The English Question, the English Constitution, and the English Mind

This is an essay about constitutionalism and, more particularly, the idea of an English constitution. For this reason, it is also, irreducibly, an essay about narrative and narrativity. And for this reason, too, it is also an essay written within the shadow of Robert Cover’s seminal work on the relation of narrative and community. As we shall see it is commonly suggested that the English are undergoing something of a crisis of identity and confidence, beset by international dissension, by the fragmentary impulses of devolution, and by the destabilizing impact of European integration. It is within this context that talk of an English constitution has re-emerged. The English "question" opens up the possibility of English "constitution," and this, in turn, advances ideas of an English "mind," of a political imagination within which an English constitution might be shaped. The first part of this essay will explore the idea of a narrative constitution in greater depth. The second part will then sketch the parameters of the English "question." The final part will then discuss the constitutional implications, focusing more particularly upon two seminal accounts of English constitutionalism; those described by Edmund Burke and Walter Bagehot.