CONS 1. Its Origin and Progress. 6 Constitu ONSTITUTIONAL monarchy is the fruit of modern Rise of times but its germ is to be found, as was pointed out tional by Montesquieu, in the forests of ancient Germany.' The Monarchy. first great but immature step towards the creation of that form of state which we now call constitutional, was taken when German princes established themselves upon Roman soil, when Roman political ideas were brought into contact with German rights. Then followed the period of feudal monarchy and of the limitation of the royal power by a strong aristocracy. The unity of the State was lost, the welfare of the people was neglected, and the king had no power proportionate to his dignity. Then the national tendency to unity revived, and the German feudal State was again illuminated and fertilised by the political principles of Rome. The people began to move at the same time, but the princes anticipated them, and seized the iron sceptre of absolute power. Classes began to struggle with each other and with the princes. As the middle ages came to an end the modern constitution of the State was close at hand. It is the end of a history of more than a thousand years, the completion of the Romano-Germanic political life, the true political civilisation of Europe. land. This form of State was first developed in England, where it I. In Enghad long been slowly but surely ripening. In no European country did the monarchy retain so much power in the middle English tions. Characteristics of ages as in England, but nowhere were the rights and liberties of the nobles and the people so courageously defended and so securely founded. But the English were not spared the fevers of political strife. Two great revolutions threatened the whole edifice of the State with ruin. The first, in the middle of the thirteenth century, was the attempt of the barons to take the government from the king into their own hands. This was the object of the Provisions of Oxford in 1258, which were forced upon Henry III by Simon de Montfort'. In the second, which arose in the seventeenth century from Charles I's struggle with the Long Parliament, both monarchy and aristocracy were for a time swept away by the fanatical party of democratic Puritans. But on both occasions the disease did not last long enough to permanently weaken the body politic, and though the external symptoms were bad enough, it had not sufficient internal strength to give an alien direction to the national life. Both times England quickly recovered from the shock, the connexion with the past was never broken, and the national development remained organic and normal. Both revolutions resulted in distinct progress. From the first is to be dated the summoning of town representatives to parliament, the origin of the later House of Commons. The second was completed by the foundation of the new constitutional monarchy in 1689, which is henceforth a national institution 2. Constitutional monarchy is a combination of all other forms Constitu- of State. It preserves the greatest variety without sacrificing the harmony and unity of the whole. While giving free tional Monarchy. 1 Guizot, Essais, p. 388. [The Provisions of Oxford, which established a very temporary system of government and which had nothing directly to do with the origin of town representation, have hardly the importance which Bluntschli attributes to them. A far greater date in the history of constitutional government is the year 1399—when a revolution placed the House of Lancaster upon the throne-to which he makes no allusion.] 2 For a general view of the results of the Revolution of 1688, see Macaulay, History of England (Popular Edition), ii. p. 240; Gneist, Engl. Verf.-Gesch. 628-724. room to the aristocracy to exercise its powers, it imposes no restraint upon the democratic tendencies of the people. In its reverence for the law we can even see an ideocratic element. But all these various tendencies are held together in their due relations by the monarchy, the living head of the State organisation. Constitutional monarchy in England has its stages of Results of development. The following belong to the time of William the Revoof Orange : 1. Absolute monarchy was rejected as an unconstitutional encroachment, to which resistance was justifiable. 2. In opposition to the mystical conceptions of orthodox theologians who revered the royal rights as divine, these rights were declared to be human and limited by the constitution 3, just as much as the rights of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, or the personal liberties of every Englishman. 3. The Declaration of Rights (1689) authoritatively formulated and secured the rights of Parliament and the liberties of the nation. The union of this declaration with the settlement of the succession made it impossible for the monarchy in the future to sever itself from these rights and liberties. 4. The irresponsibility of the king was declared to be a rule of the constitution, but the expulsion of the Stuarts proved clearly that exceptions could be made to the rule, if king and people came into irreconcileable collision. 5. Ministers were made responsible to Parliament, the Commons having the right of accusing, the Lords of trying them. Other rights of Parliament were recognised, viz. : (6) to share in legislation, (7) to grant taxes and to regulate the royal household, (8) to control the executive government. 3 Act of Settlement, 1700, art. iv. Statutes of the Realm, vii. 638 [quoted in Stubbs, Select Charters, 528–31]: 'Whereas the Laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof, and all the Kings and Queens, who shall ascend the Throne of this realm, ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws, and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same,' etc. lution of 1688. II. France. tion of 1791. (9) The judicial administration, based upon the sworn juries selected from the people, was made completely; independent and its powers extended. (10) Freedom of the press and of political meetings was granted, so that public opinion could criticise and control the government. The Hanoverian kings found it difficult to understand these principles and their consequences, but circumstances were too strong for them to refuse their recognition of the free constitution. In our own day the influence of Prince Albert induced the royal family to become unreservedly constitutional, and thus the monarchy has lost neither respect nor power, while it has thrown off the prejudices of dynastic tradition, and has become a truly national monarchy (Volkskönigthum). The English king has realised that he does not represent his own will, but that of the State. Thus the ministers and -since the English ministers are kept in power by the confidence of Parliament, or rather of the House of Commons-the popular representatives have more influence over the government than in continental states. So far the English monarchy may be called parliamentary or republican. But the reverence for the crown is nowhere stronger than in England; and however strong the aristocratic elements and the Parliament may be, the English constitution has remained a monarchy. The second grand effort to introduce a constitutional Constitu- monarchy was made by the French. The constitution of 1791 was intended by its authors to be a masterpiece directly deduced from modern political principles. But the principles of the Constituent Assembly were rather republican and democratic than monarchical. Its members were influenced, not so much by the English constitution, as by Rousseau's theories of the sovereignty of the people and of the two powers, and by the constitutional democracy of America with [Bluntschli here quotes passages from Burke and Sir Robert Peel to prove the importance of the royal power. It is hardly necessary to remind English readers that our constitution is a monarchy only in the popular, and not in a scientific sense. For the real functions of the crown in England, see Bagehot, English Const. pp. 33-88.] its three powers, each independent, but held together by the unity of the sovereign people. The constitution of 1791 was essentially democratic: its monarchy was alien to the system, a survival from the past with which on all other points the Revolution had completely broken. Napoleon revived the monarchical power and raised the The First nation from the mire into which it had sunk. The central Empire. authority was once more concentrated in his strong hand. The Revolution was still recent, and the country required a strong dictatorship to carry it through the European war. But he was too energetic a ruler to give France a new constitutional monarchy, and the times were not suited to such an experiment. Yet he allowed some rude approaches to it. He recognised the people as the source of his power, and he opened to all Frenchmen the way to honour and advancement. He sought to create in the Senate a new aristocracy which, as he said, 'should protect the sovereignty, while the democracy elevates to the sovereignty". If his dynasty had been peaceably prolonged, a national constitutional monarchy might in time have been founded upon these beginnings. But to Napoleon himself the political rights of the other corporations were displeasing as limitations upon his absolute will, and his fall involved all his institutions in the same ruin. Charter of The Charter of Louis XVIII (4 June, 1814) was in its The essence a compromise between the old dynasty which returned 1814. from exile and the French people which had witnessed the Revolution and the rule of Napoleon, a compromise between the claims of the old monarchy and the new principles of government, between legitimacy and the revolution. In form it was a free gift of the king, and emanated from his exclusive authority. It contained other contradictions besides this, but at the same time it was better than the 5 Las Casas, Mém. iii. 32, Compare above, Book ii, ch. 10. The best description of the ideal Napoleonic state, an ideal which was never practically realised, is to be found in the Idées Napoléoniennes, written by Louis Napoleon in 1839. See the preamble: 'Nous avons volontairement et par le libre exercice de notre autorité royale accordé et accordons, fait concession et octroi à nos sujets... de la Charte constitutionnelle qui suit.' |