By the second quarter of the fourteenth century, England had developed many attributes of a ‘constitutional monarchy’: one that would later expand and contract, in cycles, across the British Isles. This constitutional monarchy has been subject to many minor recalibrations; more major recalibrations have occurred between 1640 and 1690, and also between 1820 and 1870. To focus on the function and form of this hereditary institution of governance, it can be seen operating in accordance to rules and conventions within three separate if overlapping spheres: that is, the parliamentary, the personal and conciliar, and the judicial.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to an analysis of the distribution of power within Hegel’s model of constitutional monarchy, or what he calls the rational constitution. By focussing on the arrangement of power in Hegel’s organic political system, it provides a necessary grounding for the analysis in the chapters that follow. First, Hegel’s peculiar separation of powers into a princely, governmental, and lawgiving power, which are all organically interconnected, is addressed, which is of particular interest on account of its variance with the concept of that name which is widely held today. Next, the role played by the monarch is scrutinised, who is hereditary, bound by the law, and embodies subjective freedom. This is followed by a discussion of the exercise of government, which exposes the ultimate restrictedness of the monarch’s field of influence. Lastly, the chapter recovers the various competences that Hegel envisioned for the Assembly of Estates, with which the two subsequent chapters are principally concerned.

This chapter examines the contested concept of constitutional identity in the comparative constitutional law literature and situates it in the specific jurisdictional context of Nepal. In particular, the analysis concentrates on the foundational function of constitutions and explores the relationship between constitutionalism, identity politics, and constitutional design. Nepal is an ideal case study for exploring the notion of constitutional identity because it sits uneasily within the traditional taxonomies used in the discipline. For instance, Nepal is the only South Asian country that was never colonised and whose legal system does not operate in English, but in the country’s national language, Nepali. This unusual level of historical continuity in the process of nation-building has complicated the construction of constitutional identity, as demonstrated by the embattled historical relationship between the Shah-centered “national monarchy” and democracy, the enduring and controversial position of Hinduism in the constitutional framework, and the patterns of legal discrimination on the basis of identity that persist in the new 2015 constitution.

This chapter argues that Swiftian irony functions in a way similar to the Whiggish model of political revolution: both function “to preserve and to reform,” and both create new commitments based on challenging, revising, and criticizing existing institutions. Swift’s satire functions first and foremost, of course, to highlight weaknesses, defects, and corruptions in its objects; but, in a gesture reminiscent of Burkean conservatism and Rorty’s irony, his parody also serves as a means of preserving while reforming the satirized object, coopting its genuinely admirable qualities and opening up new spaces for indulgence and play. Burke makes explicit a model of ironic politics implicit in Swift’s Tale: political institutions are contestable primarily because they are an ongoing, unfinished project. Each generation must recognize this limitation and adapt institutions to their own needs.

This chapter surveys the substantive common law in the later sixteenth century. The rise of habeas corpus enabled the judicial review of prerogative jurisdictions and powers, so that the rule of law was now firmly rooted. The new atmosphere of rights was linked to Magna Carta, now rescued from oblivion. Private law was still dominated by the land law. Remedies for the protection of real property were simplified, but much confusion had been introduced by the Statutes of Uses and Wills, and a major new concern was the use of perpetuity clauses in family settlements to prevent the barring of entails. The law of contract is largely timeless, but the doctrine of consideration belongs to this period, and a decision of 1602 finally sanctioned an action for recovering debts without the archaic obstacle called wager of law. The law of tort was dominated by defamation rather than negligence. Criminal law was not the concern of practising lawyers and was relatively undeveloped, especially at the level of misdemeanours. The role of the Star Chamber is considered. The chapter ends with a brief assessment of Elizabeth I’s attitudes to law and justice.

This chapter traces how critics of women's rights, and especially of women's political rights, used arguments about the limited and dependent role of the female sovereign to minimize the queen's feminist potential, and to erode faith in the larger aims of the women's movement more generally. It focuses especially on the later decades of Victoria's rule, from the 1860s, when anti-suffragists were particularly zealous in their efforts to mobilize Victoria for their own alternative purposes.

This chapter distinguishes two eighteenth-century accounts of the English constitution. The first, Montesquieu’s, advocated a balanced constitution. The second, which would become the classical theory of parliamentarism, accepted constitutional imbalance. Authors subscribing to this second approach believed that England was a free state because the House of Commons was the most powerful actor. They thought representative assemblies were best equipped to secure political liberty. And while they recognized that representative assemblies could threaten liberty, they were convinced that two practices had emerged to prevent this from happening, which did not require the Crown and Lords to exercise prerogatives equal to the Commons: first, the involvement of ministers in Parliament, and, second, the sheer presence of a constitutional monarch. Through these two practices, England could enjoy all the benefits of a powerful legislature without any risk of legislative usurpation. While this chapter ranges widely, especial attention will be paid to Jean Louis de Lolme and to the debates over parliamentary corruption and parliamentary opposition that occurred during the ministry of Robert Walpole.

This chapter argues that Benjamin Constant’s greatest legacy to liberalism was his theory of parliamentarism, which revolutionized the way that the constitutional model was understood. Unlike previous authors examined in this book, Constant envisioned a constitutional monarch divested of executive powers–who reigned but not govern–and minsters who maintained their position entirely through the process of debate that unfolded within Parliament and the public sphere. Constant believed that this (seemingly) minimal framework of checks was sufficient to prevent Parliament from becoming tyrannical. It could achieve the great promise of the English parliamentary model–a nation being truly governed by a representative assembly–while at the same time overcoming the dilemmas long associated with that model, including the dilemma of corruption. The first part of the chapter examines Constant’s constitutional theory. The second part examines Constant’s involvement in French parliamentary politics during the Restoration when he tried and failed to enact this theory.

While Alexis de Tocqueville is most famous for his analysis of American democracy, this chapter argues that when it came to France, he preferred parliamentarism over the American constitutional model. During his long career in French parliamentary politics, Tocqueville in fact developed a distinctive theory of parliamentarism, which was different from Constant’s, but which also differed from the conception of parliamentarism propagated by Constant’s great rivals, the Doctrinaires. Tocqueville rejected Constant’s argument for a monarch who reigned but did not govern. However, he agreed with Constant that corruption posed a severe threat to the survival of French parliamentarism.