English Bill of Rights (1689)
Context
The English Bill of Rights owes its existence to events that led up to the Glorious Revolution, also known as the English Revolution. Many of the bill's provisions directly address contentious political issues of this tumultuous period.
Following the death of King Charles II on February 6, 1685, his brother, James, a staunch Catholic, ascended the British throne and became James II of England and Ireland as well as James VII of Scotland. James's Catholicism immediately posed several problems, since England had been confirmed as a Protestant Anglican nation over a century earlier by the Second Act of Supremacy and the Act of Uniformity. These acts formed the basis of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559, which established the sovereign as “supreme governor” of the Anglican Church and compelled the English people to attend Anglican Sunday services. However, despite England's Anglicanism, James was crowned amid objections that were muted for a number of reasons....
