# English Bill of Rights (1689) > That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. — Article VII The English Bill of Rights was enacted by Parliament on December 16, 1689, following the Glorious Revolution that deposed the Catholic King James II and installed the Protestant monarchs William III and Mary II. It is the single most direct template for the American [[Bill of Rights]] — many of its provisions map almost word-for-word onto the first ten amendments to the [[Constitution]]. It established parliamentary supremacy over the Crown, codified specific rights of English subjects, and settled the Protestant succession to the throne. It is also, in ways that American constitutional mythology prefers to forget, an explicitly sectarian document. Its rights were for Protestants. Its purpose was to prevent Catholic rule. The "liberties" it secured were inseparable from religious exclusion. Understanding the English Bill of Rights in full — not just the provisions the Founders borrowed — reveals the selective inheritance at the foundation of American constitutionalism. ## Historical Context: The Glorious Revolution James II was deposed in 1688 not primarily because he was a tyrant in the abstract, but because he was a *Catholic* tyrant who was trying to restore Catholic influence in a Protestant kingdom. He suspended laws passed by Parliament (the "dispensing power"), packed the judiciary with loyalists, maintained a standing army in peacetime, and — most threatening to the Protestant establishment — produced a Catholic heir, ensuring the succession of Catholic rule. Parliament invited William of Orange — a Dutch Protestant married to James's Protestant daughter Mary — to invade England and take the throne. James fled. Parliament declared the throne vacant and offered it to William and Mary on the condition that they accept the Bill of Rights. The transfer of power was thus explicitly conditional: the Crown ruled *by permission of Parliament*, and that permission came with strings. ## Key Provisions **Parliamentary supremacy.** The "pretended power of suspending of laws" and "dispensing with laws" without Parliament's consent was declared illegal. This settled the central constitutional question of the 17th century: Parliament, not the Crown, makes and unmakes law. The American Founders would reject parliamentary supremacy in favor of constitutional supremacy, but the *principle* — that the executive cannot unilaterally suspend legislation — flows directly from this provision into American separation-of-powers doctrine (see [[Separation of Powers]]). **Freedom of speech in Parliament.** "The freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament." This is the ancestor of the Speech and Debate Clause in Article I of the [[Constitution]]. **Right to petition.** "It is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and all commitments and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal." Directly ancestral to the [[First Amendment]]'s petition clause. **No cruel and unusual punishments.** "Excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." This language was adopted nearly verbatim in the [[Eighth Amendment]]. **Right to bear arms — for Protestants.** "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law." This is the direct ancestor of the [[Second Amendment]], and its qualifications are revealing. The right was limited to Protestants. It was "suitable to their conditions" — meaning class-stratified. It was "as allowed by law" — meaning subject to regulation. Every limitation that Second Amendment absolutists deny was present in the very document that established the right. **No standing armies without Parliament's consent.** "The raising or keeping a standing army within the kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law." This fear of standing armies carried directly into the American constitutional debate (see the [[Third Amendment]] and the militia clauses). **Free elections.** "Election of members of Parliament ought to be free." A principle more honored in the breach than the observance in 1689 England, where the electorate was tiny and elections were routinely corrupt — but the principle mattered. ## The Sectarian Foundation The English Bill of Rights is inseparable from its anti-Catholic purpose. The document declares that James II "did endeavour to subvert and extirpate the Protestant religion and the laws and liberties of this kingdom." The rights it enumerates are rights of Protestant Englishmen against Catholic tyranny. The Act of Settlement (1701), which extended the Bill of Rights' succession provisions, explicitly bars Catholics from the throne — a provision that remains law in the United Kingdom to this day. This matters because American constitutional rhetoric treats the English Bill of Rights as a universal statement of natural liberty, when it was in fact a *sectarian* statement of *Protestant* liberty. The right to bear arms was for Protestants defending against a Catholic king's army. The prohibition on cruel punishments responded to Catholic judicial practices. The demand for parliamentary supremacy was a demand for *Protestant* parliamentary supremacy. ## Why It Matters for the RWKB **Direct template for the American Bill of Rights.** The American [[Bill of Rights]] borrowed specific language from this document. [[James Madison]]'s drafts drew explicitly on the English precedent. Understanding what the English Bill of Rights actually said — including its sectarian limitations — provides essential context for understanding what the American version inherited, adapted, and left behind. **The Second Amendment's sectarian ancestor.** The English right to bear arms was explicitly for Protestants, explicitly class-stratified, and explicitly subject to legal regulation. When [[Second Amendment]] absolutists claim an unlimited individual right, they are making an argument that the very document they claim as precedent contradicts. The historical record shows a right that was limited by religion, class, and parliamentary law from the very beginning. **The irony of "English rights."** The American revolutionaries claimed they were fighting for their rights as Englishmen — the rights enumerated in the English Bill of Rights and the [[Magna Carta]]. But they simultaneously rejected the parliamentary-sovereignty model that the English Bill of Rights established. They wanted English *rights* without English *government*. This selective inheritance — keeping the rights catalog while discarding the institutional framework — is one of the founding tensions of American constitutionalism, and it continues in modern conservative movements that invoke "tradition" selectively. **Protestant supremacy and American founding myths.** The English Bill of Rights was a Protestant document for a Protestant nation. The American Founders secularized the rights framework — the [[First Amendment]] prohibits religious establishment rather than mandating Protestant succession. But the cultural assumption that "liberty" is a Protestant value, and that rights are rooted in the Protestant tradition, persists in [[Christian Nationalism]] and in the broader cultural framing of American identity. ## See Also - [[Bill of Rights]] — The American descendant - [[Second Amendment]] — Inherits the English right to bear arms, minus the sectarian limitation - [[First Amendment]] — Inherits the petition right and secularizes the speech protections - [[Magna Carta]] — The earlier English document in the same constitutional tradition - [[Constitution]] — The framework that adapted English constitutional principles - [[Separation of Powers]] — The principle that executive power cannot override legislative authority - [[Christian Nationalism]] — The contemporary movement echoing the English Bill of Rights' sectarian assumptions