Table Of Content ’
THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
W B was born in Langport, Somerset, in , the
son of a banker. After taking BA and MA degrees from University
College London he studied for the bar, and was called in .
However, he decided to return home and join his father’s bank,
devoting his leisure to contributing literary, historical and political
reviews to the leading periodicals of the s. In he returned
to London, succeeding his father-in-law as editor and director of
the Economist. Three books ensured Bagehot’s reputation as one of
the most distinguished and influential Victorian men-of-letters: The
English Constitution (), published at the height of the debate over
parliamentary reform; Physics and Politics (), his application of
Darwinian ideas to political science; and Lombard Street (), a
study of the City of London. Walter Bagehot died in .
M T is a Lecturer in Modern History at King’s College,
London. He is the author of The Decline of British Radicalism,
– (Clarendon Press, ) and is currently completing a
biography of the last Chartist leader, Ernest Jones.
’
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by
MILES TAYLOR
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CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Note on the Text xxx
Select Bibliography xxxi
A Chronology of Walter Bagehot xxxiii
THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION
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. The Cabinet
. The Pre-requisites of Cabinet Government, and the
Peculiar Form which they have Assumed in England
. The Monarchy
. The Monarchy (continued)
. The House of Lords
. The House of Commons
. On Changes of Ministry
. Its Supposed Checks and Balances
. Its History, and the Effects of that History––
Conclusion
Appendix on Reform
Explanatory Notes
INTRODUCTION
W B’ The English Constitution () was not the first
word on the subject written in the s. Nor has it proved the last,
or even the most enduring. But it remains the best. First published
as a series of articles in the Fortnightly Review between May
and January , The English Constitution is a stylish analysis of the
workings of the cabinet system, the monarchy, and the Houses of
Parliament, especially at times of political crisis and difficulty. It is
not a conventional text-book. Neither constitutional case-law nor
historical narrative are allowed to get in the way of a good read.
Bagehot’s wit and irreverence, his endless supply of anecdotes and
stories, and his pragmatic approach to the problems of government
make The English Constitution a lively and unpredictable book. In
many ways it belongs to the tradition of the political essay as
polemic––the style and tone is of Edward Bulwer Lytton, or Thomas
Carlyle or Hilaire Belloc––rather than to that classic canon of consti-
tutional authorities represented by Henry Hallam, A. V. Dicey,
and A. L. Lowell. But Bagehot’s work is authoritative in a way that
other polemics are not. It is informed by a lightly-worn evolutionary
sociology and psychology, which, though somewhat arcane, remain
persuasive. It is not doctrinaire: Bagehot describes a fluid and not a
static system, some of which he admires, of some of which he disap-
proves. Above all, The English Constitution, for all its levity, is a deft
and penetrating account of an age-old set of institutions beset by
modernity. It has influenced countless later constitutional commen-
tators, including Dicey and James Bryce, acted as a primer for future
monarchs such as Edward VII, and furnished sketch-writers and
essayists alike with memorable one-liners. The English Constitution
remains such a classic because, as one reviewer noted at the time, it is
‘wise chat’.
Bagehot’s Reputation
‘Wise chat’ sums up the achievement but also the problem of
Bagehot’s great work. The English Constitution is enjoyable, but also
Spectator, March .
viii Introduction
vulnerable in the face of posterity. Few have doubted its read-
ability. Many have questioned its accuracy and utility with the
passage of time. Even in his own generation Bagehot was better
known for his later Darwinian work, Physics and Politics, than for
The English Constitution. Physics and Politics went through eight
editions in fifteen years; The English Constitution took twenty-four
years to reach a sixth edition, an by then Bagehot’s constitutional
writing was perhaps better known overseas than at home. A Ger-
man translation of The English Constitution had been produced in
, an American edition (which included amongst its admirers
the future President Woodrow Wilson) in . It was in America
too that the first edition of Bagehot’s collected writings was
released in , a quarter of a century before the first definitive
English edition. Only after the First World War did Bagehot’s
domestic audience really swell, as nostalgia for the Victorian age
increased and concerns for the constitution flared up with the
extension of the suffrage. In The English Constitution
appeared for the first time in the World’s Classics series, with an
appreciative introduction by a former Prime Minister, Earl Bal-
four. Since then, however, wider readership has not ensured vener-
ability. Bagehot nowadays is more noted for what he got wrong
than what he got right. ‘There can be very few studies of our
party system that were so rapidly overtaken by events as Walter
Bagehot’s English Constitution’, declared Richard Crossman in
, and, although more brazen than most, this verdict has been
widely shared. Twentieth-century supporters of the Commons,
such as Leo Amery, have suggested that Bagehot misunderstood
the separation of powers; supporters of the monarchy and the
Lords, such as Norman St John Stevas, have argued that Bagehot
underestimated the continuing importance of those institutions;
apologists for the cabinet, such as Richard Crossman, have pointed
out that Bagehot overlooked the importance of party and the
Prime Minister. Some historians simply think Bagehot got it all
wrong, whilst others have implied that it does not really matter
anyway, since few Victorians were interested in the thoughts on an
Leo Amery, Thoughts upon the Constitution (London, ); Norman St John
Stevas, Walter Bagehot: A Study of his Life and Thought together with a Selection from his
Political Writings (London, ), –; Richard Crossman, ‘Introduction’ to Bagehot,
The English Constitution (London, ), .
