Rights of Englishmen
Encyclopedia
The rights of Englishmen are the perceived traditional rights of British subjects
. The notion refers to various constitutional documents
that were created throughout various stages of English history, such as Magna Carta
, the Declaration of Right (the text of which was recognised by Parliament in the Bill of Rights 1689
), and others. Many Patriots
in the Thirteen colonies
argued that their rights as Englishmen were being violated, which subsequently became one of the original primary justifications for the American Revolution
and the resulting separation from the British Empire
.
called them "The absolute rights of every Englishman" , and explained how they had been established slowly over centuries of English history, in his book on Fundamental Laws of England
, which was the first part of his influential Commentaries on the Laws of England
.
They were certain basic rights that all subjects of the English monarch were understood to be entitled.
Some scholars believe that the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution
had its roots in these rights as well. These include Joyce Lee Malcolm, and Thomas McAfee.
entered into a relationship with Owen Tudor
of Wales
(born c. 1400), who was most likely appointed keeper of the Queen's household or wardrobe, when Catherine lived at Windsor Castle
, and she became pregnant with their first child there. At some point, she stopped living in the King's household and in May 1432 Parliament
granted Owen the rights of an Englishman. This was important because of Henry IV
's laws limiting the rights of Welshmen.
Polish immigrants in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia
provided the community with manufactured pitch necessary to prevent the sinking of ships, and glass works among other industries. When the House of Burgesses
met in 1619, the rights extended only to Englishmen. The Poles, in turn, launched the first recorded strike in the New World, in order to gain those same right. Being somewhat in need of their skills and industries, the Poles received the "rights of Englishmen," and established the first bilingual schools with subjects taught in English and Polish.
The 17th century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment
opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs of their day, and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments derived their existence from the consent of the governed. Enlightenment thinkers believed reason held the key to creating an ideal society. In 1690 the Englishman John Locke
wrote that people have certain natural rights
like "life, liberty and property" and that governments were created in order to protect these rights. If they did not, according to Locke, the people had a right to overthrow their government.
At least since the late 19th century, it has been considered the consensus of both scholars and popular writers that the "Rights of Englishmen" was a theoretical basis of the American revolution, or what one teacher education
writer called the "substantial organizing idea."
In the famous Slaughter-House Cases, Justice Bradley dissent
ed with a rationale based on his assumption that the "rights of Englishmen" were a foundation of American law:
In the long run, Bradley's dissent became United States law; Harvard law
professor Laurence Tribe
and Yale law
professor Akhil Amar have criticized the majority opinion and supported Bradley's reading of the Fourteenth Amendment
.
According to one major current textbook, "The American revolution was mainly about Rights." The American colonists' position depended "not on natural law
, but on traditional notions of the rights of Englishmen, the royal charters of the separate colonies and especially on 'long standing constitutional custom'." The only historical controversy is not if rights were important to the Revolutionaries, but what rights were significant.
The consensus has been that this thesis changed as the ratification of the Declaration of Independence
approached:
At least one scholar states that how the colonists discussed these rights was what was new:
used to further propaganda
.
English author and polemicist Christopher Hitchens
argues that in fact British subjects technically don't have any rights, as there is no Bill of Rights
enshrined constitutionally: "Britain being a country that doesn't have any rights, only traditions."
One writer has said that "The paradox
of the American revolution" is that the first colonists came over in the 1630s
, but "not until the Glorious Revolution
of 1688–89 could the rights of Englishmen be defined with much confidence." In other words, these so-called rights were an anachronism
and the "Patriots" of 1775 had no basis to make this claim.
Some scholars have attempted to rehabilitate The Slaughter-House Cases, in contradiction of the "rights" that people have had. In that view, rights have nothing to do with the "narrow definition of national citizenship...."
The Artful Dodger, a character in the Charles Dickens
1838 novel
Oliver Twist
is a skilled and cunning pickpocket, who becomes the leader of the gang of child criminals, and Oliver's closest friend. Ultimately the Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box and presumably sent to a penal colony in Australia (only alluded to in the novel). The Dodger chooses to consider himself a "victim
of society," roaring in the courtroom "I am an Englishman; where are my rights?" The judge has little patience with the Dodger's posturing, and orders him out of the courtroom immediately after the jury convicts him of the theft.
British subject
In British nationality law, the term British subject has at different times had different meanings. The current definition of the term British subject is contained in the British Nationality Act 1981.- Prior to 1949 :...
. The notion refers to various constitutional documents
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
that were created throughout various stages of English history, such as Magna Carta
Magna Carta
Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
, the Declaration of Right (the text of which was recognised by Parliament in the Bill of Rights 1689
Bill of Rights 1689
The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
), and others. Many Patriots
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...
in the Thirteen colonies
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies were English and later British colonies established on the Atlantic coast of North America between 1607 and 1733. They declared their independence in the American Revolution and formed the United States of America...
argued that their rights as Englishmen were being violated, which subsequently became one of the original primary justifications for the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
and the resulting separation from the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
.
Development
BlackstoneWilliam Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone KC SL was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the Commentaries on the Laws of England. Born into a middle class family in London, Blackstone was educated at Charterhouse School before matriculating at Pembroke...
called them "The absolute rights of every Englishman" , and explained how they had been established slowly over centuries of English history, in his book on Fundamental Laws of England
Fundamental Laws of England
In the 1760s William Blackstone described the Fundamental Laws of England in Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First – Chapter the First : Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals as "the absolute rights of every Englishman" and traced their basis and evolution as follows:*Magna Carta...
, which was the first part of his influential Commentaries on the Laws of England
Commentaries on the Laws of England
The Commentaries on the Laws of England are an influential 18th-century treatise on the common law of England by Sir William Blackstone, originally published by the Clarendon Press at Oxford, 1765–1769...
.
They were certain basic rights that all subjects of the English monarch were understood to be entitled.
Some scholars believe that the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
had its roots in these rights as well. These include Joyce Lee Malcolm, and Thomas McAfee.
History
Catherine of ValoisCatherine of Valois
Catherine of France was the Queen consort of England from 1420 until 1422. She was the daughter of King Charles VI of France, wife of Henry V of Monmouth, King of England, mother of Henry VI, King of England and King of France, and through her secret marriage with Owen Tudor, the grandmother of...
entered into a relationship with Owen Tudor
Owen Tudor
Sir Owen Meredith Tudor was a Welsh soldier and courtier, descended from a daughter of the Welsh prince Rhys ap Gruffudd, "Lord Rhys". However, Owen Tudor is particularly remembered for his role in founding England's Tudor dynasty – including his relationship with, and probable secret marriage to,...
of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
(born c. 1400), who was most likely appointed keeper of the Queen's household or wardrobe, when Catherine lived at Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...
, and she became pregnant with their first child there. At some point, she stopped living in the King's household and in May 1432 Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
granted Owen the rights of an Englishman. This was important because of Henry IV
Henry IV of England
Henry IV was King of England and Lord of Ireland . He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry Bolingbroke...
's laws limiting the rights of Welshmen.
Polish immigrants in the first permanent English settlement of Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
provided the community with manufactured pitch necessary to prevent the sinking of ships, and glass works among other industries. When the House of Burgesses
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America...
met in 1619, the rights extended only to Englishmen. The Poles, in turn, launched the first recorded strike in the New World, in order to gain those same right. Being somewhat in need of their skills and industries, the Poles received the "rights of Englishmen," and established the first bilingual schools with subjects taught in English and Polish.
The 17th century intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs of their day, and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments derived their existence from the consent of the governed. Enlightenment thinkers believed reason held the key to creating an ideal society. In 1690 the Englishman John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
wrote that people have certain natural rights
Natural rights
Natural and legal rights are two types of rights theoretically distinct according to philosophers and political scientists. Natural rights are rights not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs of any particular culture or government, and therefore universal and inalienable...
like "life, liberty and property" and that governments were created in order to protect these rights. If they did not, according to Locke, the people had a right to overthrow their government.
At least since the late 19th century, it has been considered the consensus of both scholars and popular writers that the "Rights of Englishmen" was a theoretical basis of the American revolution, or what one teacher education
Teacher education
Teacher education refers to the policies and procedures designed to equip prospective teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school and wider community....
writer called the "substantial organizing idea."
In the famous Slaughter-House Cases, Justice Bradley dissent
Dissent
Dissent is a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or an entity...
ed with a rationale based on his assumption that the "rights of Englishmen" were a foundation of American law:
In the long run, Bradley's dissent became United States law; Harvard law
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...
professor Laurence Tribe
Laurence Tribe
Laurence Henry Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. He also works with the firm Massey & Gail LLP on a variety of matters....
and Yale law
Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
professor Akhil Amar have criticized the majority opinion and supported Bradley's reading of the Fourteenth Amendment
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
.
According to one major current textbook, "The American revolution was mainly about Rights." The American colonists' position depended "not on natural law
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...
, but on traditional notions of the rights of Englishmen, the royal charters of the separate colonies and especially on 'long standing constitutional custom'." The only historical controversy is not if rights were important to the Revolutionaries, but what rights were significant.
The consensus has been that this thesis changed as the ratification of the Declaration of Independence
United States Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence was a statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. John Adams put forth a...
approached:
At least one scholar states that how the colonists discussed these rights was what was new:
Criticism of concept
Critics of the notion regard it as a nebulous concept of various common law traditions that, as much as it can be defined, is not especially unique to England or Britain, or that the British of the 18th century had no legal rights, or such rights could not be defined with any clarity, or that it is merely an ideologyIdeology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
used to further propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
.
English author and polemicist Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
argues that in fact British subjects technically don't have any rights, as there is no Bill of Rights
Bill of rights
A bill of rights is a list of the most important rights of the citizens of a country. The purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement. The term "bill of rights" originates from England, where it referred to the Bill of Rights 1689. Bills of rights may be entrenched or...
enshrined constitutionally: "Britain being a country that doesn't have any rights, only traditions."
One writer has said that "The paradox
Paradox
Similar to Circular reasoning, A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition...
of the American revolution" is that the first colonists came over in the 1630s
1630s
-Deaths:* November 6, 1632 – King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden...
, but "not until the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
of 1688–89 could the rights of Englishmen be defined with much confidence." In other words, these so-called rights were an anachronism
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
and the "Patriots" of 1775 had no basis to make this claim.
Some scholars have attempted to rehabilitate The Slaughter-House Cases, in contradiction of the "rights" that people have had. In that view, rights have nothing to do with the "narrow definition of national citizenship...."
In popular culture and politics
Whatever its criticisms, the so-called "Rights of Englishmen" have appeared in popular culture for over 100 years, and that people believe they exist are well-documented.The Artful Dodger, a character in the Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
1838 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress is the second novel by English author Charles Dickens, published by Richard Bentley in 1838. The story is about an orphan Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to...
is a skilled and cunning pickpocket, who becomes the leader of the gang of child criminals, and Oliver's closest friend. Ultimately the Dodger is caught with a stolen silver snuff box and presumably sent to a penal colony in Australia (only alluded to in the novel). The Dodger chooses to consider himself a "victim
Victimology
Victimology is the scientific study of victimization, including the relationships between victims and offenders, the interactions between victims and the criminal justice system — that is, the police and courts, and corrections officials — and the connections between victims and other social groups...
of society," roaring in the courtroom "I am an Englishman; where are my rights?" The judge has little patience with the Dodger's posturing, and orders him out of the courtroom immediately after the jury convicts him of the theft.
See also
- Petition of RightPetition of rightIn English law, a petition of right was a remedy available to subjects to recover property from the Crown.Before the Crown Proceedings Act 1947, the British Crown could not be sued in contract...
- Bill of RightsBill of Rights 1689The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
- Declaration of RightsBill of Rights 1689The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
- Fundamental Laws of EnglandFundamental Laws of EnglandIn the 1760s William Blackstone described the Fundamental Laws of England in Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First – Chapter the First : Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals as "the absolute rights of every Englishman" and traced their basis and evolution as follows:*Magna Carta...
- Civil and political rights
- Natural and legal rights
Sources
- We The People: The Citizen and the Constitution, 27 (1997).
- Magna CartaMagna CartaMagna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...
, 1215