History of the constitution of the United Kingdom


The constitution of the United Kingdom is an uncodified constitution made up of various statutes, judicial precedents, convention, treaties and other sources. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the constitution developed gradually in response to various crises. By the 20th century, the British monarchy had become a constitutional and ceremonial monarchy, and Parliament developed into a representative body exercising parliamentary sovereignty.
Initially, the constitutional systems of the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom developed separately under English domination. The Kingdom of England conquered Wales in 1283, but it was only later through the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542 that the country was brought completely under English law. While technically a separate state, the Kingdom of Ireland was ruled by the English monarchy.
From 1603 to 1707, England and the Kingdom of Scotland shared the same monarch as part of the Union of the Crowns; however, each nation maintained separate governments. In 1707, England and Scotland were joined in the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain and Ireland were joined in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland seceded in 1922 creating the present-day United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. While the United Kingdom remains a unitary state in which Parliament is sovereign, a process of devolution began in the 20th and 21st centuries that saw Parliament restore self-government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
One of the oldest constitutional systems in the world, dating back over one thousand years, it is characterised by the stability of its governing institutions, its capacity to absorb change, a bicameral legislature and the concept of responsible government. Aspects of the British constitution were adopted in the constitutions and legal systems of other countries around the world, particularly those that were part of, or formerly part of, the British Empire including the United States and the many countries that adopted the Westminster parliamentary system. The British constitution is the source of the modern concepts of the rule of law, parliamentary sovereignty and judicial independence and adoption of British constitutional principles propagated their spread around the world.

Kingdom of England

Anglo-Saxon government (800-1066)

In the 9th and 10th centuries, the various Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were consolidated under the rule of the House of Wessex into a single Kingdom of England. Kings had extensive powers to make laws, mint coins, levy taxes, raise armies, regulate trade, and determine foreign policy. The current British coronation service largely dates back to 973. Edgar the Peaceful and subsequent monarchs swore a coronation oath to protect the English church, defend their people against enemies, and to administer justice.
The king was advised by a group of councilors or "wise men" called a witan, composed of lords and church leaders. The witan was consulted when creating law and was the highest court in the land where the king gave final judgment in person. In times of crisis or when a king was too young to rule, the witan may have assumed greater role over government.
While a capital existed at Winchester, the king and his itinerant court moved constantly throughout the kingdom. Priests attached to the king's chapel acted as royal secretaries—writing letters, charters, and other official documents. Under Edward the Confessor, the office of chancellor appears for the first time. Regenbald, the first chancellor, kept the king's seal and oversaw the writing of charters and writs. The treasury had probably developed into a permanent institution by the time of King Cnut. During the Confessor's reign, supervision of the treasury was one of the responsibilities of the king's burthegns or chamberlains.
By the tenth century, England was divided into shires and subdivided into hundreds. The hundred was the basic unit of government and overseen by a reeve. The shire was presided over by the "shire reeve" or sheriff. Sheriffs enforced royal justice, maintained the king's peace, collected royal revenue, and commanded the shire's military forces.
Besides shire courts and hundred courts, private courts also existed. In the Anglo-Saxon period, the king created private courts in two ways. First, the king could grant the church the right to administer a hundred. The hundred's reeve would then answer to the bishop or abbot. The same cases would be tried as before, but the profits of justice would now go to the church. The second way was to grant by writ or charter special rights to a landowner termed sake and soke. This was the right to hold a court with jurisdiction over his own lands, including infangthief.

Norman government (1066–1154)

After the Norman Conquest of 1066, the king and his court or curia regis was the center of government. It was where he received counsel, heard complaints and petitions, settled important lawsuits, and conducted state trials. At certain times, the king enlarged the court by summoning large numbers of magnates to attend a magnum concilium to discuss national business and promulgate legislation. Councils were important venues for building consensus for royal policy.
As Norman kings spent most of their time in Normandy, it became necessary to appoint agents to govern England in their absence. The chief justiciar functioned as the king's chief minister and viceroy with particular responsibility over financial and legal matters. The chancellor oversaw the chancery, which was responsible for writing royal documents.
During the reign of Henry I, the exchequer became the government's primary financial department. The treasury at London became the lower exchequer or "exchequer of receipt". It was staffed by the treasurer, two chamberlains, and other minor officials. Sheriffs paid county revenues to the lower exchequer. The upper exchequer consisted of the barons of the exchequer, who were selected from among court and household officials. The barons audited the sheriffs' accounts twice a year. When disputes arose over financial rights and obligations, the exchequer functioned as a court, the Court of the Exchequer.
Sheriffs remained in charge of royal administration in the counties, presiding over a hierarchy of bailiffs. Hundred and county courts, presided over by the sheriff or his bailiff, continued to meet as they had before the Conquest. Most disputes in these courts concerned land claims, violence, or theft. Certain cases called pleas of the Crown could only be heard by the king or his representative. So that royal pleas could be heard across the kingdom, the chief justiciar sent itinerant royal justices out to the counties.
The laws concerned with royal forests were adjudicated by forest courts, and jurisdiction over cases involving marriage, wills, legitimacy, and crimes committed by clerics were transferred to church courts. The lord of a manor automatically enjoyed the right to hold a manorial court—a departure from Anglo-Saxon tradition, which required royal grant to have sake and soke.

Angevin government (1154–1216)

introduced the assize, a new form of legislation that clarified or altered custom by agreement between the king and his feudal tenants.
The Assize of Clarendon of 1166 assigned royal justices to general eyres to hear Crown pleas. Juries of presentment identified suspects, whose innocence or guilt was proven in a trial by ordeal. The Grand Assize of 1179 gave civil case defendants the option of having the matter settled by a jury of twelve knights instead of trial by battle. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council forbade clergy participation in trial by ordeal, and it was replaced in England by the jury trial.
Henry's legal reforms mark the origins of the common law and improved the availability of royal justice. Petty assizes were procedures that allowed speedy resolution of land disputes. These include novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor, and darrein presentment.
The growth of the legal system required specialization, and the judicial functions of the curia regis were delegated to two courts sitting at Westminster Hall. The Court of Common Pleas split from the Court of Exchequer in the 1190s. It had jurisdiction over ordinary civil cases. It was staffed by a chief justice of the Common Pleas and several other justices of the Common Pleas. The Court of King's Bench had jurisdiction over Crown pleas. The King's Bench could review decisions of the Common Pleas through writs of error. It had its own chief justice in addition to several justices of the King's Bench.
Traditionally, the great council was not involved in levying taxes, but this changed as instances of extraordinary taxation increased. The likelihood of resistance made consent politically necessary. England was understood to be a communitas regni and the barons as its natural representatives. But this development created conflict between kings and the baronage as the latter attempted to defend what they considered the rights belonging to the king's subjects.

Magna Carta

needed large amounts of money to recover the lost continental possessions of the Angevin Empire, and his extortionate use of scutage, fines and amercements provoked baronial opposition. In 1215, about forty barons rose in revolt. A larger group of barons—around one hundred—worked with Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, to mediate a compromise that ultimately became Magna Carta. This was a charter of liberties that expressed what the barons believed to be their customary feudal rights. Magna Carta was based on three assumptions important to later constitutional development:
  1. the king was subject to the law
  2. the king could only make law and raise taxation with the consent of the community of the realm
  3. that the obedience owed by subjects to the king was conditional and not absolute
While the clause stipulating no taxation "without the common counsel" was deleted from later reissues, it was nevertheless adhered to by later kings. Magna Carta transformed the magnates' feudal obligation to advise the king into a right to consent. While it was the barons who made the charter, the liberties guaranteed within it were granted to "all the free men of our realm". None of the charter's provisions applied to the unfree serfs that formed a majority of the English population.
Magna Carta was a paradox, as highlighted by constitutional scholar Ann Lyon:
Later kings would reconfirm Magna Carta, and later versions were enshrined in law. Overtime, Magna Carta gained the status of "fundamental statute". The first three clauses have never been repealed:
  1. the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired;
  2. the city of London shall enjoy all its ancient liberties and free customs … all other cities, boroughs, towns and ports shall enjoy all their liberties and free customs;
  3. to no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.