What is the idea of a right according to the Bill of Rights and the English Bill of Rights? Who has these rights?

The
English Bill of Rights is deliberately restrictive in terms of the scope of the rights it
provides and to whom those rights belong. The primary purpose of the Bill was to set out once
and for all the precise nature of the constitutional relationship between the monarch and the
propertied political elite that dominated Parliament. That being the case, the document is
mainly addressed to a relatively small class of people, those of sufficient wealth and social
prominence to be able to participate in the affairs of the nation.

Of course,
certain of the Bill's provisions had widespread applicability. The right for Protestants to bear
arms, for example, didn't simply apply to the social elite. Nevertheless, the Bill as a whole
was designed to protect the interests of the wealthy, property-owning classes against the
potential tyranny of an absolute monarch.

The Bill of Rights emerged out of
the Glorious Revolution, when the political elite rose up and deposed the Catholic King James
II. This had taken place for a number of reasons, but mainly because a large section of English
society felt that James was turning himself into an absolute monarch, hell-bent on trampling all
over ancient liberties.

Once James had been deposed, and William of Orange
established on the throne, it was therefore imperative to restrict the monarch's powers by
enshrining the ancient liberties of Englishmen in a formal document. In relation to the Bill of
Rights, therefore, a right can be defined as a claim against the powers of the
monarch.