The Bill of Rights of 1689 is an English law that established the principle of parliamentary supremacy over the crown, limiting royal power and setting out certain rights of Parliament and of individuals. It followed the Glorious Revolution and the accession of William and Mary to the English throne.
Facts
Key ProvisionEnacted by Parliament in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution, it declared illegal the suspension of laws and the raising of a standing army by the crown without parliamentary consent, affirmed the right to free parliamentary elections and free speech in parliamentary debate, prohibited excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment, and settled the royal succession on William and Mary, establishing Parliament's supremacy over the monarch as a matter of law. 1 Classification
Document TypeLegislative Act or Statute 1 Original Language Connections
Associated With
Both are part of the same seventeenth-century sequence of English statutes constraining arbitrary crown power that later shaped Anglo-American constitutionalism.
Source Habeas Corpus Act, England 1679 (Britannica)
Several of its guarantees, against excessive bail and cruel punishment among them, prefigure protections the American Bill of Rights later enumerated.
Source Bill of Rights, British History (Britannica)
Influenced
Source Bill of Rights, British History (Britannica)
The 1689 settlement following the Glorious Revolution fixed the terms of English constitutional monarchy, subordinating the crown to Parliament.
Source Constitutional Monarchy (Britannica)
Influenced By
The new monarchs William and Mary accepted the Bill of Rights as a condition of the 1689 settlement.
Source Glorious Revolution (Britannica)
Shaped
Sources
1. Bill of Rights, British History (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaDocument type, description
The Bill of Rights of 1689 is an English law that established the principle of parliamentary supremacy over the crown, limiting royal power and setting out certain rights of Parliament and of individuals.
- Associated With: United States Bill of Rights
- Influenced: Checks and Balances
View the Source 2. Avalon Project, Yale Law School: English Bill of Rights 1689
Avalon Project, Yale Law SchoolTitle of the ActQuote, Title of the Act
An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown
Habeas Corpus Act, England 1679 (Britannica)
Encyclopaedia BritannicaAssociated With: Habeas Corpus Act 1679View the Source Bill of Rights 1689 (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIn Group: Medieval and Early Modern Charters and Constitutional Statutes, Lead paragraphQuote, In Group: Medieval and Early Modern Charters and Constitutional Statutes, Lead paragraph
The Bill of Rights 1689 (1 Will. & Mar. Sess. 2. c. 2) (sometimes known as the Bill of Rights 1688) is an act of the Parliament of England that set out certain basic civil rights and changed the succession to the English Crown.
Constitutional Monarchy (Britannica)
Glorious Revolution (Britannica)
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