Bill of Rights

Bill of Rights, one of the basic instruments of the British constitution, the result of the long 17th-century struggle between the Stuart kings and the English people and Parliament. It incorporated the provisions of the Declaration of Rights, acceptance of which had been the condition upon which the throne, held to have been vacated by James II, was offered to the prince and princess of Orange, afterward William III and Mary II. With the Toleration Act (1689), granting religious toleration to all Protestants, the Triennial Act (1694), ordering general elections to be held every three years, and the Act of Settlement (1701), providing for the Hanoverian succession, the Bill of Rights provided the foundation on which the government rested after the Glorious Revolution (1688–89). It purported to introduce no new principles but merely to declare explicitly the existing law. The revolution settlement, however, made monarchy clearly conditional on the will of Parliament and provided a freedom from arbitrary government of which most Englishmen were notably proud during the 18th century.

The main purpose of the act was unequivocally to declare illegal various practices of James II. Among such practices proscribed were the royal prerogative of dispensing with the law in certain cases, the complete suspension of laws without the consent of Parliament, and the levying of taxes and the maintenance of a standing army in peacetime without specific parliamentary authorization. A number of clauses sought to eliminate royal interference in parliamentary matters, stressing that elections must be free and that members must have complete freedom of speech. Certain forms of interference in the course of justice were also proscribed. The act also dealt with the proximate succession to the throne, settling it on Mary’s heirs, then on those of her sister, afterward Queen Anne, and then on those of William, provided they were Protestants.