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In the 1760s William Blackstone described the Fundamental Laws of England in Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book the First - Chapter the First : Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals as "the absolute rights of every Englishman" and traced their basis and evolution as follows:
Blackstone's list was an 18th century constitutional view , and it should be noted that the Union of the Crowns had occurred in 1603 between England and Scotland, and the 1628 Petition of Right had already referred to the fundamental laws being violated .
See also: British constitution, British constitutional law, List of British monarchs, common law
The phrase Fundamental Laws of England has often been used by those opposing particular legislative, royal or religious initiatives.
For example, in 1641 the House of Commons protested that the Roman Catholic Church was "... subverting the fundamental laws of England and Ireland ..." , part of a campaign ending in 1649 with the beheading of King Charles I.
Subsequently, the phrase was used by the Leveller Lieut. Col. John Lilburne (later to become a Quaker) accusing the House of Lords and House of Commons of tyranny in The Just Defence of John Lilburne, Against Such as charge him with Turbulency of Spirit . Lilburne also wrote a 1646 book called The Legal Fundamental Liberties of the People of England, asserted, revived and vindicated .
Also in 1646, the General Court of Massachusetts referred to the Fundamental Laws of England in regard to the Magna Carta, while defending their representative and legislative autonomy in their address to the Long Parliament .
In his 1670 trial, William Penn called upon the phrase many times, including "... However, this I leave upon your Consciences, who are of the Jury (and my sole Judges) that if these Ancient Fundamental Laws, which relate to Liberty and Property, and (are not limited to particular Persuasions in Matters of Religion) must not be indispensibly maintained and observed, Who can say he hath Right to the Coat upon his Back? ..." . The aftermath of the trial established 1774 American Claim of Rights, Lord Coke, Vatel, and Samuel Adams.
Locke's view in ... Civil Government 1690 was "..., that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or posessions; ...". This philosophy was in keeping with the view that the Fundamental Laws predated the Magna Carta in both custom and natural law. Influenced by Locke, the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence stated: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
For those who believed that the Fundamental Laws of England predated the Magna Carta, there was debate about whether they arose from time immemorial, were somehow immanent to society, from post-Roman Saxon times, or from various combinations of these and other origins .
In MacCormick v. Lord Advocate (1953), an action over the legitimacy of the title Queen Elizabeth II, Lord President Cooper posited that because the fundamental law of Scotland merged with that of England into the law of Great Britain at the time of the Treaty of Union in 1707, the supremacy of Parliament was extinguished. He also raised the question of whether the fundamental laws could be judged by an English or Scottish court in the same manner as other countries consider constitutional cases.
See also: Royal Prerogative
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