For the past two centuries, it’s been beaten into the British to hate the French, and all their (many, multitudinous, myriad) idiosyncrasies. However, as un-British as it may seem to celebrate the French national holiday, today, I found myself hoisting the red-white-and-blue and marking Bastille Day with as much pride as the most slimy and garlicky Provençal vintner. Every patriotic Briton should feel the same.

Despite what people say, what Bastille Day marked was not the end of monarchy in France. Instead, it was end of absolute monarchy: a system of government unchecked by constitutional limits, unfettered by morality or respect for the rights of any person but the King, and, crucially, completely different to the system used on this side of the Channel. Ours, as a representative monarchy, has been enshrined since Magna Carta, dating back to 1215.

Lacking a French Magna Carta, King Louis XVI was free to rule by decree, arbitrarily and without care. For all the boasts of ‘philosopher kings’, no French king ruled with any intellectual rigour or reason. When, on 11 July 1789, Louis XVI’s Finance Minister, Jacques Necker, advised the King to begin to budget his personal expenses, he was fired for his impudence. This act, one of reason against unreason and compromise against absolutism, sparked the Storming of the Bastille three days later.

The distinction between an absolute monarchy and a constitutionally-bound one is crucial. Whilst every French king was grotesquely unpopular in France, the British king at the time of the French Revolution, George III, was beloved by all, despite his mental faculties and colonial successes (or lack thereof). Even the future George IV, whose profligacy with money (and women) is and was renowned, was never under threat of losing his head, for one simple reason: whereas the French monarchs ruled in spite of the people, the British monarchs ruled because of the people.

Constitutionally-limited monarchy gives the framework of apolitical and non-partisan leadership, with a leader responsible for upholding the rights of the citizen guaranteed by such agreements as Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Instead of being the statist element that is most arbitary, in a representative democracy, a constitutionally-bound monarch becomes the one that is most constant, and most likely to uphold the natural rights of the people from the otherwise unchecked terrors of either an absolute monarchy or a deified democracy.

That the United Kingdom has enjoyed this for so many centuries, and that France’s diametrically-opposed system collapsed so readily in the face of pitchfork-armed farmers (a taste of things to come), ought to be a celebration of our uniqueness, and the success of our (relatively) people-centric historic constitutional system. Our dislike of absolute rule makes ours the exceptional system that proves the rule.

If the readers of BBC History magazine had their way, everyone in the country would be enjoying a day off work today. In a 2006 poll, their readership chose the 15th June as the date they would like to see dedicated to a new national holiday to celebrate British values. Winning out over more auspicious rivals, such as VE Day, Armistice Day, Trafalgar Day, the 15th June doesn’t seem to have much going for it. That is, except that it was the day the first blow in the fight against tyranny hit home.

On 15 June 1215, the marshland of Runnymede, in Berkshire, was home to one of history’s rarest spectacles: an autocratic ruler giving away his power and his asserted right to rule by force alone. That day, King John of England signed Magna Carta, ending the absolute monarchy and guaranteeing basic liberties of all free men.

Beyond the intricate balancing institutions between the King and his Barons, Magna Carta guaranteed many of the rights that are protected today. It outlawed imprisonment without trial, false imprisonment, and disproportionate punishment; and guaranteed the right to self-defence, the separation of executive and judiciary, and trial by jury.

In short, it enshrined the rule of law and the mechanisms by which our inalienable fundamental rights - to life, liberty, and property - have been protected for the past eight centuries years. Without it, the people would be left as they were, prostrate in front of the state. Whilst Magna Carta did not, as no law thus far has, allowed man to live free of all tyranny, it was inarguably the first step, and, for that reason, ought to be commemorated as heartily as any day before or since.