The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c7.13

c7.13

The "glorious" English revolution preceded the French by a century. The people of England did not go mad over the magic name of republic. Virtually no *doctrinaire* principles guided them in the practical framing of their constitution of 1688. They replaced one king by another, but one with fetters on. Previous to this "great rebellion" there had indeed been a period when England was a republican commonwealth. But a kingless regime did not commend itself to the temperament of the English, and this in spite of the fact that they had a regicide to their credit (1649). Since the Reform Bills of 1832, 1866 and 1886, the monarchy of England has been a republic all but in name, a "crowned republic" in the words of Tennyson; but the republican form is not yet.