The existence of an English or British Constitution

The Earl of Chatham (William Pitt) in one of his greatest speeches to the House of Lords in 1766 states – “the settled principles of the English Constitution” and “the English Constitution is the Holy Bible of politics”.

Charles James Fox (1866) refers to 1679 as the period at which our Constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical perfection and then moves on to the great tyrannical oppressions practised by Charles II and his brother James II so soon afterwards. The reign of Charles II was notable as a period of good laws and rotten government.
Fox observes, “Here we are, then, at the best moment of the best Constitution that ever human wisdom framed. What follows? A time of oppression and misery, not arising from external or accidental causes, such as war, pestilence, or famine nor even from any such alteration of the laws as might be supposed to impair this boasted perfection, but from a corrupt and wicked administration, which all the so much admired checks of the Constitution were not able to prevent. How vain, then, how idle, how presumptuous is the opinion that laws can do everything! And how weak and pernicious the maxim founded upon it, that measures, not men are to be attended to.”(History of James II 1866 C J Fox)

It was in 1683 that Oxford University, whose Protestant Chancellors had been replaced with Papists, passed a famous decree condemning as impious and heretical the propositions contained in the English Constitution! The principles were even pronounced contrary to the Holy Scriptures – such is the flexibility and unreason of the human mind when it comes to imposing tyranny and oppression for personal gain. So little does the magistracy, when it is inclined to act tyrannically need tyrannical laws to effect its purpose. The bare silence and acquiescence of the legislature is, in such a case, fully sufficient to annihilate practically speaking, every right and liberty of the subject

In more recent times our great statesman Winston Churchill can be cited “This Parliament (1660-1678) in length of life had surpassed the Long Parliament. In fidelity to the Constitution as against the Crown it had rivalled over a long period the early vigour of its predecessor. It had restored within limits, and under fictions that were henceforward understood, the repute of the Royal Prerogative and the monarchical system. It had also established Parliamentary control of finance and brought nearer the responsibility of Ministers to the Lords and Commons. It was founded upon a rock- the Parliamentary and Protestant character of the English Constitution. It presents us with the massing of those forces themselves so bitterly estranged, which upon the main issue produced the Glorious Revolution of 1688.” ( Sir Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking Peoples 1956 Volume II P287).