Legislature of England, c. 1215 to 1707
The
Parliament of England
was the
legislature
of the
Kingdom of England
from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the
Parliament of Great Britain
. Parliament evolved from the
great council
of
bishops
and
peers
that advised the
English monarch
. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of
Henry III
(
r.
1216?1272
). By this time, the king required Parliament's consent to levy taxation.
Originally a
unicameral
body, a
bicameral
Parliament emerged when its membership was divided into the
House of Lords
and
House of Commons
, which included
knights of the shire
and
burgesses
. During
Henry IV
's time on the throne, the role of Parliament expanded beyond the determination of taxation policy to include the "redress of grievances", which essentially enabled English citizens to petition the body to address complaints in their local towns and counties. By this time, citizens were given the power to vote to elect their representatives?the burgesses?to the House of Commons.
Over the centuries, the English Parliament progressively limited the power of the
English monarchy
, a process that arguably culminated in the
English Civil War
and the
High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I
.
Predecessors (pre-13th century)
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]
Since the unification of England in the 10th century, kings had convened national councils of lay
magnates
and leading churchmen. The
Anglo-Saxons
called such councils
witans
. These councils were an important way for kings to maintain ties with powerful men in distant regions of the country. The witan had a role in making and promulgating legislation as well as making decisions concerning war and peace. They were also the venues for
state trials
, such as the trial of
Earl Godwin
in 1051.
After the
Norman Conquest
of 1066, the king received regular council from the members of his
curia regis
(
Latin
for "royal court") and periodically enlarged the court by summoning a
magnum concilium
(Latin for "great council") to discuss national business and promulgate legislation.
For example, the
Domesday survey
was planned at the Christmas council of 1085, and the
Constitutions of Clarendon
were made at the 1164 council. The
magnum concilium
continued to be the setting of state trials, such as the
trial of Thomas Becket
.
The members of the great councils were the king's
tenants-in-chief
. The greater tenants (
archbishops
,
bishops
,
abbots
,
earls
, and
barons
) were
summoned by individual writ
, but lesser tenants
[note 1]
were summoned by
sheriffs
.
These were not representative or democratic assemblies. They were feudal councils in which barons fulfilled their obligation to provide counsel to their lord the king.
Councils allowed kings to consult with their leading subjects, but such consultation rarely resulted in a change in royal policy. According to historian
Judith Green
, "these assemblies were more concerned with ratification and publicity than with debate".
In addition, the
magnum concilium
had no role in approving taxation as the king could levy
geld
(discontinued after 1162) whenever he wished.
The years between 1189 and 1215 were a time of transition for the great council. The cause of this transition were new financial burdens imposed by the Crown to finance the
Third Crusade
,
ransom Richard I
, and pay for the series of
Anglo-French wars
fought between the
Plantagenet and Capetian dynasties
. In 1188, a precedent was established when the great council granted
Henry II
the
Saladin tithe
. In granting this tax, the great council was acting as representatives for all taxpayers.
The likelihood of resistance to national taxes made consent politically necessary. It was convenient for kings to present the great council as a representative body capable of consenting on behalf of all within the kingdom. Increasingly, the kingdom was described as the
communitas regni
(Latin for "community of the realm") and the barons as their natural representatives. But this development also created more conflict between kings and the
baronage
as the latter attempted to defend what they considered the rights belonging to the king's subjects.
King John
(
r.
1199?1216
) alienated the barons by his partiality in dispensing justice, heavy financial demands and abusing his right to feudal incidents,
reliefs
, and
aids
. In 1215, the barons forced John to abide by a charter of liberties similar to charters issued by earlier kings
(see
Charter of Liberties
)
.
Known as
Magna Carta
(Latin for "Great Charter"), it was based on three assumptions important to the later development of Parliament:
- the king was subject to the law
- the king could only make law and raise taxation (except customary feudal dues) with the consent of the community of the realm
- that the obedience owed by subjects to the king was conditional and not absolute
Clause 12 stated that certain taxes could only be levied "through the common counsel of our kingdom", and clause 14 specified that this common counsel was to come from bishops, earls, and barons.
[13]
While the clause stipulating no taxation "without the common counsel" was deleted from later reissues, it was nevertheless adhered to by later kings.
Magna Carta would gain the status of fundamental law after John's reign.
13th century
[
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The word
parliament
comes from the
French
parlement
first used in the late 11th century with the meaning of "
parley
" or "conversation".
In the mid-1230s, it became a common name for meetings of the great council.
The word was first used with this meaning in 1236.
In the 13th century, parliaments were developing throughout north-western Europe. As a vassal to the King of France, English kings were suitors to the
parlement of Paris
. In the 13th century, the French and English parliaments were similar in their functions; however, the two institutions diverged in significant ways in later centuries.
Early meetings
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After the 1230s, the normal meeting place for Parliament was fixed at
Westminster
. Parliaments tended to meet according to the
legal year
so that the courts were also in session: January or February for the
Hilary term
, in April or May for the
Easter term
, in July, and in October for the
Michaelmas term
.
Most parliaments had between forty and eighty attendees.
Meetings of Parliament always included:
[1]
The lower clergy (
deans
, cathedral priors,
archdeacons
,
parish priests
) were occasionally summoned when papal taxation was on the agenda. Beginning around the 1220s, the concept of representation, summarised in the
Roman law
maxim
quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur
(Latin for "what touches all should be approved by all"), gained new importance among the clergy, and they began choosing
proctors
to represent them at church assemblies and, when summoned, at Parliament.
As feudalism declined and the
gentry
and merchant classes increased in influence, the
shires
and
boroughs
were recognised as
communes
(Latin
communitas
) with a unified constituency capable of being represented by
knights of the shire
and
burgesses
. Initially, knights and burgesses were summoned only when new taxes were proposed so that representatives of the communes (or "the Commons") could report back home that taxes were lawfully granted.
The Commons were not regularly summoned until the 1290s,
[26]
after the so-called "
Model Parliament
" of 1295. Of the thirty parliaments between 1274 and 1294, knights only attended four and burgesses only two.
Early parliaments increasingly brought together social classes resembling the
estates of the realm
of continental Europe: the landed aristocracy (barons and knights), the clergy, and the towns. Historian
John Maddicott
points out that "the main division within parliament was less between lords and commons than between the landed and all others, lower clergy as well as burgesses".
Specialists could be summoned to Parliament to provide expert advice. For example,
Roman law
experts were summoned from
Cambridge
and
Oxford
to the Norham parliament of 1291 to advise on the
disputed Scottish succession
. At the Bury St Edmunds parliament of 1296, burgesses "who best know how to plan and lay out a certain new town" were summoned to advise on the rebuilding of
Berwick
after
its capture
by the English.
Early functions and powers
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Parliament?or the "High Court of Parliament" as it became known?was England's highest court of justice. A large amount of its business involved judicial questions referred to it by ministers, judges, and other government officials.
Many
petitions
were submitted to Parliament by individuals whose grievances were not satisfied through normal administrative or judicial channels.
As the number of petitions increased, they came to be directed to particular departments (chancery, exchequer, the courts) leaving the king's council to concentrate on the most important business. Parliament became "a delivery point and a sorting house for petitions".
From 1290 to 1307,
Gilbert of Rothbury
was placed in charge of organising parliamentary business and recordkeeping?in effect a
clerk of the parliaments
.
Kings could legislate outside of Parliament through legislative
acta
(administrative orders drafted by the king's council as
letters patent
or
letters close
) and
writs
drafted by the chancery in response to particular court cases.
But kings could also use Parliament to promulgate legislation. Parliament's legislative role was largely passive?the actual work of law-making was done by the king and council, specifically the judges on the council who drafted statutes.
Completed legislation was then presented to Parliament for ratification.
Kings needed Parliament to fund their military campaigns.
On the basis of Magna Carta, Parliament asserted for itself the right to consent to taxation, and a pattern developed in which the king would make concessions (such as reaffirming liberties in Magna Carta) in return for tax grants.
Withholding taxation was Parliament's main tool in disputes with the king. Nevertheless, the king was still able to raise lesser amounts of revenue from sources that did not require parliamentary consent, such as:
Henry III
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Henry III
(
r.
1216?1272) became king at nine years old after his father, King John, died during the
First Barons' War
. During the king's minority, England was ruled by a
regency
government that relied heavily on great councils to legitimise its actions. Great councils even consented to the appointment of royal ministers, an action that normally was considered a
royal prerogative
. Historian
John Maddicott
writes that the "effect of the minority was thus to make the great council an indispensable part of the country's government [and] to give it a degree of independent initiative and authority which central assemblies had never previously possessed".
The regency government officially ended when Henry turned sixteen in 1223, and the magnates demanded the adult king confirm previous grants of Magna Carta made in 1216 and 1217 to ensure their legality. At the same time, the king needed money to defend his possessions in
Poitou
and
Gascony
from a French invasion. At a great council in 1225, a deal was reached that saw Magna Carta and the
Charter of the Forest
reissued in return for taxing a fifteenth (7 percent) of movable property. This set a precedent that taxation was granted in return for the redress of grievances.
Ministers and finances
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In 1232,
Peter des Roches
became the king's chief minister. His nephew,
Peter de Rivaux
, accumulated a large number of offices, including
lord keeper of the privy seal
and
keeper of the wardrobe
; yet, these appointments were not approved by the magnates as had become customary during the regency government. Under Roches, the government revived practices used during King John's reign and that had been condemned in Magna Carta, such as arbitrary
disseisins
, revoking perpetual rights granted in royal charters, depriving heirs of their inheritances, and marrying heiresses to foreigners.
Both Roches and Rivaux were foreigners from
Poitou
. The rise of a royal administration controlled by foreigners and dependent solely on the king stirred resentment among the magnates, who felt excluded from power. Several barons rose in rebellion, and the bishops intervened to persuade the king to change ministers. At a great council in April 1234, the king agreed to remove Rivaux and other ministers. This was the first occasion in which a king was forced to change his ministers by a great council or parliament. The struggle between king and Parliament over ministers became a permanent feature of English politics.
Thereafter, the king ruled in concert with an active Parliament, which considered matters related to foreign policy, taxation, justice, administration, and legislation. January 1236 saw the passage of the
Statute of Merton
, the first English
statute
. Among other things, the law continued barring
bastards
from inheritance. Significantly, the language of the preamble describes the legislation as "provided" by the magnates and "conceded" by the king, which implies that this was not simply a royal measure consented to by the barons.
In 1237, Henry asked Parliament for a tax to fund his sister
Isabella's
dowry. The barons were unenthusiastic, but they granted the funds in return for the king's promise to reconfirm Magna Carta, add three magnates to his personal council, limit the royal prerogative of
purveyance
, and protect land tenure rights.
But Henry was adamant that three concerns were exclusively within his royal prerogative: family and inheritance matters, patronage, and appointments. Important decisions were made without consulting Parliament, such as in 1254 when the king accepted the throne of the
Kingdom of Sicily
for his younger son,
Edmund Crouchback
.
He also clashed with Parliament over appointments to the three great offices of
chancellor
,
justiciar
, and
treasurer
. The barons believed these three offices should be restraints on royal misgovernment, but the king promoted minor officials within the
royal household
who owed their loyalty exclusively to him.
In 1253, while fighting in Gascony, Henry requested men and money to resist an anticipated attack from
Alfonso X of Castile
. In a January 1254 Parliament, the bishops themselves promised an aid but would not commit the rest of the clergy. Likewise, the barons promised to assist the king if he was attacked but would not commit the rest of the laity to pay money.
For this reason, the lower clergy of each
diocese
elected proctors at church
synods
, and each county elected two
knights of the shire
. These representatives were summoned to Parliament in April 1254 to consent to taxation.
The men elected as shire knights were prominent landholders with experience in local government and as soldiers.
They were elected by barons, other knights, and probably
freeholders
of sufficient standing.
Baronial reform movement
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By 1258, the relationship between the king and the baronage had reached a breaking point over the "Sicilian Business", in which Henry had promised to pay papal debts in return for the pope's help securing the Sicilian crown for his son, Edmund. At the
Oxford Parliament of 1258
, reform-minded barons forced a reluctant king to accept a constitutional framework known as the
Provisions of Oxford
:
- The king was to govern according to the advice of an elected council of fifteen barons.
- The baronial council appointed royal ministers (justiciar, treasurer, chancellor) to serve for one-year terms.
- Parliament met three times a year on the
octave
of
Michaelmas
(October 6),
Candlemas
(February 3), and June 1.
- The barons elected twelve representatives (two bishops, one earl and nine barons) who together with the baronial council could act on legislation and other matters even when Parliament was not in session as "a kind of standing parliamentary committee".
Parliament now met regularly according to a schedule rather than at the pleasure of the king. The reformers hoped that the provisions would ensure parliamentary approval for all major government acts. Under the provisions, Parliament was "established formally (and no longer merely by custom) as the voice of the community".
The theme of reform dominated later parliaments. During the Michaelmas Parliament of 1258, the
Ordinance of Sheriffs
was issued as
letters patent
that forbade sheriffs from taking bribes. At the Candlemas Parliament of 1259, the baronial council and the twelve representatives enacted the
Ordinance of the Magnates
. In this ordinance, the barons promised to observe Magna Carta and other reforming legislation. They also required their own bailiffs to observe similar rules as those of royal sheriffs, and the justiciar was given power to correct abuses of their officials. The Michaelmas Parliament of 1259 enacted the
Provisions of Westminster
, a set of legal and administrative reforms designed to address grievances of freeholders and even
villeins
, such as abuses related to the
murdrum
fine.
Henry III made his first move against the baronial reformers while in France negotiating peace with
Louis IX
. Using the excuse of his absence from the realm and Welsh attacks in the marches, Henry ordered the justiciar,
Hugh Bigod
, to postpone the parliament scheduled for Candlemas 1260. This was an apparent violation of the Provisions of Oxford; however, the provisions were silent on what should happen if the king were outside the kingdom. The king's motive was to prevent the promulgation of further reforms through Parliament.
Simon de Montfort
, a leader of the baronial reformers, ignored these orders and made plans to hold a parliament in London but was prevented by Bigod. When the king arrived back in England he summoned a parliament which met in July, where Montfort was brought to trial though ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.
In April 1261, the pope released the king from his oath to adhere to the Provisions of Oxford, and Henry publicly renounced the Provisions in May. Most of the barons were willing to let the king reassume power provided he ruled well. By 1262, Henry had regained all of his authority, and Montfort left England. The barons were now divided mainly by age. The elder barons remained loyal to the king, but younger barons coalesced around Montfort, who returned to England in the spring of 1263.
Montfortian parliaments
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The royalist barons and rebel barons fought each other in the
Second Barons' War
. Montfort defeated the king at the
Battle of Lewes
in 1264 and became the real ruler of England for the next twelve months. Montfort held a parliament in June 1264 to sanction a new form of government and rally support. This parliament was notable for including knights of the shire who were expected to deliberate fully on political matters, not just assent to taxation.
The June Parliament approved a new constitution in which the king's powers were given to a council of nine. The new council was chosen and led by three electors (Montfort,
Stephen Bersted, bishop of Chichester
, and
Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester
). The electors could replace any of the nine as they saw fit, but the electors themselves could only be removed by Parliament.
Montfort held two other Parliaments during his time in power. The most famous?
Simon de Montfort's Parliament
?was held in January 1265 amidst threat of a French invasion and unrest throughout the realm. For the first time,
burgesses
(elected by those residents of
boroughs
or towns who held
burgage tenure
, such as wealthy merchants or craftsmen)
were summoned along with knights of the shire.
Montfort was killed at the
Battle of Evesham
in 1265, and Henry was restored to power. In August 1266, Parliament authorised the
Dictum of Kenilworth
, which nullified everything Montfort had done and removed all restraints on the king.
In 1267, some of the reforms contained in the 1259 Provisions of Westminster were revised in the form of the
Statute of Marlborough
passed in 1267. This was the start of a process of statutory reform that continued into the reign of Henry's successor.
Edward I
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Edward I
(
r.
1272?1307
) learned from the failures of his father's reign the usefulness of Parliament for building consensus and strengthening royal authority.
Parliaments were held regularly throughout his reign, generally twice a year at Easter in the spring and after Michaelmas in the autumn.
Under Edward, the first major statutes amending the
common law
were promulgated in Parliament:
The first Statute of Westminster required
free elections
without intimidation. This act was accompanied by the grant of a tax on
England's wealthy wool trade
?a half-
mark
(6
s
8
d
) on each sack of wool exported. It became known as the
magna et antiqua custuma
(Latin: "great and ancient custom") and was granted to Edward and his heirs, becoming part of the Crown's permanent revenue until the 17th century.
Model Parliament
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In 1294,
Philip
IV
attempted to recover
Aquitaine
in the
Gascon War
. Edward's need for money to finance the war led him to take arbitrary measures. He ordered the seizure of merchants' wool, which was only released after payment of the unpopular
maltolt
, a tax never authorised by Parliament. Church wealth was arbitrarily seized, and the clergy were further asked to give half of their revenues to the king. They refused but agreed to a smaller sum. Over the next couple years, parliaments approved new taxes, but it was never enough. More money was needed to put down
a Welsh rebellion
and win the
First War of Scottish Independence
.
This need for money led to what became known as the "Model Parliament" of November 1295. In addition to magnates who were summoned individually, sheriffs were instructed to send two elected knights from each shire and two elected burgesses from each borough. The Commons had been summoned to earlier parliaments but only with power to consent to what the magnates decided. In the Model Parliament, the writ of summons invested shire knights and burgesses with power to provide both counsel and consent.
Crisis of 1297
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By 1296, the King's efforts to recover Gascony were creating resentment among the clergy, merchants, and magnates. At the Bury St Edmunds parliament in 1296, the lay magnates and Commons agreed to pay a tax on moveable property. The clergy refused, citing the recent papal bull
Clericis Laicos
, forbidding secular rulers from taxing the church without papal permission. In January 1297, a
convocation
of the clergy met at
St Paul's
in London to consider the matter further but ultimately could find no way to pay the tax without violating the papal bull.
In retaliation, the King
outlawed
the clergy and confiscated clerical property on 30 January. On 10 February,
Robert Winchelsey
, archbishop of Canterbury, responded by
excommunicating
anyone acting against
Clericis Laicos
.
Most clergy paid a fine for the restoration of their property that was identical to the tax requested by the King.
At the Salisbury parliament of March 1297, Edward unveiled his plans for recovering Gascony. The English would mount a two-front attack with the King leading an
expedition to Flanders
while other barons
traveled to Gascony
. This plan faced opposition from the most important noblemen?
Roger Bigod
,
marshal
and
earl of Norfolk
, and
Humphrey Bohun
,
constable
and
earl of Hereford
. Norfolk and Hereford argued that they owed the king military service in foreign lands but only if the king were present. Therefore, they would not go to Gascony unless the King went as well. Norfolk and Hereford were supported by around 30 barons, and the parliament ended without any decision. After the Salisbury parliament ended, Edward ordered the seizure of wool
(see
prise
)
and payment of a new maltolt.
In July 1297, a writ declared that "the earls, barons, knights, and other laity of our realm" had granted a tax on moveables. In reality, this grant was not made by a parliament but by an informal gathering "standing around in [the king's] chamber".
Norfolk and Hereford drew up a list of grievances known as the
Remonstrances
, which criticized the king's demand for military service and heavy taxes. The maltolt and prises were particularly objectionable due to their arbitrary nature.
In August, Bigod and de Bohun arrived at the exchequer protesting that the irregular tax "was never granted by them or the community" and declared they would not pay it.
The outbreak of the
First War of Scottish Independence
necessitated that both the king and his opponents put aside their differences. At the October 1297 parliament, the council agreed to concessions in the king's absence. In exchange for a new tax, the
Confirmatio Cartarum
reconfirmed Magna Carta, abolished the maltolt, and formally recognised that "aids,
mises
, and prises" needed the consent of Parliament.
Later reign
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Edward soon broke the agreements of 1297, and his relations with Parliament remained strained for the rest of his reign as he sought further funds for the war in Scotland. At the parliament of March 1300, the king was forced to agree to the
Articuli Super Cartas
, which gave further concessions to his subjects.
At the Lincoln parliament of 1301, the King heard complaints that the charters were not followed and calls for the dismissal of his chief minister, the treasurer
Walter Langton
. Demands for appointment of ministers by "common consent" were heard for the first time since Henry III's death. To this, Edward angrily refused, saying that every other magnate in England had the power "to arrange his household, to appoint bailiffs and stewards" without outside interference. He did offer to right any wrongs his officials had committed.
Notably, the petition on behalf of "the prelates and leading men of the kingdom acting for the whole community" was presented by
Henry de Keighley
, knight for
Lanchashire
. This indicates that knights were holding greater weight in Parliament.
The last four parliaments of Edward's' reign were less contentious. With Scotland nearly conquered, royal finances improved and opposition to royal policies decreased. A number of petitions were considered at the parliament of February 1305 included ones related to crime. In response, Edward issued the
trailbaston
ordinance. The state trial of
Nicholas Seagrave
was conducted as part of this parliament as well. Harmonious relations continued between king and Parliament even after December 1305 when Pope
Clement V
absolved the King of his oath to adhere to
Confirmatio Cartarum
. The last parliament of the reign was held at Carlisle in 1307. It approved the marriage of the King's son to
Isabella of France
. Legislation attacking
papal provisions
and papal taxation was also ratified.
14th century
[
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]
Edward II (1307?1327)
[
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]
One of the moments that marked the emergence of parliament as a true institution in England was the
deposition of Edward II
in January 1327. Even though it is debatable whether
Edward II
was deposed
in
parliament or
by
parliament, this remarkable sequence of events consolidated the importance of parliament in the English unwritten constitution.
Parliament
was also crucial in establishing the legitimacy of the king who replaced Edward II: his son
Edward III
.
Edward III (1327?1377)
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]
In 1341 the Commons met separately from the nobility and clergy for the first time, creating what was effectively an Upper Chamber and a Lower Chamber, with the knights and burgesses sitting in the latter. This Upper Chamber became known as the
House of Lords
from 1544 onward, and the Lower Chamber became known as the
House of Commons
, collectively known as the
Houses of Parliament
.
The authority of parliament grew under Edward III; it was established that no law could be made, nor any tax levied, without the consent of both Houses and the Sovereign. This development occurred during the reign of Edward III because he was involved in the
Hundred Years' War
and needed finances. During his conduct of the war, Edward tried to circumvent parliament as much as possible, which caused this power structure to emerge.
The Commons came to act with increasing boldness during this period. During the
Good Parliament
of 1376, the Presiding Officer of the lower chamber,
Peter de la Mare
, complained of heavy taxes, demanded an accounting of the royal expenditures, and criticised the king's management of the military. The Commons even proceeded to
impeach
some of the king's ministers. The bold Speaker was imprisoned, but was soon released after the death of Edward III.
Richard II (1377?1399)
[
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]
During the reign of the next monarch,
Richard II
, the Commons once again began to impeach errant ministers of the Crown. They insisted that they could control not only taxation but also public expenditure. Despite such gains in authority, however, the Commons still remained much less powerful than the House of Lords and the Crown.
15th century
[
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]
This period saw the introduction of a
franchise
which limited the number of people who could vote in elections to the House of Commons. From 1430 onwards, the franchise for the election of
knights of the shires
in the
county constituencies
was limited to
forty-shilling freeholders
, meaning men who owned freehold property worth forty shillings (two pounds) or more. The Parliament of England legislated for this new uniform county franchise in the statute
8 Hen. 6
. c. 7. The
Chronological Table of the Statutes
does not mention such a 1430 law, as it was included in the Consolidated Statutes as a recital in the
Electors of Knights of the Shire Act 1432
(
10 Hen. 6
. c. 2), which amended and re-enacted the 1430 law to make clear that the resident of a county had to have a forty shilling freehold in that county to be a voter there.
Tudor era (1485?1603)
[
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]
During the reign of the
Tudor monarchs
, it is often argued that the modern structure of the English Parliament began to be created. The Tudor monarchy, according to historian
J. E. Neale
, was powerful, and there were often periods of several years when parliament did not sit at all. However, the Tudor monarchs realised that they needed parliament to legitimise many of their decisions, mostly out of a need to raise money through taxation legitimately without causing discontent. Thus they consolidated the state of affairs whereby monarchs would call and close parliament as and when they needed it. However, if monarchs did not call Parliament for several years, it is clear the Monarch did not require Parliament except to perhaps strengthen and provide a mandate for their reforms to Religion which had always been a matter within the Crown's prerogative but would require the consent of the Bishopric and Commons.
By the time of the Tudor monarch
Henry VII
's 1485 coronation, the monarch was not a member of either the Upper Chamber or the Lower Chamber. Consequently, the monarch would have to make his or her feelings known to Parliament through his or her supporters in both houses. Proceedings were regulated by the presiding officer in either chamber.
From the 1540s the presiding officer in the House of Commons became formally known as the "
Speaker
", having previously been referred to as the "prolocutor" or "parlour" (a semi-official position, often nominated by the monarch, that had existed ever since
Peter de Montfort
had acted as the presiding officer of the
Oxford Parliament of 1258
). This was not an enviable job. When the House of Commons was unhappy it was the Speaker who had to deliver this news to the monarch. This began the tradition whereby the Speaker of the House of Commons is dragged to the Speaker's Chair by other members once elected.
A member of either chamber could present a "
bill
" to parliament. Bills supported by the monarch were often proposed by members of the
Privy Council
who sat in parliament. For a bill to become law it would have to be approved by a majority of both Houses of Parliament before it passed to the monarch for
royal assent
or
veto
. The royal veto was applied several times during the 16th and 17th centuries and it is still the right of the monarch of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms to veto legislation today, although it has not been exercised since 1707 (today such an exercise might precipitate some form of
constitutional crisis
).
When a bill was enacted into law, this process gave it the approval of each estate of the realm: the King, Lords and Commons. The Parliament of England was far from being a democratically representative institution in this period. It was possible to assemble the entire peerage and senior clergy of the realm in one place to form the estate of the Upper Chamber.
The voting franchise for the House of Commons was small; some historians
[
who?
]
estimate that it was as little as three per cent of the adult male population; and there was no secret ballot. Elections could therefore be controlled by local
grandees
, because in many boroughs a majority of voters were in some way dependent on a powerful individual, or else could be bought by money or concessions. If these grandees were supporters of the incumbent monarch, this gave the Crown and its ministers considerable influence over the business of parliament.
Many of the men elected to parliament did not relish the prospect of having to act in the interests of others.
[
citation needed
]
So a law was enacted, still on the statute book today, whereby it became unlawful for members of the House of Commons to
resign their seat
unless they were granted a position directly within the patronage of the monarchy (today this latter restriction leads to a
legal fiction
allowing
de facto
resignation despite the prohibition, but nevertheless it is a resignation which needs the permission of the Crown). However, while several elections to parliament in this period would be considered corrupt by modern standards, many elections involved genuine contests between rival candidates, even though the ballot was not secret.
Establishment of permanent seat
[
edit
]
It was in this period that the
Palace of Westminster
was established as the seat of the English Parliament. In 1548, the House of Commons was granted a regular meeting place by the Crown,
St Stephen's Chapel
. This had been a royal chapel. It was made into a debating chamber after
Henry VIII
became the last monarch to use the Palace of Westminster as a place of residence and after the suppression of the college there.
This room was the home of the House of Commons until it was destroyed by fire in 1834, although the interior was altered several times up until then. The structure of this room was pivotal in the development of the Parliament of England. While most modern legislatures sit in a circular chamber, the benches of the British Houses of Parliament are laid out in the form of choir stalls in a chapel, simply because this is the part of the original room that the members of the House of Commons used when they were granted use of St Stephen's Chapel.
This structure took on a new significance with the emergence of political parties in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as the tradition began whereby the members of the governing party would sit on the benches to the right of the Speaker and the opposition members on the benches to the left. It is said that the Speaker's chair was placed in front of the chapel's altar. As Members came and went they observed the custom of bowing to the altar and continued to do so, even when it had been taken away, thus then bowing to the Chair, as is still the custom today.
The numbers of the
Lords Spiritual
diminished under Henry VIII, who commanded the
Dissolution of the Monasteries
, thereby depriving the abbots and priors of their seats in the Upper House. For the first time, the
Lords Temporal
were more numerous than the Lords Spiritual. Currently, the Lords Spiritual consist of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, and twenty-one other English diocesan bishops in seniority of appointment to a diocese.
The
Laws in Wales Acts
of 1535?42 annexed
Wales
as part of England and this brought Welsh representatives into the Parliament of England, first elected in 1542.
Rebellion and revolution
[
edit
]
Parliament had not always submitted to the wishes of the Tudor monarchs. But parliamentary criticism of the monarchy reached new levels in the 17th century. When the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, died in 1603, King James VI of Scotland came to power as King James I, founding the Stuart monarchy.
In 1628, alarmed by the arbitrary exercise of royal power, the House of Commons submitted to
Charles I
the
Petition of Right
, demanding the restoration of their liberties. Though he accepted the petition, Charles later dissolved parliament and ruled without them for eleven years. It was only after the financial disaster of the Scottish
Bishops' Wars
(1639?1640) that he was forced to recall Parliament so that they could authorise new taxes. This resulted in the calling of the assemblies known historically as the
Short Parliament
of 1640 and the
Long Parliament
, which sat with several breaks and in various forms between 1640 and 1660.
The Long Parliament was characterised by the growing number of critics of the king who sat in it. The most prominent of these critics in the House of Commons was
John Pym
. Tensions between the king and his parliament reached a boiling point in January 1642 when Charles entered the House of Commons and tried, unsuccessfully, to arrest Pym and four other members for their alleged treason. The
Five Members
had been tipped off about this, and by the time Charles came into the chamber with a group of soldiers they had disappeared. Charles was further humiliated when he asked the Speaker,
William Lenthall
, to give their whereabouts, which Lenthall famously refused to do.
From then on relations between the king and his parliament deteriorated further. When trouble started to brew in Ireland, both Charles and his parliament raised armies to quell the uprisings by native Catholics there. It was not long before it was clear that these forces would end up fighting each other, leading to the
English Civil War
which began with the
Battle of Edgehill
in October 1642: those supporting the cause of parliament were called Parliamentarians (or
Roundheads
), and those in support of the Crown were called Royalists (or
Cavaliers
).
Battles between Crown and Parliament continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, but parliament was no longer subservient to the English monarchy. This change was symbolised in the execution of
Charles I
in January 1649.
In
Pride's Purge
of December 1648, the
New Model Army
(which by then had emerged as the leading force in the parliamentary alliance) purged Parliament of members that did not support them. The remaining "
Rump Parliament
", as it was later referred to by critics, enacted legislation to put the king on trial for treason. This trial, the outcome of which was a foregone conclusion, led to the execution of the king and the start of an 11-year republic.
The House of Lords was abolished and the purged House of Commons governed England until April 1653, when army chief
Oliver Cromwell
dissolved it after disagreements over religious policy and how to carry out elections to parliament. Cromwell later convened a parliament of religious radicals in 1653, commonly known as
Barebone's Parliament
, followed by the unicameral
First Protectorate Parliament
that sat from September 1654 to January 1655 and the
Second Protectorate Parliament
that sat in two sessions between 1656 and 1658, the first session was unicameral and the second session was bicameral.
Although it is easy to dismiss the English Republic of 1649?60 as nothing more than a Cromwellian military dictatorship, the events that took place in this decade were hugely important in determining the future of parliament. First, it was during the sitting of the first Rump Parliament that members of the House of Commons became known as "MPs" (Members of Parliament). Second, Cromwell gave a huge degree of freedom to his parliaments, although royalists were barred from sitting in all but a handful of cases.
Cromwell's vision of parliament appears to have been largely based on the example of the Elizabethan parliaments. However, he underestimated the extent to which Elizabeth I and her ministers had directly and indirectly influenced the decision-making process of her parliaments. He was thus always surprised when they became troublesome. He ended up dissolving each parliament that he convened. Yet the structure of the second session of the Second Protectorate Parliament of 1658 was almost identical to the parliamentary structure consolidated in the
Glorious Revolution
Settlement of 1689.
In 1653 Cromwell had been made head of state with the title Lord Protector of the Realm. The Second Protectorate Parliament offered him the crown. Cromwell rejected this offer, but the governmental structure embodied in the final version of the
Humble Petition and Advice
was a basis for all future parliaments. It proposed an elected House of Commons as the Lower Chamber, a House of Lords containing peers of the realm as the Upper Chamber. A constitutional monarchy, subservient to parliament and the laws of the nation, would act as the executive arm of the state at the top of the tree, assisted in carrying out their duties by a Privy Council. Oliver Cromwell had thus inadvertently presided over the creation of a basis for the future parliamentary government of England. In 1657 he had the
Parliament of Scotland
(temporarily) unified with the English Parliament.
In terms of the evolution of parliament as an institution, by far the most important development during the republic was the sitting of the Rump Parliament between 1649 and 1653. This proved that parliament could survive without a monarchy and a House of Lords if it wanted to. Future English monarchs would never forget this. Charles I was the last English monarch ever to enter the House of Commons.
Even to this day, a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sent to
Buckingham Palace
as a ceremonial hostage during the
State Opening of Parliament
, in order to ensure the safe return of the sovereign from a potentially hostile parliament. During the ceremony the monarch sits on the throne in the House of Lords and signals for the
Lord Great Chamberlain
to summon the House of Commons to the Lords Chamber. The Lord Great Chamberlain then raises his wand of office to signal to the
Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod
, who has been waiting in the central lobby. Black Rod turns and, escorted by the
doorkeeper
of the House of Lords and an inspector of police, approaches the doors to the chamber of the Commons. The doors are slammed in his face?symbolising the right of the Commons to debate without the presence of the monarch's representative. He then strikes three times with his staff (the Black Rod), and he is admitted.
Parliament from the Restoration to the Act of Settlement
[
edit
]
The revolutionary events that occurred between 1620 and 1689 all took place in the name of Parliament. The new status of Parliament as the central governmental organ of the English state was consolidated during the events surrounding the
Restoration
of the monarchy in 1660.
After the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658, his son
Richard Cromwell
succeeded him as Lord Protector, summoning the
Third Protectorate Parliament
in the process. When this parliament was dissolved under pressure from the army in April 1659, the Rump Parliament was recalled at the insistence of the surviving army grandees. This in turn was dissolved in a coup led by army general
John Lambert
, leading to the formation of the
Committee of Safety
, dominated by Lambert and his supporters.
When the breakaway forces of
George Monck
invaded England from Scotland, where they had been stationed without Lambert's supporters putting up a fight, Monck temporarily recalled the Rump Parliament and reversed
Pride's Purge
by recalling the entirety of the Long Parliament. They then voted to dissolve themselves and call new elections, which were arguably the most democratic for 20 years although the franchise was still very small. This led to the calling of the
Convention Parliament
which was dominated by royalists. This parliament voted to reinstate the monarchy and the House of Lords.
Charles II
returned to England as king in May 1660. The Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union that Cromwell had established was dissolved in 1661 when the Scottish Parliament resumed its separate meeting place in Edinburgh.
The Restoration began the tradition whereby all governments looked to parliament for legitimacy. In 1681 Charles II dissolved parliament and ruled without them for the last four years of his reign. This followed bitter disagreements between the king and parliament that had occurred between 1679 and 1681. Charles took a big gamble by doing this. He risked the possibility of a military showdown akin to that of 1642. However, he rightly predicted that the nation did not want another civil war. Parliament disbanded without a fight. Events that followed ensured that this would be nothing but a temporary blip.
Charles II died in 1685 and he was succeeded by his brother
James II
. During his lifetime Charles had always pledged loyalty to the Protestant Church of England, despite his private Catholic sympathies. James was openly Catholic. He attempted to lift restrictions on Catholics taking up public offices. This was bitterly opposed by Protestants in his kingdom. They invited
William of Orange
,
a Protestant who had married Mary, daughter of James II and
Anne Hyde
to invade England and claim the throne.
William assembled an army estimated at 15,000 soldiers (11,000 foot and 4000 horse)
and landed at
Brixham
in southwest England in November, 1688. When many Protestant officers, including James's close adviser,
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
, defected from the English army to William's invasion force, James fled the country. Parliament then offered the Crown to his Protestant daughter
Mary
, instead of his infant son (
James Francis Edward Stuart
), who was baptised Catholic. Mary refused the offer, and instead William and Mary ruled jointly, with both having the right to rule alone on the other's death.
As part of the compromise in allowing William to be King?called the
Glorious Revolution
?Parliament was able to have the 1689
Bill of Rights
enacted. Later the 1701
Act of Settlement
was approved. These were statutes that lawfully upheld the prominence of parliament for the first time in English history. These events marked the beginning of the
English constitutional monarchy
and its role as one of the three elements of parliament.
Union: the Parliament of Great Britain
[
edit
]
After the
Treaty of Union
in 1707, acts of Parliament passed in both the Parliament of England and the
Parliament of Scotland
created a new
Kingdom of Great Britain
and dissolved both parliaments, replacing them with a new
Parliament of Great Britain
based in the former home of the English parliament. The Parliament of Great Britain later became the
Parliament of the United Kingdom
in 1801 when the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
was formed through the
Acts of Union 1800
.
Acts of Parliament
[
edit
]
Specific acts of Parliament can be found at the following articles:
Locations
[
edit
]
Other than London, Parliament was also held in the following cities:
- York
, various
- Lincoln
, various
- Oxford
, 1258 (
Mad Parliament
), 1681
- Kenilworth
, 1266
- Acton Burnell Castle
, 1283
[89]
- Shrewsbury
, 1283 (trial of
Dafydd ap Gruffydd
), 1397 (
'Great' Parliament
)
- Carlisle
, 1307
- Oswestry Castle
, 1398
- Northampton
1328
- New Sarum (
Salisbury
), 1330
- Winchester
, 1332, 1449
- Leicester
, 1414 (
Fire and Faggot Parliament
), 1426 (
Parliament of Bats
)
- Reading Abbey
, 1453
- Coventry
, 1459 (
Parliament of Devils
)
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
These were small landholders, perhaps owning no more than one or two
manors
, and were often described as
knights
in the sources.
References
[
edit
]
Bibliography
[
edit
]
- Baker, Darren (24 September 2019).
"When Was Parliament First Summoned and First Prorogued?"
.
History Hit
.
Archived
from the original on 16 April 2024
. Retrieved
16 April
2024
.
- Bartlett, Robert
(2000).
England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075-1225
.
New Oxford History of England
. Clarendon Press.
ISBN
9780199251018
.
- Brand, Paul
(2009). "The Development of Parliament, 1215?1307". In Jones, Clyve (ed.).
A Short History of Parliament: England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland
. The Boydell Press. pp. 10?15.
ISBN
978-1-843-83717-6
.
- Butt, Ronald
(1989).
A History of Parliament: The Middle Ages
. London: Constable.
ISBN
0-0945-6220-2
.
- Green, Judith A.
(1986).
The Government of England under Henry I
. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
doi
:
10.1017/CBO9780511560248
.
ISBN
9780511560248
.
- Huscroft, Richard (2016).
Ruling England, 1042?1217
(2nd ed.). Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-138-78655-4
.
- Jolliffe, J. E. A. (1961).
The Constitutional History of Medieval England from the English Settlement to 1485
(4th ed.). Adams and Charles Black.
- Jones, Dan
(2012).
The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England
(revised ed.). Penguin Books.
ISBN
978-1-101-60628-5
.
- Lyon, Ann (2016).
Constitutional History of the UK
(2nd ed.). Routledge.
ISBN
978-1-317-20398-8
.
- Maddicott, John
(2009). "Origins and Beginnings to 1215". In Jones, Clyve (ed.).
A Short History of Parliament: England, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Scotland
. The Boydell Press. pp. 3?9.
ISBN
978-1-843-83717-6
.
- Maddicott, J. R.
(2010).
The Origins of the English Parliament, 924?1327
. Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-199-58550-2
.
- Powell, J. Enoch
; Wallis, Keith (1968).
The House of Lords in the Middle Ages: A History of the English House of Lords to 1540
. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
ISBN
0-2977-6105-6
.
- Richardson, H. G.
;
Sayles, G. O.
(1963).
The Governance of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta
. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
- Richardson, H. G.
;
Sayles, G. O.
(1981).
The English Parliament in the Middle Ages
. London: Hambledon Press.
ISBN
0950688215
.
- Sayles, George O.
(1974).
The King's Parliament of England
. Historical Controversies. W.W. Norton & Company.
ISBN
0-3930-9322-0
.
- Troost, Wouter (2005).
William III, the Stadholder-King: A Political Biography
. Translated by Grayson, J. C. Ashgate.
ISBN
0-7546-5071-5
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Blackstone, William
(1765).
Commentaries on the Laws of England
. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Chisholm, Hugh
(1911).
"Parliament"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). pp. 835?849.
- Fryde, E. B.;
Miller, Edward
, eds. (1970).
Historical Studies of the English Parliament
. Vol. 1, Origins to 1399. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
0-521-09610-3
.
- Fryde, E. B.;
Miller, Edward
, eds. (1970).
Historical Studies of the English Parliament
. Vol. 2, 1399 to 1603. Cambridge University Press.
ISBN
0-521-09611-1
.
- Spufford, Peter
(1967).
Origins of the English Parliament
. Problems and Perspectives in History. Barnes & Noble, Inc.
- Thompson, Faith (1953).
A Short History of Parliament: 1295?1642
. University of Minnesota Press.
ISBN
978-0816664672
.
OCLC
646750148
.
External links
[
edit
]