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• Introduction
• De Lolme’s Life and Early Writings
• The Constitution of England
• Later Writings
• Editions of the Constitution of England
• A Note On the Text
• Acknowledgments
• The Constitution of England
• To the King.
• Book I
• Chapter I: Causes of the Liberty of the English Nation.—reasons of the Difference Between the Government of England, and That of France.—in England, the Great Power of the Crown, Under the Norman Kings, Created an Union Between the Nobility and the People
• Chapter II: A Second Advantage England Had Over France:—it Formed One Undivided State.
• Chapter III: The Subject Continued.
• Chapter IV: Of the Legislative Power.
• Chapter V: Of the Executive Power.
• Chapter VI: The Boundaries Which the Constitution Has Set to the Royal Prerogative.
• Chapter VII: The Same Subject Continued.
• Chapter VIII: New Restrictions.
• Chapter IX: Of Private Liberty, Or the Liberty of Individuals.
• Chapter X 1: On the Law In Regard to Civil Matters, That Is Observed In England.
• Chapter Xi 1: The Subject Continued. the Courts of Equity.
• Chapter XII: Of Criminal Justice.
• Chapter XIII: The Subject Continued.
• Chapter XIV: The Subject Concluded.—laws Relative to Imprisonment.
• Book Ii
• Chapter I: Some Advantages Peculiar to the English Constitution. 1. The Unity of the Executive Power.
• Chapter II: The Subject Concluded.—the Executive Power Is More Easily Confined When It Is One.
• Chapter III: A Second Peculiarity.—the Division of the Legislative Power.
• Chapter IV: A Third Advantage Peculiar to the English Government. the Business of Proposing Laws, Lodged In the Hands of the People.
• Chapter V: In Which an Inquiry Is Made, Whether It Would Be an Advantage to Public Liberty, That the Laws Should Be Enacted By the Votes of the People At Large.
• Chapter VI: Advantages That Accrue to the People From Appointing Representatives.
• Chapter VII: The Subject Continued—the Advantages That Accrue to the People From Their Appointing Representatives, Are Very Inconsiderable, Unless They Also Entirely Trust Their Legislative Authority to Them.
• Chapter VIII: The Subject Concluded.—effects That Have Resulted, In the English Government, From the People’s Power Being Completely Delegated to Their Representatives.
• Chapter IX: A Farther Disadvantage of Republican Governments.—the People Are Necessarily Betrayed By Those In Whom They Trust.
• Chapter X: Fundamental Difference Between the English Government, and the Governments Just Described.—in England All Executive Authority Is Placed Out of the Hands of Those In Whom the People Trust. Usefulness of the Power of the Crown.
• Chapter XI: The Powers Which the People Themselves Exercise.—the Election of Members of Parliament.
• Chapter XII: The Subject Continued.—liberty of the Press.
• Chapter XIII: The Subject Continued.
• Chapter XIV: Right of Resistance.
• Chapter Xv 1: Proofs Drawn From Facts, of the Truth of the Principles Laid Down In the Present Work.—1. the Peculiar Manner In Which Revolutions Have Always Been Concluded In England.
• Chapter Xvi 1: Second Difference—the Manner After Which the Laws For the Liberty of the Subject Are Executed In England.
• Chapter Xvii 1: A More Inward View of the English Government Than Has Hitherto Been Offered to the Reader In the Course of This Work.—very Essential Differences Between the English Monarchy, As a Monarchy, and All Those With Which We Are Acquainted.
• Chapter XVIII: How Far the Examples of Nations Who Have Lost Their Liberty, Are Applicable to England.
• Chapter Xix 1: A Few Additional Thoughts On the Attempts That At Particular Times May Be Made to Abridge the Power of the Crown, and On Some of the Dangers By Which Such Attempts May Be Attended.
• Chapter Xx 1: A Few Additional Observations On the Right of Taxation Which Is Lodged In the Hands of the Representatives of the People. What Kind of Danger This Right May Be Exposed To.
• Chapter XXI: Conclusion.—a Few Words On the Nature of the Divisions That Take Place In England.
• Guide to Further Reading
• Bibliography
• De Lolme’s Principal Publications
• Works Cited By De Lolme
• Classical Sources
• Modern Sources

CHAPTER VI

The Boundaries which the Constitution has set to the Royal Prerogative.

In reading the foregoing enumeration of the powers with which the laws of England have intrusted the King, we are at a loss to reconcile them with the idea of a Monarchy, which, we are told, is limited. The King not only unites in himself all the branches of the Executive power,—he not only disposes, without controul, of the whole military power in the State,—but he is moreover, it seems, Master of the Law itself, since he calls up, and dismisses, at his will, the Legislative Bodies. We find him therefore, at first sight, invested with all the prerogatives that ever were claimed by the most absolute Monarchs; and we are at a loss to find that liberty which the English seem so confident they possess.

But the Representatives of the people still have, and that is saying enough, they still have in their hands, now that the Constitution is fully established, the same powerful weapon which has enabled their ancestors to establish it. It is still from their liberality alone that the King can obtain subsidies; and in these days, when every thing is rated by pecuniary estimation, when gold is become the great moving spring of affairs, it may be safely affirmed, that he who depends on the will of other men, with regard to so important an article, is, whatever his power may be in other respects, in a state of real dependence.

This is the case of the King of England. He has, in that capacity, and without the grant of his people, scarcely any revenue. A few hereditary duties on the exportation of wool, which (since the establishment of manufactures) are become tacitly extinguished; a branch of the excise, which, under Charles the Second, was annexed to the Crown as an indemnification for the military services it gave up, and which, under George the First, has been fixed to seven thousand pounds; a duty of two shillings on every ton of wine imported; the wrecks of ships of which the owners remain unknown; whales and sturgeons thrown on the coast; swans swimming on public rivers; and a few other feudal relics, now compose the whole appropriated revenue of the King, and are all that remains of the ancient inheritance of the Crown.

The King of England, therefore, has the prerogative of commanding armies, and equipping fleets—but without the concurrence of his Parliament he cannot maintain them. He can bestow places and employments—but without his Parliament he cannot pay the salaries attending on them. He can declare war,—but without his Parliament it is impossible for him to carry it on. In a word, the Royal Prerogative, destitute as it is of the power of imposing taxes, is like a vast body, which cannot of itself accomplish its motions; or, if you please, it is like a ship completely equipped, but from which the Parliament can at pleasure draw off the water, and leave it aground,—and also set it afloat again, by granting subsides.

And indeed we see, that, since the establishment of this right of the Representatives of the People, to grant, or refuse, subsidies to the Crown, their other privileges have been continually increasing. Though these Representatives were not, in the beginning, admitted into Parliament but upon the most disadvantageous terms, yet they soon found means, by joining petitions to their money-bills, to have a share in framing those laws by which they were in future to be governed; and this method of proceeding, which at first was only tolerated by the King, they afterwards converted into an express right, by declaring, under Henry the Fourth, that they would not, thenceforward, come to any resolutions with regard to subsidies, before the King had given a precise answer to their petitions.1

In subsequent times we see the Commons constantly successful, by their exertions of the same privilege, in their endeavours to lop off the despotic powers which still made a part of the regal prerogative. Whenever abuses of power had taken place, which they were seriously determined to correct, they made grievances and supplies, to use the expression of Sir Thomas Wentworth, go hand in hand together, which always produced the redress of them. And in general, when a bill, in consequence of its being judged by the Commons essential to the public welfare, has been joined by them to a money bill, it has seldom failed to pass in that agreeable company(a) .2

[1. ]De Lolme refers to an incident in 1400, when the House of Commons took advantage of Henry IV’s political weakness to insist that the king respond to their petitions before enacting any of the fiscal legislation sought by the crown.

[(a) ]In mentioning the forcible use which the Commons have at times made of their power of granting subsidies, by joining provisions of a different nature to bills that had grants for their object, I only mean to shew the great efficiency of that power, which was the subject of this Chapter, without pretending to say any thing as to the propriety of the measure. The House of Lords have even found it necessary (which confirms what is said here) to form, as it were, a confederacy among themselves, for the security of their Legislative authority, against the unbounded use which the Commons might make of their power of taxation; and it has been made a standing order of their House, to reject any bill whatsoever to which a money-bill has been tacked. [[The Lords resisted the House of Commons’ efforts to extend its control over fiscal legislation at several points during the reign of Charles II (1660–85). The main dispute over “tacking” bills occurred in 1678.

[2. ]De Lolme likely refers to comments made by Wentworth soon after his 1632 appointment as lord deputy of Ireland, when he linked “grievances and supplies” in his response to a petition of grievances received from leading Catholic peers and gentry in Ireland.