[C18-L] Blessed constitution

[Joel S. Berson]

Did the phrase "blessed constitution" arise with the Glorious Revolution?

1)  It appears in _The new state of England under Their Majesties K.
William and Q. Mary : In three parts ..._, by Guy Miege,
1691.  [Google Books, full text; and GB does not reveal any other
instance before 1700.]  Part I, Chapter II, pp. 7-8 [51--52 in the
PDF.  Can one infer that the "new state of England" also included the
new phrase "blessed constitution"?

2)  Seems eminently quotable, but Google Web reveals only one
instance of its being quoted:  De Bruyn, Frans.
 From Georgic Poetry to Statistics and Graphs: Eighteenth-Century
Representations and the "State" of British Society.
The Yale Journal of Criticism - Volume 17, Number 1, Spring 2004, pp.
107-139.  Perhaps this discusses the phrase.

3)  EEBO would be my try for anything earlier, but I don't get home
delivery.  :-)

4)  The OED doesn't help, as it does not include "blessed
constitution" even in a quotation.

Joel

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