Note (Back) — Chapter I

The Revolution of 1688-1689 was signalized by the putting into written form of no inconsiderable portion of the English constitution as it then existed. February 19, 1698, the new sovereigns formally accepted a Declaration of Right, drawn up by the convention, and by act of Parliament, December 16 following, this instrument, under the name of the Bill of Rights, was made a part of the law of the land. In it were denied specifically a long list of prerogatives to which the last Stuart had laid claim—those, in particular, of dispensing with the 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 brought repeatedly in question, including those of petition, freedom of elections, and freedom of speech on the part of members of Parliament.[35] 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, more remotely, of the entire seventeenth-century parliamentary movement. With its enactment the doctrine of divine right disappeared forever from the domain of practical English politics. The entire circumstance of William III.'s accession determined the royal tenure to be, as it thereafter remained, not by inherent or vested right, but conditioned upon the national will.[36]