in order to remove them, new cessive bail; by the imposition of excessive fines and the infliction of cruel and illegal punishments; and finally by promising away estates as forfeited prior to the conviction of the persons to whom they belonged. In order to put an end to these mighty evils, the prince of Orange had come as "the glorious instrument of delivering this kingdom from popery and arbitrary power." Therefore in order to make that dedeclaring liverance perpetual, the new sovereigns were called upon to illegal join the estates in declaring: sovereigns called upon to join estates in the "1. That the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the suspending, execution of laws, by regall authoritie, without consent of Parlyament, . . is illegall. and dispensing powers; the for ecclesi causes; "2. That the pretended power of dispensing with laws, or the execution of laws, by regall authoritie, as it hath beene assumed and exercised of late, is illegall. "3. That the commission for erecting the late Court of Comcommission missioners for Ecclesiasticall causes, and all other Commisastical sions and courts of like nature, are illegall and pernicious. 4. That levying money for or to the use of the Crowne by of conciliar pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parlyament, for longer time or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegall. all forms taxation; all attempts to deny the right of petition; a standing army in time of peace; denial of "5. That it is the right of the subject to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petition are illegall. "6. That the raising or keeping a standing army within the Kingdome in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parlyament, is against law. "7. That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms the right to for their defence suitable to their conditions, and as allowed bear arms; denial of free elec-. tions; denial of by law. "8. That elections of members of Parlyament ought to be free. "9. That the freedome of speech, and debates or proceedfreedom of ings in Parlyament, ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parlyament. speech; excessive bail and cruel pun "10. That excessive baile ought not to be required nor exishments; cessive fines imposed; nor cruell and unusual punishment juries improperly inflicted. chosen ; "II. That jurors ought to be duely impannelled and re turned, and jurors which passe upon men in trialls for high treason ought to be freeholders. forfeitures "12. That all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures promises of of particular persons before conviction, are illegall and void. before "13. And that for the redresse of all grievances, and for the conviction; amending, strengthening, and preserveing of the lawes, Parlya- frequent ment ought to be held frequently. denial of parlia ments: upon as declared to James' William and Mary; "And they doe claime, demand, and insist upon all and all insisted singular the premisses, as their undoubted rights and liberties; "undoubt ed rights and that noe declarations, judgments, doeings or proceedings, and to the prejudice of the people in any of the said premisses, liberties;" ought in anywise to be drawn hereafter into consequence or example." Then, after declaring that "the said late King throne James the Second haveing abdicated the government, and the be vacant throne being thereby vacant;" and further that the Prince of through Orange will "preserve them from the violation of their rights, abdication; which they have here asserted, and from all other attempts upon their religion, rights and liberties," - the declaration proceeds upon that basis to "resolve, that William and Mary, election of Prince and Princesse of Orange, be, and be declared, King and Quenne of England, France and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, to hold the Crowne and royall dignity of the said kingdomes and dominions to them the said Prince and Princesse dureing their lives and the life of the survivour of them; and that the sole and full exercise of the regall power be onely in, and executed by the said Prince of Orange, in the names of the said Prince and Princesse, during their joynt lives; and after their deceases, the said Crowne and royall limited dignitie of the said kingdomes and dominions, to be to the settlement heires of the body of the said Princesse; and for default of succession; such issue to the Princesse Anne of Denmarke; and the heirs Princess of her body; and for default of such issue to the heires of the Anne; body of the said Prince of Orange." Through this parliamentary deposition of one sovereign and election of another the preposterous doctrine of a divine and indefeasable heredi- destruction tary right independent of law, which claimed that the throne indefeasible could not be for one moment vacant, was destroyed, first by hereditary theory. the assumption that there was no legal sovereign from the abdication of James on the 23d of December to the election of 1 See Lords' Journals, vol. v. p. 125. of the of the Conven tion, after declaring itself a parliament, took a recess until October 19. turned into a Bill of Rights; new barriers against a possible catholic William and Mary on the 13th of February; second by the settlement of the principle that "an English monarch is now as much the creature of an act of parliament as the pettiest tax-gatherer in his realm." 1 3 Ten days after the accession of William and Mary, the royal assent was given to a bill which declared the convention a parliament, "notwithstanding any fault of writ or writs of summons; "2 and on the 20th of August, after seven months of active work, it took a recess until the 19th of October. Then Declaration it was that the act was passed which turned the Declaration of Right into a formal Bill of Rights, whereby two somewhat important additions were made to the original instrument. In order to make more effectual the barriers against a possible catholic sovereign, it was now enacted that every king or queen hereafter succeeding to the crown should repeat and subscribe sovereign, in full parliament the Declaration against Transubstantiation; that no person who should marry a papist should be capable of reigning in England; and that if an actual sovereign should contract such a marriage, the subject should be thereby absolved from allegiance. And in order to remove all doubts upon the subject of the dispensing power, which the declaration had simply declared illegal "as it hath beene assumed and exercised of late," the dreaded and anomalous prerogative was at last entirely taken away. But while deficiencies in the no attempt declaration were thus being supplied, no attempt was made to freedom of secure freedom of speech and of the press to the nation as a discussion; whole. The original instrument, which entirely ignored the and against the dis pensing power; to secure of commerce. right last named, only guaranteed the former so far as proregulation ceedings in parliament were concerned. In like manner the right of regulating English commerce, which the houses shortly afterwards silently claimed and obtained, in the discussions on the charter granted to the East India Company, was left as of old to the control of the crown.6 2. In order to give the highest possible security to the sovereignty with which the Revolution had crowned them, the 1 Green, Hist. of the Eng. People, bill or bills to be passed dureing this vol. iv. p. 44. 2 I Will. and Mar. sess. I, C. I. 8 I Will. and Mar. sess. 2, C. 2. 4 Except in such cases as shall be specially provided for by one or more present session of Parlyament." No such bill or bills were passed. 5 $9. 6 Cf. Green, Hist. of the Eng. People, vol. iv. p. 46. supple Rights: withhold derived houses resolved to assume more perfectly than ever before the Legislation control of both the purse and the sword. When the time came mentary to for the parliament of 16901 to make a permanent settlement of of the revenue, it kept steadily in view the all-important fact that the life-grants made to the last two kings had rendered both largely independent of the coercion incident to the power of withholding supplies. Thus warned, the lower house began power to by agreeing that £1,200,000 2 should be the ordinary annual supplies; revenue of the crown in time of peace, to be provided from two distinct sources, the first consisting of hereditary dues de- revenue rived from fees and fines, from the royal domain, from wine from heredilicenses, from firstfruits and tenths, from the receipts of the tary dues post-office, and from that part of the excise which had been granted forever to Charles II. and his successors, in lieu of the fruits of feudal tenures surrendered upon those terms.3 To all these sources, which produced an annual income estimated at between four and five hundred thousand pounds, parliament added a grant of the excise, in addition to that which was and the hereditary, for the lives of William and Mary and that of the excise; survivor. Still there was a great deficit. The mainspring of mainspring of governgovernment, the second great source of revenue, was the customs, the port duties, settled for life upon Charles and James customs; successively, without which the state machinery could not be kept in motion, and with which a despotic king could rule without parliaments. Upon that vital resource therefore the house, when in grand committee on the supply, resolved to seize, and after several members had pressed for a life-grant to William of the customs or port duties, it was resolved to grant them granted only for a limited term of four years, it being "taken for a short term general maxim, that the revenue for a certain and short term to secure frequent was the best security that the nation could have for frequent parliaparliaments, and the question was settled on that ground." 1 It met March 20, under writs issued upon the dissolution of its predecessors in the month before. 2 Parl. Hist., vol. v. p. 193. It had been fixed at that sum at Restoration. See above, p. 361. Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 155; Dowell, Hist. of Taxation, pp. 41, 42. * Commons' Journals, March 28, 1690, and March 1 and 20, 1688-89. 2 Will. and Mar. c. 3. Contin ued by 1 Anne, st. 1, c. 7, and I Geo. I. 6 Parl. Hist., vol. v. p. 561; 2 Will. ment the only for a ments; tion of supplies; origin of the "Civil List;" The important principle thus settled as to the raising of the revenue was at the same time coupled with an equally important legal rule as to the manner of its expenditure. The principle imperfectly recognized in the reign of Charles II., that appropria- money voted by parliament could be appropriated only by its direction to certain specific heads of expenditure, has since the Revolution become the settled usage. Thus came into being at that time what is known as the "Civil List," a term originally used to designate the sources of revenue appropriated to produce a fund out of which was to be defrayed the expenses of the royal household and of certain civil officers, such as judges, ambassadors, and the like, of which a list had been laid before the house.1 The necessary result of this arrangement was annual appropriation bills, into which were introduced clauses forbidding the lords of the treasury under heavy penaltion bills; ties to order by their warrants the payment of any moneys in the exchequer except such as were specially appropriated. In that way the old idea that taxes once raised were in fact a gift from the houses to the crown was forced to give way to the rigid legal rule of the modern constitution, which provides that not a penny not a penny of the national revenue can be expended without the spent the authority of some act of parliament.2 The grant of the port duties to William for four years was soon followed by the resolve to make the vote of supplies an annual one, and so it supplies an came to pass that parliament must meet at least once a year annual one; in order to keep the machinery of the state in motion. As an necessity for annual appropria without parliamentary authority; vote of addition to the perfect control over the executive power thus practically vested in the house of commons, those who were mindful of the fact that Charles II. had continued his second 1 Dowell, Hist. of Taxation, vol. ii. pp. 43, 44. The amount of the civil list was fixed in 1689 at £600,000, and to that purpose was applied the hereditary excise, the other hereditary revenues, and the ordinary excise, what remained being set apart for other public expense and contingent expenditure. Parl. Hist., p. 193. "The expenses of the royal household are now entirely separated from the expenses of civil government; but, by a whimsical perversion, the name of Civil List has remained attached to that portion of the revenue which is appropriated to the expenses of the royal household."-Macaulay, vol. ii. p. 155. 2 "This authority may be given by a permanent Act, as for example by the Civil List Act, 1 & 2 Vict. c. 2, or by the National Debt and Local Loans Act, 1887; or it may be given by the Appropriation Act, that is, the annual Act by which Parliament' appropriates' or fixes the sums payable to objects (the chief of which is the support of the army and navy) which are not provided for, as is the payment of the National Debt, by permanent Acts of Parliament."— Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, p. 295. |