Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's introduction
- Principal events in Bagehot's life
- Note on the text and annotation
- The English Constitution
- I The Cabinet
- II The Prerequisites of Cabinet Government, and the Peculiar Form Which They Have Assumed in England
- III The Monarchy
- IV The Monarchy (continued)
- V The House of Lords
- VI The House of Commons
- VII On Changes of Ministry
- VIII Its Supposed Checks and Balances
- IX Its History, and the Effects of That History – Conclusion
- Introduction to the Second Edition (1872)
- Biographical notes on persons mentioned in the text
- Bibliographical note
- Index
- Title in the series
IV - The Monarchy (continued)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Editor's introduction
- Principal events in Bagehot's life
- Note on the text and annotation
- The English Constitution
- I The Cabinet
- II The Prerequisites of Cabinet Government, and the Peculiar Form Which They Have Assumed in England
- III The Monarchy
- IV The Monarchy (continued)
- V The House of Lords
- VI The House of Commons
- VII On Changes of Ministry
- VIII Its Supposed Checks and Balances
- IX Its History, and the Effects of That History – Conclusion
- Introduction to the Second Edition (1872)
- Biographical notes on persons mentioned in the text
- Bibliographical note
- Index
- Title in the series
Summary
The House of Commons has enquired into most things, but has never had a committee on ‘the Queen’. There is no authentic blue-book to say what she does. Such an investigation cannot take place; but if it could, it would probably save her much vexatious routine, and many toilsome and unnecessary hours.
The popular theory of the English Constitution involves two errors as to the sovereign. First, in its oldest form, at least, it considers him as an ‘Estate of the Realm’, a separate co-ordinate authority with the House of Lords and the House of Commons. This and much else the sovereign once was, but this he is no longer. That authority could only be exercised by a monarch with a legislative veto. He should be able to reject bills, if not as the House of Commons rejects them, at least as the House of Peers rejects them. But the Queen has no such veto. She must sign her own death-warrant if the two Houses unanimously send it up to her. It is a fiction of the past to ascribe to her legislative power. She has long ceased to have any. Secondly, the ancient theory holds that the Queen is the executive. The American constitution was made upon a most careful argument, and most of that argument assumes the King to be the administrator of the English Constitution, and an unhereditary substitute for him – viz., a president – to be peremptorily necessary.
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- Information
- Bagehot: The English Constitution , pp. 48 - 67Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001