From: dwilkins@maths.tcd.ie (David Wilkins)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: An astonishing Guy
Date: 8 Nov 92 14:15:50 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

In article <5829@balrog.ctron.com> smith@ctron.com writes:
>In article <Bx81st.1n0@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU>, streater@unixjr.SLAC.Stanford.EDU writes:
>> Ah, but that's just it. There *is* an English Bill of Rights. Passed by
>> Parliament in 1689 and entitled "An Act Declaring the RIghts and Liberties of
>> the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown". This was passed after
>
>An important semantic difference to point out here: The American Bill of Rights
>is passed by _the_people_ of the United States, as an alteration to the
>document created _by_them_ which empowers the gov't _they_created_.  The
>English Bill, on the other hand, was passed by the gov't, which rules because
>no one has successfully overthrown it, and which graciously _grants_ certain
>rights to its citizens.

I would not agree that the circumstances surrounding the 1689
Bill of Rights necessarily fit this interpretation.  Being a Sunday,
the only reference I can immediately lay my hands on is the massively
abridged Penguin edition of Macaulay's `The History of England'.
Nevertheless, from what I can remember, the circumstances are as follows.

James II and VII succeeded his brother Charles II to the throne and
ruled for about a couple of years, before being dethroned in the
so-called `Glorious Revolution' of 1688.  He was a Catholic, and
wished to return the country to catholicism.  Among the notable
events of his short reign were

   The `bloody assize' in the South West, after Monmouth's rebellion,

   The expulsion of the fellows of certain Oxford colleges, most
   notoriously Magdelen, and their replacement by Catholics,

   The imprisonment and trial of the `Seven Bishops', including the
   Archbishop of Canterbury, for "having written and published,
   in the county of Middlesex, a false, malicious, and seditious
   libel", (i.e., for having presenting privately to the King
   a petition against their clergy having to read out in church
   a Declaration of Indulgence that they held to be illegal).

James II thus alienated both the Whig and Tory parties, and
leading members of both parties secretly sent an invitation
to William, Prince of Orange and ruler of the Netherlands,
to come to England and depose his uncle and Father-in-law,
King James.

William of Orange landed at Tor Bay, in Devon, and marched towards
London.  As he did so, the members of the political and military
establishment deserted King James and joined Prince William.
King James fled to France, after throwing the Great Seal
in the River Thames.  He was stopped, but managed to escape.

In order to reestablish a government, a `constititional convention'
was called.  It was not possible to summon a parliament, since
there was no king or queen to issue the necessary writs.  A similar
convention had been called a couple of decades earlier on
the restoration of Charles II after the Civil War.

To respect the prejudices of Whig and Tory alike, they declared
that James had `abdicated' the throne through his flight to France
and that the throne was thereby vacant.  The convention adopted a
Declaration of Right, and settled the Crown equally on William
and Mary, on their acceptance of this declaration.  Macaulay
describes the acceptance of the crown in 1688 as follows:-

   On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of February,
   the court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets
   were filled with gazers.  The magnificent Banqueting House,
   the masterpiece of Inigo, embellished by masterpieces of
   Rubens, had been prepared for a great ceremony.  The
   walls were lined by the Yeomen of the Guard.  Near the
   northern door, on the right hand, a large number of
   Peers had assembled.  On the left were the Commons with
   their Speaker, attended by the mace.  The southern door
   opened: and the Prince and Princess of Orange, side by
   side, entered, and took their place under the canopy
   of state.

   Both Houses approached bowing low.  William and Mary
   advanced a few steps.  Halifax on the right, and
   Powle on the left, stood forth; and Halifax spoke.
   The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution
   which he prayed their Highnesses to hear.  They
   signified their assent; and the clerk of the House
   of Lords read, in a loud voice, the Declaration of
   Right.  When he had concluded, Halifax, in the name
   of all the Estates of the Realm, requested the Prince
   and Princess to accept the crown.

   William, in his own name and in that of his wife,
   answered that the crown was, in their estimation,
   the more valuable because it was presented to them
   as a token of the confidence of the nation.  `We
   thankfully accept,' he said, `what you have offered
   us.'  Then, for himself, he assured them that the
   laws of England, which he had once already vindicated,
   should be the rules of his conduct, that it should be
   his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom, and
   that, as to the means of doing so, he should constantly
   recur to the advice of the Houses, and should be
   disposed to trust their judgement rather than his own.
   These words were received with a shout of joy which was
   heard in the streets below, and was instantly answered
   by huzzas from many thousands of voices.  The Lords
   and Commons then reverently retired from the Banqueting
   House and went in procession to the great gate of
   Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were
   waiting in their gorgeous tabards.  All the space as
   far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads.  The kettle
   drums struck up; the trumpets pealed: and Garter King
   at Arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and
   Princess of Orange King and Queen of England, charged
   all Englishmen to pay, from that moment, faith and
   true allegiance to the new sovereignes, and besought
   God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance
   for our Church and nation, to bless William and Mary
   with a long and happy reign.


The subsequent Bill of Rights surely represents the ratification
of the Declaration of Right, which in turn specifies the terms
of the `contract' under which the crown was offered to William
and Mary.  From this point on, the monarch rules, not by virtue
of `divine right' or right of inheritance, but on the basis of
the constitutional restrictions laid down in the Declaration
of Right of 1688 and the Bill of Rights of 1689, and the
succession to the throne as established by act of Parliament,
in the 1689 Bill of Rights and in subsequence acts of succession
and abdication.

   Were the state governments who ratified the U.S. Constitution
more representative of _the people_ than the Convention of 1688
representing the `Estates of the Realm' in England?  After all
the framers of the Constitution were hardly advocates of
universal suffrage, and I was not aware that the _people_ of
the U.S.A. had ratified the Constitution by any referendum
or any similary formal act of popular sovreignty: it was
merely accepted on their behalf by the ruling classes.

>In the US, rights are _intrinsic_, in England they are _granted_.  Of course,
>both are equally valid if you defend them as ferociously as you can.  The US
>gov't has shown a dismaying ability to get large segments of the population
>to agree with their ignoring the provisions of the 2nd amendment.
>

Were the `constitutional liberties' of England set out in the
Declaration of Right _intrinsic_ or _granted_.  If they were
`granted', then who `granted' them.  If they were the conditions
under which the crown was offered to William and Mary by the
Estates of the Realm, then they surely cannot be regarded as
simply being `graciously granted' in the subsequent Bill of Rights
in which this compact was formalized.

DRW