The ancient constitution of England was a 17th-century political theory about the common law, and the antiquity of the House of Commons, used at the time in particular to oppose the royal prerogative. It was developed initially by Sir Edward Coke, in his law reports; and has been analysed in modern times by J. G. A. Pocock in The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (1st edition 1957; reissued "with a retrospect" 1987).Pocock 1987. This is not to be conflated with Bancroft-Prize-winner Mary Sarah Bilder's "transatlantic constitution."
