History Of The Constitution Of The United Kingdom

The constitution of the United Kingdom is an uncodified constitution made up of various statutes, judicial precedents, convention, treaties and other sources. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the constitution developed gradually in response to various crises. By the 20th century, the British monarchy had become a constitutional and ceremonial monarchy, and Parliament developed into a representative body exercising parliamentary sovereignty.

Initially, the constitutional systems of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom developed separately under English domination. The Kingdom of England conquered Wales in 1283, but it was only later through the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 that the country was brought completely under English law. While technically a separate state, the Kingdom of Ireland was ruled by the English monarchy.

From 1603 to 1707, England and the Kingdom of Scotland shared the same monarch as part of the Union of the Crowns; however, each nation maintained separate governments. In 1707, England and Scotland were joined in the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain and Ireland were joined in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. While the United Kingdom remains a unitary state in which Parliament is sovereign, a process of devolution began in the 20th and 21st centuries that saw Parliament restore self-government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Aspects of the British constitution were adopted in the constitutions and legal systems of other countries around the world, particularly those that were part of, or formerly part of, the British Empire including the United States and those countries that adopted the Westminster parliamentary system. The British constitution is the source of the modern concepts of the rule of law, parliamentary sovereignty and judicial independence and adoption of British constitutional principles propagated their spread around the world.

Kingdom of England

Anglo-Saxon government (pre-1066)

Prior to the 9th century, England consisted of various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms ruled by kings whose primary role was as warrior and protector of his people. An Anglo-Saxon king was advised by a group of councilors or "wise men" called a witan, composed of lords and church leaders. The witan was consulted when creating law, and it was also the highest court in the land where the king gave final judgment in person. In times of crisis or when a king was too young to rule, the witan may have assumed greater role over government.

Following the Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxons, written law codes or "dooms" were produced, the earliest being the Law of Æthelberht . Early Anglo-Saxon laws were mainly concerned with preventing blood feuds by mandating criminals make compensation (Old English ) to victims or the victim's family for injuries or death. In the case of death, the victim's family was owed the wergild ("man price"). These laws were enforced by the family of the victim—not the king. Anglo-Saxon society was hierarchical and one's wergild was greater or lesser depending on social status:

# King
# Ætheling (prince)
# Ealdorman (greater nobleman)
# Thegn (lesser nobleman)
# Ceorl (low-ranking freeman)
# Slaves (By the 12th century, slavery in Britain was transformed into a form of serfdom with a class of peasant known as villeins.)

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were consolidated under the rule of the House of Wessex into a single Kingdom of England. Around 890, Alfred the Great compiled the largest Anglo-Saxon law code, the Doom book, possibly to replace the various regional laws of his expanding kingdom. The current British coronation service largely dates back to 973. Edgar the Peaceful and subsequent monarchs swore a coronation oath to protect the English church, defend their people against enemies, and to administer justice.

While a capital existed at Winchester (where the royal treasury was located), the king and his itinerant court moved constantly throughout the kingdom. Priests attached to the king's chapel acted as royal secretaries—writing letters, charters, and other official documents. Under Edward the Confessor (), the office of chancellor appears for the first time. Regenbald, the first chancellor, kept the king's seal and oversaw the writing of charters and writs. The treasury had probably developed into a permanent institution by the time of King Cnut (). During the Confessor's reign, supervision of the treasury was one of the responsibilities of the king's or chamberlains. Initially, the king did not tax his subjects but was owed service in the form of the —fyrd service, burh building, and bridge building. The only direct tax was the Danegeld, which was paid seven times between 996 and 1118. Other government functions were paid for by income from the royal estates and court fines and fees.

By the tenth century, England was divided into shires and subdivided into hundreds. The hundred was the basic unit of government with its own hundred court. The hundred court met monthly to consider issues such as property disputes and breaches of the king's peace. All free men over the age of twelve were expected to attend, and it was these local men who gave judgment in disputes as there was no judge. The hundred was administered by a reeve, who enforced court decisions and collected royal revenue. The shire court met twice a year and was presided over by the "shire reeve" or sheriff. Sheriffs enforced royal justice, maintained the king's peace, collected royal revenue, and commanded the shire's military forces.

There were two methods used to start court proceedings. In one, the alleged victim made an accusation ( criminal appeal) that was formally denied by the accused. The second was through frankpledge—a system of self-policing in which every man belonged to a tithing and was sworn to report crimes on pain of amercement. As there were no judges or juries, cases were judged by the suitors (those required to attend the court), particularly the thegns. In disputes over land, courts could use charters and local knowledge as evidence.

But in other cases, there often were no witnesses or evidence, only neighborhood suspicion. In these instances, the accused swore a holy oath to his innocence and could invite oath-helpers to swear similar oaths if he was considered untrustworthy. In the Christian society of Anglo-Saxon England, a false oath was a grave offense against God and could endanger one's immortal soul. If the accused swore his innocence and gathered the required number of oath-helpers, then he was acquitted. If he was not believed or was unable to gather oath-helpers, then divine judgment was appealed to by means of trial by ordeal (most commonly ordeal by hot water, cold water or hot iron). A trial by ordeal was overseen by the church.

In addition to these local courts, private courts also existed. In the Anglo-Saxon period, the king created private courts in two ways. First, the king could grant the church (either the bishop of a diocese or the abbot of a religious house) the right to administer a hundred. The hundred's reeve would then answer to the bishop or abbot and the hundred court would become an ecclesiastical court. The same cases would be tried as before, but the profits of justice would now go to the church. The second way was to grant by writ or charter special rights to a landowner termed sake and soke. This was the right to hold a court with jurisdiction over his own lands, including infangthief (the power to punish thieves).

Cases involving the king, royal property, or treason were judged by the king. People could also appeal decisions from lower courts to the king. By the 9th century, the idea of the king's peace was taking shape. Under this concept, crimes such as murder, treason, arson, and theft were under the exclusive jurisdiction of the king's courts. Compensation was replaced by more severe penalties, including mutilation ( blinding or castration) and capital punishment.

Feudal monarchy (1066–1216)

Norman government

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, England's old Anglo-Saxon rulers were replaced with an Anglo-Norman aristocracy, and English feudalism, which first appeared in the Anglo-Saxon period, continued to develop under Norman influence. William the Conqueror () claimed ownership of all land in England. As a feudal lord, the king gave fiefs to his most important followers, his tenants-in-chief (the barons), who in return owed the king fealty and military service (or scutage payments). The king was also entitled to be paid feudal reliefs by his barons on certain occasions, such as the knighting of an eldest son, marriage of an eldest daughter, or upon inheriting a fief. Likewise, barons owed feudal aids when the king's eldest son was knighted or eldest daughter married.

Tenants-in-chief would then grant land to their own vassals in return for homage and fealty. At the end of this chain of subinfeudation was the knight's fee, an estate large enough to support one knight. In return, the knight owed forty days of military service per year. Besides knight-service, other forms of feudal land tenure included serjeanty and frankalmoign. If a lord failed to uphold his responsibilities to his vassals (to protect his vassals and exercise his feudal rights fairly and justly), a vassal was entitled to renounce his homage and fealty through the ritual act of defiance known as diffidation (Latin ) followed by rebellion. Rebellion against the king, therefore, was not treason.

The king and his court or was the center of government. It was where he received counsel, heard complaints and petitions, settled important lawsuits, and conducted state trials. The king's closest friends and advisers from among the aristocracy were his familiares. At certain times, the king enlarged the court by summoning large numbers of magnates (earls, barons, bishops and abbots) to attend a (Latin for "great council") to discuss national business and promulgate legislation. Councils were important venues for building consensus for royal policy. As Norman kings spent most of their time in Normandy, it became necessary to appoint agents to govern England in their absence. The chief justiciar functioned as the king's chief minister and viceroy with particular responsibility over financial and legal matters.

According to the , the royal household was divided into five departments, including the chapel, chamber, and outdoors. The chapel—led by the chancellor—served the king's spiritual and secretarial needs. Subordinate to the chancellor was the master of the writing office (or chancery) who supervised the clerks who wrote various government documents: letters, charters, writs, surveys, and rolls. The chamber was the main financial office within the king's government and also saw to the king's personal needs. The chamber was led by the master chamberlain (Latin ), lesser chamberlains, and other officials. Also included in the chamber was a treasurer and two chamberlains based at the treasury in Winchester—the treasury split completely from the chamber by the end of the 12th century.

The constabulary-marshalsea constituted the outdoor staff (including a large number of hunting officials) under the authority of the constables and master-marshal. These officers also supervised the knights of the royal household, who formed the backbone of the king's army. Knights of the military household or were often young men from prominent families for whom receiving military training in the king's household was considered a great honor. Others were younger sons forced to make their own way in the world.

Under Henry I (), the Exchequer developed to bring the various departments under a central auditing and accounting process, as it included officials from the treasury, the chancellor, and other officials of the royal household. As described in the ''Dialogus de Scaccario'', the Exchequer audited the accounts of sheriffs and other royal officials twice a year. Summaries of these audits were recorded in the Pipe Roll. When disputes arose over financial rights and obligations, the Exchequer could also function as a court, the Court of the Exchequer.

Sheriffs remained in charge of royal administration in the counties (formerly shires), presiding over a hierarchy of bailiffs. Early Norman kings chose sheriffs from among the local barons, but Henry I preferred to utilize clerks and knights of the royal household—who owed their success solely to royal patronage. The Normans brought castle building to England, and most shires had a royal castle in the charge of a royally appointed castellan. These were centers of royal administration and the location of royal mints.

Hundred and county courts, presided over by the sheriff or his bailiff, continued to meet as they had before the Conquest. Most disputes in these courts concerned land claims, violence, or theft. Certain cases called pleas of the Crown could only be heard by the king or his representative. So that royal pleas could be heard across the kingdom, the chief justiciar sent itinerant judges out to the counties; however, these royal judges did not decide cases as that was still the responsibility of the suitors to the court, who were overwhelmingly landowners.

The laws concerned with royal forests (i.e. royal hunting preserves) were adjudicated by forest courts, and jurisdiction over cases involving marriage, wills, legitimacy, and crimes committed by clerics were transferred to church courts. The lord of a manor automatically enjoyed the right to hold a manorial court—a departure from Anglo-Saxon tradition, which required royal grant to have sake and soke. Manorial courts had jurisdiction over "debt under forty shillings, contracts and conventions made within the power of the lord, cattle wounding nd other sorts of things damage to crops by animals, assault not leading to bloodshed, trespass or damaging of timber where the king's peace was not involved, and actions about land by writ of right up to the stage of their removal to the king's court for the grand assize."

Angevin government

Henry II (), England's first Angevin king, introduced a new form of legislation, the assize. An assize was an agreement between the king and his feudal tenants to clarify or alter existing custom. Examples of such legislation include the Assize of Arms of 1181 and the Assize of Bread and Ale.

Other assizes introduced legal reforms. The Assize of Clarendon was an important step in the development of trial by jury. When itinerant judges came to a county, juries of presentment were to identify those "accused or notoriously suspect of being a robber, murderer or thief". The jury developed as a body of local men whose job was to investigate, collect evidence, and come to a verdict. Unlike oath-helpers, jurors were summoned by royal officials and, in theory, would have no personal involvement in the case. Innocence or guilt would be proven by ordeal or trial by battle (introduced by the Normans). Itinerant judges traveled from county to county on general eyres (circuits) to hear pleas of the Crown. By 1189, there were around thirty-five itinerant judges, seven to nine judges per circuit. These royal judges did not merely preside over the court, but "From 1176 the royal justices in eyre made judgments themselves in what was a local session of a national royal court."

In civil cases, such as land disputes, the Grand Assize of 1179 gave defendants the option of having the matter settled by a jury of twelve knights instead of trial by battle. Henry also introduced the petty assizes—procedures to allow speedy resolution of land disputes. These include novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment. Henry's reforms mark the origins of the common law and reduced the importance of non-royal courts by making royal justice readily available.

Henry II's expansion of royal justice led to other important changes. Previously, important cases were head (Latin for "in the presence of the king himself"). But the growth of the legal system required specialization, and the judicial functions of the were delegated to two courts sitting at Westminster Hall. The Court of King's Bench was concerned with pleas of the Crown. The Court of Common Pleas had jurisdiction over cases involving private parties (such as debts, property rights and trespass).

The Danegeld or geld levied on land was replaced by (gifts) and (aids) levied on groups outside of the feudal nobility (such as freemen, boroughs, royal demesne, sheriffs, and England's Jewish community). Traditionally, the great council was not involved in levying taxes. Royal finances derived from land revenues, feudal aids and incidents, and the profits of royal justice. But this changed due to the levying of extraordinary taxation to finance the Third Crusade, ransom Richard I, and pay for the series of Anglo-French wars fought between the Plantagenet and Capetian dynasties. In 1188, Henry II set a precedent when he applied to the great council for consent to levy the Saladin tithe on land and movable property.

The burden imposed by extraordinary taxation and the likelihood of resistance made consent politically necessary. It was convenient for kings to present the great council of magnates as a representative body capable of consenting on behalf of all within the kingdom. Increasingly, the kingdom was described as the (Latin for "community of the realm") and the barons as their natural representatives. But this development also created more conflict between kings and the baronage as the latter attempted to defend what they considered the rights belonging to the king's subjects.

Under the Angevins, royal government was capable of functioning even with the king's absence, as demonstrated during the reign of Richard I () who spent most of it in the Holy Land on Crusade or as a hostage of Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI. Before going on Crusade, Richard divided England into two justiciarships. The chancellor William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, was made justiciar south of the River Trent and Hugh de Puiset, Bishop of Durham, justiciar in the north. Longchamp managed to become sole justiciar by June 1190, but his authoritarian rule alienated the baronage.

Longchamp was deposed by a cabal of barons and bishops led by Walter of Coutances, Archbishop of Rouen, who acted under instructions from Richard. Going beyond the king's instructions, the magnates declared that Richard's brother John Lackland would be regent and heir if the king was to die childless and appointed Coutances the new justiciar. This was the first time that the magnates removed a royal minister and replaced him with someone else not personally chosen by the king. It was also the first time an heir was named who had not been chosen by the king; in fact, Richard had declared that his nephew, Arthur of Brittany, was to be his heir.

Magna Carta

King John needed large amounts of money to recover the lost continental possessions of the Angevin Empire, and his extortionate use of scutage, fines and amercements provoked baronial opposition. In 1215, about forty barons rose in revolt. A larger group of barons—around one hundred—worked with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, to mediate a compromise that ultimately became the Magna Carta. This was a charter of liberties that expressed what the barons believed to be their customary feudal rights. Magna Carta was based on three assumptions important to later constitutional development:

# the king was subject to the law
# the king could only make law and raise taxation (except customary feudal dues) with the consent of the community of the realm
# that the obedience owed by subjects to the king was conditional and not absolute

While the clause stipulating no taxation "without the common counsel" was deleted from later reissues, it was nevertheless adhered to by later kings. Magna Carta transformed the magnates' feudal obligation to advise the king into a right to consent. While it was the barons who made the charter, the liberties guaranteed within it were granted to "all the free men of our realm". None of the charter's provisions applied to the unfree serfs that formed a majority of the English population.

Magna Carta was a paradox, as highlighted by constitutional scholar Ann Lyon:Later kings would reconfirm Magna Carta, and later versions were enshrined in law. Overtime, Magna Carta gained the status of "fundamental statute". The first three clauses have never been repealed:

# the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired;
# the city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs … all other cities, boroughs, towns and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs;
# to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.

Parliamentary monarchy (1216–1399)

By 1237, the had formally split into two separate councils; though, they had long been separate in practice. The king's council was "permanent, advisory, and executive". It managed day to day government and included the king's ministers and closest advisers. Parliament was the larger assembly of magnates that evolved out of the or great council. It met occasionally when summoned by the king. Parliament differed from the older magnate council by being "an institution of the community rather than the crown". For the community of the realm, "it acts as representative, approaching the government from without, and ' parleying' with the king and his council".

Before 1258, legislation was not a major part of parliamentary business. The two major forms of legislation were enacted outside of Parliament. The first form, legislative , were administrative orders drafted by the king's council and issued as letters patent or letters close. The second form, writs, were drafted by the chancery and issued in response to particular court cases. Technically, new writs needed consent from Parliament as much as other forms of legislation, but this was not always sought.

Parliament successfully asserted for itself the right to consent to taxation, and a pattern developed in which the king would make concessions (such as reaffirming Magna Carta) in return for grants of taxation. This was its main tool in disputes with the king. Nevertheless, this proved ineffective at restraining the king as he was still able to raise lesser amounts of revenue from sources that did not require parliamentary consent:

* county farms (the fixed sum paid annually by sheriffs for the privilege of administering and profiting from royal lands in their counties)
* profits from the eyre
* tallage on the royal demesne, the towns, foreign merchants, and most importantly English Jews
* scutage
* feudal dues and fines
* profits from wardship, escheat, and vacant episcopal sees

Henry III and his ministers

Henry III was still a child when he became king, so the magnates drew partly on the precedent of Richard I's reign to appoint a regent. William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and hereditary Lord Marshal, was given the title (Latin for "governor of the king and of the kingdom") until his death in 1219. The regency ended in 1223 when the king was declared of age.

After the death of Marshal, the government was led by a succession of chief ministers, first Hubert de Burgh (1219–1232) and then Peter des Rosches (1232–1234). Both of these ministers alienated the baronage by their accumulation of power and wealth for themselves and their families, ultimately leading to their removal from power. Rosches was particularly hated for his revival of many of King John's tyrannical practices.

Appointing ministers was traditionally a royal prerogative, but a precedent had been established by Henry's regency government of seeking the consent of the magnates. With their links to the magnates and established traditions and procedures, the great offices had functioned as a check on royal power. Under Rosches, the Crown adopted a policy of subordinating the great offices (justiciar, chancellor, treasurer) to the offices of the royal household (chamberlain, keeper of the Wardrobe).

The chief justiciarship lost most of its powers and was reduced to supervising the judiciary. The office was left vacant after Stephen de Segrave was dismissed in 1234. In 1238, the Lord Chancellor Ralph Neville was deprived of the great seal, which was entrusted to Wardrobe clerks. After Neville's death, the seal was entrusted to keepers and the chancellorship remained vacant. With the great seal in Henry's custody, "the king was relieved of all constraint save such as the more elastic methods of his domestic clerks might impose".

After 1240, the king's closest counselors were foreigners— Queen Eleonor's Savoyard relatives and Henry's Lusignan half-brothers. Among the barons, an opposition party formed to oppose a royal government controlled by foreigners.

Baronial reform movement

By 1258, the relationship between the king and the baronage had reached a breaking point. At the Oxford Parliament of 1258, reform-minded barons forced a reluctant king to accept a constitutional framework known as the Provisions of Oxford:
* The king was to govern according to the advice of an elected council of fifteen barons.
* The baronial council appointed royal ministers (justiciar, treasurer, chancellor) to serve for one-year terms.
* Parliament met three times a year on the octave of Michaelmas (October 6), Candlemas (February 3), and June 1.
* The barons elected twelve representatives (two bishops, one earl and nine barons) who together with the baronial council could act on legislation and other matters even when Parliament was not in session as "a kind of standing parliamentary committee".

Parliament now met regularly according to a schedule rather than at the pleasure of the king. The reformers hoped that the provisions would ensure parliamentary approval for all major government acts. Under the provisions, Parliament was "established formally (and no longer merely by custom) as the voice of the community".

The king defeated the reform party in the Second Barons' War, and the Provisions of the Oxford were overturned. But the reign of Henry III was "the beginnings of the transition from the king as an absolute and in a sense dictatorial ruler, to the concept of the king ruling through institutions, and of his ruling only while he retained the trust and confidence of his people."

Edwardian government

Edward I () learned from the failures of his father's reign the usefulness of Parliament for building consensus and strengthening royal authority. Parliaments were held regularly throughout his reign, generally twice a year at Easter in the spring and after Michaelmas in the autumn.

Parliaments handled a large amount of petitions and judicial business. The first major statutes amending the common law were passed, beginning with the Statute of Westminster in 1275. These laws, however, "were not by the King in Parliament, but simply announced by the king or his ministers in a parliament." At the same time, the king continued to legislate outside of Parliament through ordinances and writs.

Feudalism had declined as the organising principle of political life. The shires and boroughs were recognised as communes (Latin ) with a unified constituency capable of being represented by knights of the shire and burgesses in Parliament.

Edward's legal reforms established the foundation of English land law, which was not significantly altered until 1925. For example, the Statute of Westminster of 1285 allowed for the creation of entails. Royal control over non-royal courts was also increased; the writ of limited the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts to attacks on clerics and matrimonial, testamentary, and moral concerns.

As part of the 1267 Treaty of Montgomery, Henry III had recognised Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as Prince of Wales in return for Llywelyn's homage and fealty. When the Prince refused to attend Parliament to do homage, Edward invaded Wales in 1276 and by 1283 had completed the conquest of Wales. The Statute of Wales created as system of shires for northern Wales that were overseen by the Justiciar of North Wales. English criminal law was imposed, but Welsh law continued to apply in other areas of life (see Principality of Wales).

The Ordinances of 1311 were a series of regulations imposed on King Edward II by the Lords and higher clergy to restrict the power of the king.

Throughout the middle ages, common land was a source of welfare for common people, peasant labourers bound by a feudal system of control. In 1348, the Black Death struck England, and killed around a third of the population. As peasants lost their lords, and there was a shortage of workers, wages rose. The King and Parliament responded with the Statute of Labourers 1351 to freeze wage rises. This led to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, where leaders demanded an end to feudalism, and for everything to be held in common. Despite the revolt’s violent repression, slavery and serfdom broke down, yet most people remained without any substantial liberty, in political or economic rights.

As sheep farming became more profitable than agricultural work, enclosures of common land dispossessed more people, who turned into paupers and were punished.

Tudor dynasty

Under Henry VIII, to seal a divorce from Catherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn (who he soon beheaded for supposed infidelity), the Church of England was declared separate from Rome in the Act of Supremacy 1534, with the King as the head. The Law in Wales Act 1535 united Wales and England in one administrative system, while the King became ever more despotic, executing the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More in 1535, and dissolving the monasteries and murdering those who resisted. After Henry VIII died, and power struggles following the death of his boy Edward VI at age 15, Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, took the throne in 1558. Half a century of prosperity followed as Elizabeth I largely avoided wars.

A second Act of Supremacy 1559 restored powers over the church to Elizabeth I, reversing Mary I's catholic laws, and required all office-holders including the clergy to take an oath of allegiance acknowledging the Queen as the supreme governor of the Church of England. After the Spanish Armada was defeated in 1588, Its two levels of administration were the House of Lords, composed of influential peers of the realm and Lords Spiritual, and the House of Commons, which consisted of representative members of the aristocracy and the middle-class. Puritans in the House of Commons began demanding more rights, but their demands were ignored. James I would later have problems with them.

Before 1600, the Crown founded corporations including the East India Company to monopolise trade routes. Under her successor, James I, further companies were created to colonise North America, including the London Company and the Virginia Company in 1606, and the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1628. Many religious dissidents left England to settle the new world.

Stuart dynasty

While Elizabeth I maintained a protestant Church, under her successor James, who unified the Scottish and English Crowns, religious and political tensions grew as he asserted a divine right of Kings. In 1605, Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament, but was caught, tortured and executed. A wave of repression against catholics followed. James acceded to Puritan requests by commissioning the " King James Bible" in 1604, an English language translation and interpretation of the Bible completed in 1611. Possibly persuaded by his ( secretly Catholic) wife, James exempted Catholics from paying tithes to the Anglican Church, but this caused a great decrease in Anglican Church revenue, so he quickly took those rights away.

The assertion of divine right prompted a series of cases from Sir Edward Coke, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and then King's Bench courts, which denied that the King could pass judgment in legal proceedings, and held that the royal prerogative was subject to the law and cannot be expanded. Coke CJ went even further in '' Dr Bonham's case'', holding that even that "the common law will control Acts of Parliament". Though supported by some judges, the idea that common law courts could nullify Acts of Parliament was rejected, and the common law was formally placed under the King's control in the ''Earl of Oxford’s case'', establishing that equity (then administered by the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords) was above common law. Coke fell from favour, and was removed from judicial office.

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 (taxes on imported goods like wool and wine) that made up a large portion of a king's annual income. Now Parliament wanted to re-evaluate these taxes annually, which would give it more control over the king. James I resisted this abrogation of his 'Divine Right' and dealt with the situation by dissolving Parliament. Charles I did the same at first and later just ignored its annual evaluations.

When Charles I succeeded to the throne in 1625, and more fervently asserted a divine right, including the ability to levy tax without Parliament, particularly a Ship Money tax that required the counties bordering the sea to fund a navy to protect the English coastline. The coastal counties were unhappy as it was not actually used to fund the navy. Charles then placed the Ship Money tax on the interior counties as well. A London MP named John Hampden refused to pay this "new," interior Ship Money tax, so he was tried for a crime by Charles I and was convicted with a vote of 7 to 5. This meant that 5 of 12 jurors were against their king, which did not look good or bode well for Charles I. Coke and others presented the Petition of Right 1628. This demanded the King to abide by Magna Carta, levy no tax without Parliament, not arbitrarily commit people to prison, not have martial law in times of peace, and not billet soldiers in private homes. As Charles I was at war with France and Spain, he signed the Petition of Right, but then responded by shutting down or proroguing Parliament and taxing trade (or "ship money") without authority.

The country descended into the English Civil War in 1642 culminating in the capture and execution of King Charles I on Whitehall in 1649 by the New Model Army led by Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell, not wishing to become a King, became a ''de facto'' dictator. After his death, the monarchy was restored with Charles II in 1660, but his successor James II again attempted to assert divine right to rule. In 1688, Parliament 'invited' a replacement King and Queen, William and Mary of Orange, and after a brief conflict forced Charles II out.

Known as the Glorious Revolution, Parliament proclaimed a new Bill of Rights 1689, with a Claim of Right Act 1689 in Scotland, that cemented Parliamentary sovereignty. As well as reaffirming Magna Carta, it says the 'pretended power of suspending laws or the execution of laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal’, that 'election of members of Parliament ought to be free’, and that 'Parliament ought to be held frequently'. The justification for government itself, encapsulated by John Locke in his ''Second Treatise on Government'' was the protection of people's rights: "lives, liberties and estates."

Civil War

William Laud and Thomas Wentworth were appointed to fill the void that the Duke of Buckingham left. On top of the wars England had with France and with Spain (both caused by the Duke of Buckingham), Charles I and William Laud (the Archbishop of Canterbury) began a war with Scotland in an attempt to convert Scotland to the Church of England (the Anglican Church). This was called the Bishops' War (1639–1640) and it had two major parts: The first Bishops' War (1639) ended in a truce. The second Bishops' War, the following year, began with the a 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 Ripon (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 (since he was also fighting France and Spain), so he was forced to call a Parliament to make new taxes. He and the Parliament could not agree on anything, so after three weeks, Charles I dissolved the Parliament. Then he desperately needed new taxes, so Charles I called a Parliament again and it would only help him if he agreed 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 until 1660.

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 (for which Charles I never forgave himself since he was close to Thomas Wentworth) and William Laud in 1645.
* Charles I had to agree to the Triennial Act

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