The State of Community opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men. This is another vital document in the history of British constitutionalism, though it is different from the others enlisted here because the True Levellers' declaration comes from the people but not from the state. They were called the "True Levelers" to distinguish themselves from a larger political group called The Levellers which had supported the republicans during the civil war. The "True Levellers" were not satisfied with what had been achieved from the war against the king but wanted instead a dismantling of the state. They can be best understood through such philosophies as libertarianism anarchism, and religious communism. Also at this time the Polish Brethren arrived in England and Holland. After The Deluge, the sect of Polish Brethren had been driven out of Poland because they were commonly considered to be collaborators with the Swedish. The radical ideas had influence in Poland, Holland and England, particularly upon the philosophy of John Locke; he, in turn, had a profound influence upon the development of political ideas of liberty. They have thus influenced the founders of the United States of America.

Formation of the United Kingdom:

The expansion of the electoral franchise between 1832 and 1989, numerous Acts of Parliament increased the number of people from 5% of the adult population to the system of universal suffrage for all people 18 or over that exists today.

New Labour's reforms

First Term

In Labour's first term (1997-2001), it introduced a large package of constitutional reforms, which it promised in its 1997 manifesto. The most major were:

The creation of the devolved assemblies in Scotland, Wales and (A division of the United Kingdom located on the northern part of the island of Ireland) Northern Ireland, with their own direct elections. The creation of a devolved assembly in London and the introduction of directly elected mayors.

The initiation of a process of reform of the House of Lords, including the removal of all hereditary peers except 92. The incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law by the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998. The passing of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, creating the Electoral Commission to regulate elections and referendums, the passing of the Political Parties, and party spending to an extent.

Second Term:

The House of Commons voted on seven options in February 2003 on what proportion of elected and appointed members the House of Lords should have. None of the options received a majority. In 2004, the Joint Committee tasked with overseeing the drafting of the proposed Civil Contingencies Bill, published its first report, in which, amongst other things, it suggested amending the bill's clauses that grant Cabinet Ministers the power "to disapply or modify any Act of Parliament" as overly wide, and that the bill should be modified to preclude changes to the following Acts, which, it suggested, formed "the fundamental parts of constitutional law" of the United Kingdom.

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