
History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688, Volume 1C
by David Hume
'History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688, Volume 1C' Summary
He wrote of the Revolution: "By deciding many important questions in favour of liberty, and still more, by that great precedent of deposing one king, and establishing a new family, it gave such an ascendent to popular principles, as has put the nature of the English Constitution beyond all controversy". Thus Hume is at odds with those who argue that the British Constitution is entirely evolutionary, and did not emerge from a revolution, just like the later American and French Constitutions, and the earlier Dutch Constitution.
The source of this antinomian interpretation of British freedom can be traced in Hume's account of the revolutionary debates themselves. William of Orange had been invited to invade by a coalition of English Whigs and Tories. To placate the latter's maxim that "the throne was never vacant", or in modern parlance the monarch never dies, the fiction was agreed that King James would be said to have abdicated. It fell to the Scottish Parliamentary Convention, meeting a month after the English one: "in a bold and decisive vote", to declare "that king James, by his maladministration, and his abuse of power, had forfeited all title to the crown". Hume wanted to present the UK as having a modern constitution. He did not see it as something that stretched back seamlessly to Magna Carta or the laws of King Alfred.
The narrative ends with a parliamentary convention annexing to the settlement "a declaration of rights, where all the points, which had, of late years, been disputed between king and people, were finally determined; and the powers of the royal prerogative were more narrowly circumscribed and more exactly defined, than in any former period of the English government". In fact Britain has two declarations of right from this period. The Bill of Rights is (or was) the basic law of England, the Claim of Right that for Scotland.
There are important differences between these little studied declarations. Where the Bill of Rights states that the King cannot make laws without the consent of Parliament, the Claim of Right says that all assertions of a right to rule above the law are themselves against the law. The Bill of Rights was inspired by John Locke. Behind the Claim of Right can be detected the guiding hand of James Dalrymple, 1st Viscount of Stair 1619–1695. Hume studied law as a student at Edinburgh. He implies that he neglected this study. This must be taken with a pinch of salt. He may have wanted to avoid giving the lay reader the impression that he had written a history just for lawyers like William Blackstone. What is certain is that he names two of the founders of Roman Dutch law, Johannes Voet and Arnold Vinnius, in the same breath as Cicero and Virgil. Cicero was, of course, a lawyer. The standard work for a Scottish law student to study was, then as now, "Stair's Institutions of the laws of Scotland".
Hume names neither of the unamended constitutions of 1689. He wanted a new constitution for the United Kingdom to flesh out these outline declarations. He set out his proposals in the essay Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth, which is a reworking of The Commonwealth of Oceana by the 17th-century Rutland visionary James Harrington. Leaving the extent of the Commonwealth and the location of its capital undecided, Hume's highly devolved scheme was "to have all the advantages both of a great and a little Commonwealth". In some ways it resembles the model of Presbyterian church government. Hume was no theorist of an unwritten constitution.
Book Details
Language
EnglishOriginal Language
EnglishPublished In
1754Authors

David Hume
Scotland
David Hume was a Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, historian, economist, librarian and essayist, who is best known today for his highly influential system of philosophical empiricism, scepticism, an...
Books by David HumeDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
- Select Speed
Related books

Chronicles of Canada Volume 07 - The Fighting Governer: A Chronicle of Frontenac by Charles William Colby
The Canada to which Frontenac came in 1672 was no longer the infant colony it had been when Richelieu founded the Company of One Hundred Associates....

Essays book 1 by Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
Michel de Montaigne's *Essays* is a collection of personal reflections and observations on a wide range of topics, from the nature of human existence...

Ιστορίαι (Histories) Βιβλίοv 5 (Book 5) by Thucydides
Thucydides' *Histories* is a seminal work of ancient Greek history, focusing on the first twenty years of the Peloponnesian War, a conflict between At...

Jeffersonians, 1801-1829 by Richard B. Morris
This work delves into the era of the early American republic, examining the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, and John Qu...

Cádiz by Benito Pérez Galdós
Cádiz, the eighth installment in Benito Pérez Galdós's *Episodios Nacionales*, continues the story of Spain's struggle against Napoleonic rule. The no...

Arizona Sketches by Joseph Munk
An introduction to Arizona from approximately a century ago. We also get equally good information on native tribes both of his time and archeological...

On War (Volumes 2 and 3) by Carl von Clausewitz
On War, specifically Volumes 2 and 3, delve deeper into Carl von Clausewitz's comprehensive analysis of warfare. It examines the relationship between...

The War That Will End War by H. G. Wells
.About the First World War, and the author's conclusions. Whether or not you agree with these articles/essays, H G Wells does make many valid points a...

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Friedrich Engels
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is a short book first published in 1880 by German-born socialist Friedrich Engels. The work was primarily extracted...

Chronicles of Canada Volume 04 - Jesuit Missions: A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness by Stephen Leacock
These little books were designed to cover Canadian history in a scholarly and readable fashion. This volume, as suggested in the title, follows the Je...
Reviews for History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688, Volume 1C
No reviews posted or approved, yet...