Constitutions and Consent

In his end-of-the-century plea for Protestant legislative autonomy in England’s most proximate — and most problematic — colonial possession, the Irishman William Molyneux cautioned that the rights of parliaments should be nurtured at all costs in every country. ‘This kind of government, once so universal all over Europe, is now almost vanished from amongst the nations thereof. Our king’s dominions are the only supporters of this noble Gothick constitution, save only what little remains may be found thereof in Poland.’1 For Molyneux, and for not a few like him who surveyed the political landscape of Europe at the close of the century, the ideal of the ‘Gothick’ constitution was being rapidly and insidiously eroded by the exaggerated claims of overly ambitious princes. The future of Europe seemed destined to follow the path of augmenting monarchical prerogative at the expense of broader consultation and consent, and inattention to this dangerous trend could only result in the eradication of all institutional and legal bulwarks against tyranny.