[Sidenote: The "Bill of Rights" (1689).] Let us now observe what happened early in 1689, after James II had fled from England. On January 28th parliament declared the throne vacant. Parliament then drew up the "Declaration of Rights," a document very similar in purport to the first eight amendments to our Federal Constitution, and on the 13th of February the two houses offered the crown to William and Mary on condition of their accepting this declaration of the "true, ancient, and indubitable rights of the people of this realm." The crown having been accepted on these terms, parliament in the following December enacted the famous "Bill of Rights," which simply put their previous declaration into the form of a declaratory statute. The Bill of Rights was not--even in form--a grant from a sovereign; it was an instrument framed by the representatives of the people, and without promising to respect it William and Mary could no more have mounted the throne than a president of the United States could be inducted into office if he were to refuse to take the prescribed oath of allegiance to the Federal Constitution. The Bill of Rights was therefore, strictly speaking, a piece of written constitution; it was a constitution as far as it went. [Sidenote: Foreshadowing of the American idea by Sir Harry Vane (1656).] The seventeenth century, the age when the builders of American commonwealths were coming from England, was especially notable in England for two things. One was the rapid growth of modern commercial occupations and habits, the other was the temporary overthrow of monarchy, soon followed by the final subjection of the crown to parliament. Accordingly the sphere of contract and the sphere of popular sovereignty were enlarged in men's minds, and the notion of a written constitution first began to find expression. The "Instrument of Government" which in 1653 created the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell was substantially a written constitution, but it emanated from a questionable authority and was not ratified. It was drawn up by a council of army officers; and "it broke down because the first parliament summoned under it refused to acknowledge its binding force." [4] The dissolution of this parliament accordingly left Oliver absolute dictator. In 1656, when it seemed so necessary to decide what sort of government the dictatorship of Cromwell was to prepare the way for, Sir Harry Vane proposed that a _national convention_ should be called for drawing up a written constitution.[5] The way in which he stated his case showed that he had in him a prophetic foreshadowing of the American idea as it was realized in 1787. But Vane's ideas were too far in advance of his age to be realized then in England. Older ideas, to which men were more accustomed, determined the course of events there, and it was left for Americans to create a government by means of a written constitution. And when American statesmen did so,