Contrary to popular belief, the United Kingdom, of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland, does
indeed have a constitution.
It just doesn’t exist as a single document like most other countries.
Rather, the constitution is a collection of official laws, royal decrees, treaties, legal
cases, and statutes, all loosely tied together like a children’s cardboard sculpture, except
one that directly governs 66 million people and influenced the laws that affect billions
more.
I obviously can’t cover them all in depth, so over the next two videos we’ll cover
what I think are the top eight most important documents governing Britain today.
And if you live in the United States or a former British Empire country, you too will
probably have at least one or two of these documents copied into your own constitutions
or local laws.
Sorry and/or you’re welcome in advance.
We will start with the oldest and most influential of these documents.
King John the First was one of the worst Kings in English history.
The English nobility hated him because he taxed them to pay for things like castles,
and private armies, and hookers.
The Pope hated him because he would reject Bishops appointed by the Vatican and appoint
his loyal supporters.
The French hated him because he would constantly declare war on them.
And the ordinary people hated him because his hobbies included imprisoning and torturing
people for fun.
Eventually, the English nobles had enough and laid siege to King John’s castle, forcing
him to sign a document putting limits on his power as monarch so he could stop being such
a massive tool.
806 years later and this Charter is still in force.
Most of the clauses concern medieval taxes and feudal disputes which have been repealed
over the centuries, but three of the original 63 clauses remain.
That’s probably for the better though, some of these clauses are really anti-Semitic.
Clause 1 guarantees independence for the Church of England to stop the monarch stacking it
with political priests, and Clause 9 guarantees legal independence to the City of London,
which is still respected today.
But there’s also Clause 39, and this is the big one: “No free man shall be seized
or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived
of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send
others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.”
Jury trials!
For the Thirteenth Century, this was pretty revolutionary.
A right to a fair trial?
In the age of locking up Blasphemers and burning them at the stake?
So revolutionary in fact, that when the American revolutionaries after their revolting revolution
set up their record of revolvers and unrestricted writing, they copied many of the Charter’s
provisions into their own Bill of Rights, because they liked it so much – particularly
the bits about guaranteeing trial by jury and the ability to petition the government.
The Magna Carta is not really a proto-constitution, despite some people saying so.
It’s a peace treaty between the monarch and “Free Men” a.k.a Lords; but because
the government now represent the Crown and the notion of “Free Men” has been extended
to all living people, parliament is bound by the treaty as if it were a law.
Neat.
The only place the Magna Carta never applied anywhere in the British Empire was...Scotland.
Yes, by a quirk in the law, the Magna Carta has never applied north of the border as England
was an independent country from Scotland at this time.
But they aren’t missing much because London is in England, and Scotland is Presbyterian,
not Anglican.
Further still, a 1603 legal case says that Scots in England have all the Rights guaranteed
under the charter anyway...even...though... it doesn’t apply?
Don’t ask me to explain that, laws aren’t real.
So, the right to a fair trial.
This cornerstone of freedom was the only right that English, Welsh, and Irish people had
for centuries and centuries.
Until the 1680s, when this list of liberties was about to get a whole lot bigger.
Fast forwarding four and a half centuries to the Glorious Revolution.
As with many of the world’s problems, this started with Religion.
At this time, this gentleman was King of both England, as James II, and Scotland, as James
VII.
But he was a Catholic king of Protestant countries, and ever since Henry VIII split the church
and his marriages and his wives, Papists were super unpopular.
One of his first priorities as King was to flip these countries Catholic again, introducing
a law to parliament supporting greater freedoms for Catholic religious leaders.
The protestant English and Scottish Parliaments said “no way”.
And so King James did the next logical step and disbanded parliament, ruled by decree,
and did whatever he wanted.
Raising taxes, confiscating land and weapons from protestants, having his own personal
military, and forcing Catholic worship in Protestant churches.
The nobility were of course, not happy.
Only a few decades before, the Civil War had determined Parliament was superior to the
Crown.
King Jimbo over here was trampling all over that.
Fortunately he had a lovely Protestant daughter who was married to the really wealthy also
protestant king of the Netherlands, William of Orange.
So the nobility just, uh, looked the other way while Mary and her husband invaded to
depose of James II.
Jimbo quickly fled the country to France, which is universally considered a sign of
abdication.
New co-monarchs in place, Parliament wrote out the Bill of Rights, to ensure that any
future monarchs could never again rule by decree and would always have to consult parliament
first.
It also guaranteed people liberties and freedoms so that they couldn’t be abused by any future
despotic monarch.
Some of the rights included in this document that are still in force today include:
There cannot be an army during peacetime – every five years parliament have to pass an act
to get around this.
All citizens have the right to lobby the government to make changes.
Members of Parliament have absolute freedom of speech.
Nobody can be subject to excessive bail or cruel punishments.
Every man must be convicted by a fairly selected jury before he can be punished.
EVERYONE WHO IS A PROTESTANT CAN OWN A FUCKING GUN.
Parliament must meet often and be elected through free elections.
These, and many others included, formed the next great batch of rights bestowed upon the
people of England and Wales and Ireland.
But Scotland?
Jimbo VII had fled England as Jimbo the second.
According to Scottish law, he was still King of Scotland who had abdicated the English
throne and was now visiting France.
Fortunately the Scottish parliament had an answer to that too.
Pass their own Bill of Rights called the Claim of Rights, which simply boots James off the
throne in favour of Will and Mary.
It also includes all the other stuff from the English version, while also putting limits
on the use of torture, and banning the government from keeping soldiers in someone’s house
without their consent.
They just thought that might be a problem someday.
These laws are still valid in England and Scotland and many other former Empire countries
today, albeit with much of the anti-Catholic clauses having been removed or reworded.
The United States constitution clearly draws heavily from some of the provisions in noticeable
ways.
In fact, the reason for the American Revolution was that the Americans thought their ancient
rights as Englishmen outlined in this document were being trampled on.
Their own Bill of Rights is just their way of reasserting those rights.
Despite their power couple reign, Will and Mary both died childless, and so the crown
passed on to Mary’s sister Anne, who’s twelve year reign would oversee the next and
most important documents in our constitutional collection.
As mentioned before, since 1603, Scotland and England shared the same monarch, although
these countries had separate governments with separate foreign policies.
And while England had her own colonies in the New World, Scotland was lagging behind.
Partly because most of the new stuff had already been claimed and partly because other European
powers put trade embargoes on Scotland so that it would be harder for the Scots to compete.
Eventually the Scots found a nice part of Panama that had remained uncolonised and drew
up a plan;
Currently everyone sailing to Asia has to go around South America or the Cape of Africa
which is really expensive.
What if we sail to Panama carrying tons of Scottish goods like fur and haggis, sell some
of it to the locals in exchange for whatever they have to offer, then walk over Panama
and build a ship on the other side.
Then we sail to China, sell them not only Scottish stuff but also things we bought from
the natives in Panama, because Native American stuff is super rare in Asia.
Then we sail back to Panama, go back over the land with all of our Chinese goods and
money, then sail back to Europe and sell everything we bought from China at a much cheaper price.
Every country in Europe will pay us ridiculous money to transport their stuff over our land
in Panama in order to get to Asia quicker, making us extremely wealthy.
Except when they arrived in Panama, they found it too hot, the mountains too big, and the
Spanish had already taken all the lovely South American Women.
Also nobody in South America wants to wear woollen fur or eat haggis.
Also 2000 Scots die of dysentery.
Back from their holiday, Scotland was ruined.
The adventure cost 20% of all the money in the entire kingdom.
This presented a golden opportunity for England, who for centuries was tired of the Scots teaming
up with France to attack them.
They drafted a treaty and sent it to Scotland: “the two Kingdoms of Scotland and England,
shall, upon the first Day of May, and for ever after, be united into one Kingdom by
the Name of Great-Britain, and That the united Kingdom of Great-Britain be represented by
one and the same Parliament, and all the Subjects of the united Kingdom of Great-Britain shall,
from and after the Union, have full Freedom of Trade and Navigation, to and from any Port
or Place within the said united Kingdom” “eeehhhhh…”
“also I will pay off all of your money problems” “deal”.
While the move was unpopular among the normal people of Scotland, nobody gives a shit what
they think, it’s the 1700s.
The nobility of Scotland who ran the Scottish parliament backed the plan 106 to 69.
Both parliaments passed Acts so that on the First of May 1707, the two countries would
become one, with the same parliament, money, army, and laws.
All the laws passed before the act would continue to be in force in each respective country
while all laws henceforth would apply to both equally, unless stated.
And that is how the Two Ks became the UKs ….of Great Britain.
What began as a hostile merger quickly spawned the most successful partnership between nations
ever seen before.
The only thing it needed now was a flag, and the rules on the flag are actually quite vague,
unhelpfully stating “the Crosses of St. Andrew and St. George be conjoined”.
That means anything from this, to this, or this, is wholly acceptable by the law.
But we all know which one was the favourite.
That’s right it was this one.
The British Empire went on to colonise one third of the entire planet and spread its
influence to the countless people living under it, changing world history forever.
It also committed a lot of atrocities and participated in exploiting millions of African
and Indian slaves.
But as you will soon see from our next founding document, it didn’t have to be this way.
In the second part of this video, we’ll continue the story of Britain’s Constitution
with the time a slave sued himself to freedom.