Diamond
Enthusiast
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It is a measure of how little of the British constitution is to be found in writing that both the references given by Frankvan have really very little significance ! This is not meant as a criticism of him. It's the best any of us can do in that line .
The founding fathers, it seems to me, no historian of America, were trying to replicate how they imagined the state of affairs in England. They copied the idea of a monarch,as head of state, but had him elected by the people, gave him powers like the traditional monarch's powers here, but constrained somewhat by his 'parliament'. They even created a totally unnecessary second chamber; ours was just an historical accident, but they still made one.
In Britain the monarch, even then, had no real powers at all, for all the appearances, beyond persuasion.He knew only too well how he stood.The power was in Parliament; the Prime Minister( not an official title then),was the spokesman for the majority there and chosen by them.This remains a fundamental difference.
As to the references : The Government is talking of repealing the Act of Settlement (1701). So much for that as some constitutional bulwark !It was simply concerned with ensuring that the next monarch be protestant, taking communion with the Church of England,and that in the absence of a surviving child of the then new Queen Anne ( a Stuart) the succession pass to the House of Hanover.
Otherwise, the Act only reminds the new Queen ( crowned 1702) that she is to allow the common law of England just as the last, joint, monarchs William and Mary had done and not interfere. They themselves were only ruling because Parliament had thrown out James II in the 'revolution' of 1688, primarily because he'd converted to Catholicism. Anne had 17 children; none survived; so the law was planned well.
Magna Carta is something of a joke. Victorian writers were romantically attached to it. It has never been possible to rely on it in an English court of law as authority for anything at all.It was drawn up by the barons. It is mainly concerned with the misuse and abuses of genuine powers by the King concerning lands and taxing ( guess ?)of barons and their widows and heirs.It does however direct that certain weights and measures be standardised; that the Welsh leader Fluellen , be freed; that the weirs on some rivers be removed and that lawsuits be tried, by learned lawyers, in one fixed place and not where the King's court happened to be that week . Important? If you're a baron's widow whose land gets flooded by taxmen with wrong measures misusing weirs,giving rise to litigation tried variously 10, 50, and 150 miles away well, yes !
It was signed under duress. The King signed that if 'the 25 Barons' found that he continued abuses and/or made no restitution for past ones, his own lands, castles etc themselves would be seized by the barons ! He immediately sent to the pope to have it declared null and void. Within eight months he was ignoring it .
The reality is that our constitution evolved.The supremacy of Parliament over the monarch and the rights of judges not to apply law or precedent by unjustly following them to the letter are themselves found in a myriad sources and historical events. The latter rights, Equity, is itself set with fixed rules for its application, long established.
So your best answer is to read a short history of England and of the English Parliament, from say the death of Charles I ( 1649), but with particular reference to 'Farmer George' ( George III ) and his ministers.
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