The English Bill of Rights is a statute passed by Parliament in 1689 that stripped the English monarch of key governing powers, guaranteed a set of liberties to Parliament and to individual subjects, and locked in a Protestant line of succession to the throne. It grew out of the Glorious Revolution, remains part of United Kingdom law today, and its language runs straight into the United States Constitution a century later.1Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 – Introduction
Why It Was Written
King James II had governed by pushing against Parliament rather than through it, using royal powers to suspend statutes, exempt favored individuals from the law, and promote Catholic influence in government. In 1688, Protestant nobles invited William of Orange and his wife Mary, James’s own daughter, to take the throne. James left the country and Parliament declared the throne vacant.
On February 13, 1689, the Lords and Commons presented William and Mary with a written Declaration of Rights, listing James’s abuses and the liberties Parliament considered fundamental. William and Mary accepted it as a condition of taking power. Later that year, Parliament enacted the Declaration’s substance as a formal statute, giving it the force of law “for ever.”1Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 – Introduction That statute is the Bill of Rights 1689.
What It Did to the Crown
The Bill took direct aim at the tools James had used to govern unilaterally. Two prerogatives were named and outlawed: the suspending power, by which a monarch could freeze a statute entirely, and the dispensing power, by which a monarch could exempt favored individuals from a legal requirement. Both were declared illegal without parliamentary consent.2Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 After 1689, a statute passed by Parliament could no longer be overridden or selectively ignored by the Crown.
Money was the next lever. Raising taxes or collecting money for royal use without a parliamentary grant was declared illegal.3University of Chicago Press. Bill of Rights 1 W. and M., 2d sess., c. 2 So was keeping a standing army inside the kingdom during peacetime without Parliament’s consent.2Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 The logic was structural. A king who cannot raise revenue on his own cannot fund soldiers on his own, and a king who needs Parliament for money and troops has to cooperate with Parliament to govern.
What It Guaranteed to Parliament
The Bill also fortified Parliament as an institution so it could function as a genuine check on the executive rather than a body summoned at royal convenience.
Parliaments, the Bill declared, “ought to be held frequently” to address grievances and to amend and preserve the laws.3University of Chicago Press. Bill of Rights 1 W. and M., 2d sess., c. 2 Elections to Parliament were required to be free from royal interference, so the Crown could not use its influence to install preferred members of the Commons.2Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688
The most enduring parliamentary protection was freedom of speech within the chamber. Debates and proceedings in Parliament, the Bill said, could not be questioned or penalized in any court or any place outside Parliament.3University of Chicago Press. Bill of Rights 1 W. and M., 2d sess., c. 2 A member could speak candidly on any matter of national importance without risk of imprisonment or a defamation suit. This principle, known as parliamentary privilege, remains a cornerstone of British constitutional law and has been adopted by legislatures around the world.
What It Guaranteed to Individuals
The Bill created rights for ordinary subjects that constrained both the Crown and the courts.
The Right to Petition
Subjects were guaranteed the right to petition the King, and prosecuting or imprisoning anyone for doing so was declared illegal.2Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 Under James II, petitioners had been arrested, so this provision addressed a specific and recent abuse.
Bail, Fines, and Punishment
Three linked protections governed treatment inside the justice system. Excessive bail could not be demanded, excessive fines could not be imposed, and cruel and unusual punishments could not be inflicted.3University of Chicago Press. Bill of Rights 1 W. and M., 2d sess., c. 2 The exact phrase “cruel and unusual punishments” would later cross the Atlantic and appear almost word-for-word in the Eighth Amendment.
Property Before Conviction
Earlier monarchs had promised away the fines and property forfeitures of individuals who had not yet been tried, let alone convicted. The Bill declared all such grants and promises made before conviction illegal and void.4The Avalon Project. English Bill of Rights A person’s property could no longer be carved up and distributed in advance of a verdict.
Jury Standards
The Bill required that jurors be properly selected and empaneled. For trials involving high treason, jurors had to be freeholders, meaning landowners with a genuine stake in their community.2Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 This responded directly to the Crown’s practice of packing juries with people who could be pressured. The freeholder requirement for treason jurors was later repealed by the Juries Act 1825, but the broader principle of impartial jury selection endured.1Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 – Introduction
Arms for Defence
The Bill declared that Protestant subjects could have arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and as allowed by law.1Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 – Introduction Two features of that clause are easy to miss. It was limited to Protestants, reflecting the anti-Catholic politics of the era. And the phrase “as allowed by law” left Parliament with ongoing authority to regulate firearms, so the right was always understood as subject to legislative restriction rather than as an absolute individual entitlement.
Who Could Wear the Crown
The Bill did more than limit how the monarch governed. It dictated who could govern at all. It formally recognized William III and Mary II as joint sovereigns and set out the order in which the Crown would pass: first to their heirs, then, if they had no children, to Princess Anne of Denmark and her heirs.3University of Chicago Press. Bill of Rights 1 W. and M., 2d sess., c. 2
Religion was the central qualification. Any person who was Roman Catholic, or who professed the Catholic faith, was barred from inheriting or possessing the Crown. The original text went further: anyone who married a Roman Catholic was also disqualified, and such a person was treated as “naturally dead” for succession purposes, with the inheritance skipping to the next Protestant heir.2Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688
When it became clear Anne’s line would produce no surviving heirs, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701 to extend the succession further. That act designated Sophia, Electress of Hanover, a granddaughter of James I, as the next heir after Anne, and required all future monarchs to join in communion with the Church of England.5Legislation.gov.uk. Act of Settlement 1700 The Hanoverian line eventually produced George I, and the current Royal Family descends from that branch.
The bar on marrying Catholics remained law for more than three centuries. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013 finally removed it, so a member of the Royal Family who marries a Roman Catholic is no longer automatically disqualified from the line.6The Royal Family. Succession The prohibition on the monarch personally being Catholic was not lifted; a reigning king or queen must still be a Protestant in communion with the Church of England. The 2013 Act also ended male-preference primogeniture, so a firstborn daughter no longer loses her place to a younger brother.
Its Mark on the U.S. Constitution
American colonists grew up as British subjects under the 1689 Bill of Rights, and when they wrote their own constitutional protections a century later, they borrowed heavily from it. The First Amendment’s right to petition the government mirrors the 1689 right to petition the King. The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment uses language almost identical to the English original. The Third Amendment’s restriction on quartering soldiers responded to the same category of military abuse the 1689 Bill addressed when it outlawed standing armies without parliamentary consent.
The Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms has its roots in the 1689 provision allowing Protestant subjects to possess weapons for their defence. The American version broadened the right beyond Protestants and dropped the phrase “as allowed by law,” though the U.S. Supreme Court has still recognized limits on the right.
Is It Still in Force?
Yes. Unlike many historical documents, the Bill of Rights 1689 is not a museum piece. It remains part of the law of the United Kingdom, carried on the official legislation.gov.uk database with amendments noted but most provisions still active.1Legislation.gov.uk. Bill of Rights 1688 – Introduction Parliamentary privilege under the free speech clause is still invoked regularly. The prohibition on suspending laws without parliamentary consent remains a bedrock constitutional principle. The succession provisions, as amended in 2013, continue to govern who sits on the throne.
Some provisions have been repealed or overtaken. The freeholder requirement for treason jurors was removed in 1825. The bar on marrying Catholics fell when the Succession to the Crown Act 2013 came into force. The arms provision, while technically still on the books, has been effectively superseded by modern firearms legislation. The core achievement endures: England moved from a state where the monarch could claim to rule by divine right into a constitutional monarchy where power flows through Parliament and the law applies to everyone, including the Crown.