English Constitution

'So that they neither are, nor can be traitors who endeavour to preserve and maintain the constitution; but they are traitors who design and pursue the subversion of it:' This is a longish one but well worth taking the time to digest. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 '¶ 4. As it is by virtue of compacts, stipulations, compromises and agreements, that all legal governments have their original and establishment, that various and indistinct forms obtain in different countries, and that a title and right to exercise authority, and the method of arriving at it, is provided for and procured, so every subject's allegiance is first owing to the constitution, and to the ruler only in the force and virtue of what every member of the political society is bound unto, by the terms of the original pact and settlement. Abstracting from the constitution, and the obligations which it lays us under, no man can challenge a right of commanding us, nor do we owe him any duty of subjection and obedience. Whosoever he be that, under a pretence of being constituted sovereign, does invade and subvert the fundamental laws of the society, he does thereby, ipso facto, annul all the legal right he had to govern, and absolves all, who were before his subjects, from the legal engagements they were under of yielding him obedience; so that the immediate and natural effect of a Prince's claiming what the rules of the constitution are so far from entituling him unto, that they preclude him from it, is the depriving himself of all right to claim any thing, and a restoring of the people to their state and condition of primitive freedom; of which, as they only divested themselves by and upon the terms of the constitution, so they did not depart from it any longer than that should be kept sacred and inviolable, nor any further than was covenanted and stipulated in, and by the terms and agreements therein specified and contained. And seeing it proceeds from the efficacy of the forementioned contracts, that one person becomes advanced from the common level, to the title and authority of a sovereign, and that all others are by their own consent, put into the condition of subjects, there doth arise from thence, not only a mutual relation betwixt him that governs, and them that are governed; but the first and biggest treason is that which is committed against the constitution, and such crimes against the person and dignity of the supreme magistrate, are only made and declared to be so, by reason of the capacity he is put into by the constitution, of preserving and defending the society, and because it is needful, in order to the peace, welfare and safety of the community, that he should be covered from all danger, and rendered sacred in his person, and inviolable in his regal honour, while he answereth the trust: which the people, upon their assembling and uniting into a body politic, committed unto him, and does neither depart from the essential and fundamental terms of the original compact, nor from their necessary provisions afterwards added, and enacted for preserving the government in its primitive state and frame. So that they neither are, nor can be traitors who endeavour to preserve and maintain the constitution; but they are traitors who design and pursue the subversion of it: They are the rebels who go about to overthrow the government of their country, whereas such as seek to support and defend it, are the truly loyal persons, and do act conformable to the ties and obligation of fealty. Nor is it meerly the first and highest treason in itself, that a member of a political society is capable of committing, to go about to subvert the constitution; but it is also the greatest treason he can perpetrate against the person, crown and dignity of the king; for such an endeavour both annuls and vacates all his title to superiority over those above whom he was exalted from the common level, by virtue of the constitution, and deprives him of all rightful and legal claim of rectoral authority over the society, by destroying the alone foundation upon which it was erected, and by which he became vested with it. By cancelling the charter from which he deriveth and holdeth his governing power, he not only makes his title to sovereignty precarious, but renders every claim of that kind, and every challenge of governing the community, to be an invasion and usurpation.' - " Lord Somers [The Judgement of Whole Kingdom's, &c.] This confirms authority for us as English subjects to rise and take back England Written entrenched constitutional law: Charter of Liberties 1100 Magna Carta 1215 Charter of the Forest 1217/1225 Statute of Marlborough (1267) Statute of Westminster (1275) Magna Carta 1297 Quia Emptores (1290) Observants of due process of law 1368 The Petition of Right 1627 Habeas Corpus Act (1679) Declaration of Rights 1688 (contract) Bill of Rights 1688 (Statute) Coronation Oath 1688 Crown & Parliament Recognition Act 1689 Act of Settlement 1700