William came; James fled to France. A Convention Parliament[4] drew
up a Declaration of Right which declared that the King had vacated the
throne, and the crown was therefore offered to William and Mary
(S494). They accepted. Thus by the bloodless Revolution of 1688 the
English nation transferred the sovereignty to those who had no direct
legal claim to it so long as James and his son were living (S490).
Hence by this act the people deliberately set aside hereditary
succession, as a binding rule, and revived the primitive English
custom of choosing a sovereign as they deemed best. In this sense the
uprising of 1688 was most emphatically a revolution (S491, 492). It
made, as Green has said, an English monarch as much the creature of an
act of Parliament as the pettiest taxgatherer in his realm (S497).
But it was a still greater revolution in another way, since it gave a
deathblow to the direct "personal monarchy," which began with the
Tudors two hundred years before. It is true that in George III's
reign we shall see that power temporarily revived, but we shall never
hear anything more of that Divine Right of Kings, for which one Stuary
"lost his head, and another his crown." Henceforth the House of
Commons will govern England, although, as we shall see, it will be
nearly a hundred and fifty years before that House will be able to
free itself entirely from the control of either a few powerful
families on the one hand, or that of the Crown on the other.
[4] Convention Parliament: it was so called because it was not
regularly summoned by the King,--he having fled the country.
25. Bill of Rights; the Commons by the Revenue and the Mutiny Act
obtain Complete Control over the Purse and the Sword.
In order to make the constitutional rights of the people unmistakably
clear, the Bill of Rights, 1689,--an expansion of the Declaration of
Right--was drawn up (S497). The Bill of Rights[1] declare: (1) That
there should be no suspension or change in the laws, and no taxation
except by act of Parliament. (2) That there should be freedom of
election to Parliament and freedom of speech in Parliament (both
rights that the Stuarts had attempted to contrl). (3) That the
sovereign should not keep a standing army, in time of peace, except by
consent of Parliament. (4) That in future no Roman Catholic should sit
on the English throne. This last clause was reaffirmed by the Act of
Settlement, 1701 (S497).[2]
[1] Bill of Rights: see Constitutional Documents, p. xxxi.
[2] See, too, Constitutional Documents, p. xxxii.
This most important bill, having received the signature of William and
Mary, became law. It constitutes the third great written charter or
safeguard of English liberty. Taken in connection with Magna Carta
and the Petition of Right, it forms, according to Lord Chatham, *the
Bible of English liberty* (S497).
But Parliament had not yet finished the work of reform it had taken in
hand. The executive strength of every government depends on its
control of two powers,--the purse and the sword. Parliament had, as
we have seen, got a tight grasp on the first, for the Commons, and the
Commons alone, could levy taxes; but within certain very wide limits
the personal expenditure of the sovereign still practically remained
unchecked. Parliament now, 1689, took the decisive step of voting by
the Revenue Act (1) a specific sum for the maintenance of the Crown;
and (2) of voting this supply, not for the life of the sovereign, as
had been the custom, but for four years (S498). A little later this
supply was fixed for a signle year only. This action gave to the
Commons final and complete control of the purse (SS498, 588).
Next, Parliament passed the Mutiny Act (1689) (S496), which granted
the King power to enforce martial law--in other words, to maintain a
standing army--for one year at a time, and no longer, save by renewal
of the law. This act gave Parliament complete control of the sword,
and thus finished the great work; for without the annual meeting and
the annual vote of that body, an English sovereign would at the end of
a twelvemonth stand penniless and helpless.