Also our economy seems to be doing pretty bad... Although we still have 4 econ of silver on the way from the east, right Haspen? But I think once we chew though that we'll be slowly bleeding out cash... We'd better find some more foreign trade soon.
We chose to go overboard on centennial celebrations and a royal wedding so that dip is not a surprise. My count is that Parsia is only paying tribute one more year – ten years' worth following the war in 1167.
Not including our super happy subjects shoving coin into our hands, I believe we should be breaking even after those payments end. (But I'm not 100% sure, I haven't gotten a good chance to compare my notes against the Scrolls since our trade deals got tumbled about.)
If Bill of rights really does give us a happiness boost, then we can permanently increase our taxes to compensate, easing the economy issue.
We are currently hitting our happiness cap. We can do that without incurring the massive risks and penalties that go along with a bill of rights.
Raised tax is known to hit happiness every year; our current happiness is the result of occasional good rolls on trading that do not happen reliably every year, and with the recent changes in our trade routes I'm not confident that I know the expected happiness value. A better plan would be to keep happiness so high that we get "voluntary" extra money regularly without changing tax rates.
Issue the Bill of Rights:
A standarized code of basic laws of the common peoples. Even if peasants will have nothing else left, they will always have their basic freedoms, helping ease their minds in times of emergency - and perhaps allow the spirit of liberty and humanism to blossom (for good or worse).
When I re-read the description for Bill of Rights, I'm not at all confident it is a happiness "boost." From the highlighted passage, it works to prevent happiness/authority loss during disasters but probably doesn't help regarding a government policy.
What the Bill of Rights should do is to open up quite a few more branches on our policy tree for social change, and we should consider it on those grounds
if we want it. I'm not sure what "risks and penalties" you refer to or why you describe them as "massive." (For comparison, I was quite afraid that the settlement handout was going to screw us over but it's proven mild to date.)