Sir George Treby

Sir George also believed that charters like those of Connecticut and Massachusetts were very important because they helped protect people's rights.  In a charter, the king gave a group of people whatever rights and powers were listed in the document.  By doing so, he agreed not to meddle in those matters so long as the people followed the charter and obeyed the laws of England (charters required those who received them to obey the king and English law). 

Sir George got the chance to defend these ideas in the early 1680s, when King Charles II challenged the rights of the city of London to govern itself.  The king served city officials with a writ of quo warranto much like the one which Edward Randolph tried to use against Connecticut's charter in 1687.  Sir George defended the city's charter rights in court.

In 1688, Sir George got an even bigger chance to defend rights when the Convention Parliament met to force James II off the throne and offer the crown to William and Mary.  Sir George became chair of the Parliamentary committee that drafted the English Bill of Rights. 

Sir George's committee began its work by listing twelve ways in which James II had tried to do away with the ancient "laws and liberties" of England.  Among other things, the committee charged that James had tried to make and enforce laws "without consent of parliament."  He had jailed people for exercising their right to petition.  He had taxed people without the consent of parliament, the representatives of English propertyholders. He had taken away some people's weapons.  He had interfered with courts and tampered with juries.  He had made use of illegal and cruel punishments.

The committee then listed thirteen declarations which limited the king's power and protected the rights of Englishmen.  These included requiring that laws be made, abolished, and enforced only by consent of parliament.  The king could tax only by consent of parliament.  All Protestant Englishmen had the right to keep and bear arms to defend themselves.  All members of parliament possessed freedom of speech.  English people had a right to trial by jury, and they could not be punished by cruel or unusual methods.

When Sir George's committee finished its work, the whole Parliament voted to present the document to William and Mary as a summary of the rights and liberties Englishmen had always enjoyed.  William and Mary accepted the Bill of Rights at their coronation.  They gave it the Royal Assent that made it the law of the land later in 1689.

In fact, the English Bill of Rights which Sir George had helped to write did far more than simply summarize ancient English rights.  It settled the question of whether English monarchs could rule as absolute monarchs by declaring that they could not.  From 1689 on, England had a limited monarchy. The English Bill of Rights listed certain things monarchs could not do without consent of Parliament, including making laws and taxing the people.  No English monarch since James II has claimed to be an absolute ruler.

When Massachusetts colonists defended their own Glorious Revolution, they used many of the same ideas that Sir George's committee had written down in the English Bill of Rights.  Sir George's defense of London's charter rights also gave the colonists important ideas about how to defend their charters.

In 1692, Sir George Treby became Chief Justice of England's Court of Common Pleas, which made him one of the highest judges in the land.  There he continued to defend the principle that the power of monarchs was limited by the laws, liberties, and rights of the English people, wherever those people lived.  So was the power of any official appointed by the king, whether a tax collector in London or a colonial governor in America.