Kovalev I.G. The Bill of rights and the beginning of the legislative formulation of the system of throne succession in England

Abstract: This article studies the specifics of throne succession in England, the particularities in the establishment of the rules of monarch-change in the period of the early Middle ages, and the reasons for its crisis due to the unwritten constitution of a crown inheritance system during the second half of the 17th century. The article addresses the problem of the necessity for a legislative prescription of throne succession order on the basis of a wide range of historical sources. The author reviews the approaches and argumentation lines regarding this question expressed by various political forces within the country. Special attention is given to the process of development and adoption of the 1689 Bill or rights – the first legislative act, which in very general terms established the rules of changing sovereigns on the English throne. This article’s research methodology is in many ways defined by its comprehensive interdisciplinary nature, which assumes the use of methods and approaches characteristic to historical, political, and juridical sciences. At the same time priority is given to the principle of historicism, which implies a scientific explanation of phenomena, objects, and events in precise historical conditions and interrelations in order to expose the patterns of their development and the reasons for their qualitative changes. The other basic principle at the base of this research is the principle of scientific objectivity that involves the refusal of a stereotypical perception of the studied object, limited with whichever earlier established limits and clichés. The scientific novelty of this article lies in the fact that it is the first in Russian historiography examination of the complex process of modernisation of the unwritten English constitution, in such a crucial aspect of constitutional law as the replacement of the head of state, carried out on the basis of different original sources. The author establishes the unbroken link of this process with the shift from absolutist rule to parliamentary monarchy happening in England at the turn of the 17–18th centuries.

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