Parliament

For more information on Parliament, visit Britannica.com.

Parliament

English Parliament

Parliament is a servant which became a master. It originated with three royal needs; the need of monarchs to obtain advice and information; the realization that subjects were more likely to pay taxes if they knew what they were for; and the need to find some way of dealing with grievances and petitions. The third function of Parliament gradually atrophied as, in the Middle Ages, an elaborate network of local and national courts was established, though the concept of the High Court of Parliament survived in the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords.

In a general sense, Parliament may be traced back to the Saxon witan and the Norman council, each of which included the chief men of the realm. But the development of Parliament as a wider, national body, with a representative element, reflects the incessant demands of government for more money. Feudal dues were intended to be exceptional—for the king's marriage, his ransom, or the knighting of his son—but chronic warfare demanded ever-increasing taxation and made it impossible for the king to ‘live of his own’.

In Saxon and Norman times, a good deal of public business was done at crown-wearings, ceremonial occasions at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun. Since the great men were expected to attend to show respect, it was easy to consult them. In the course of the 13th cent., these meetings came to be referred to as discussions—colloquia or parliamenta. But though their purpose was to assist the king, they could also be turned against an unpopular or unsuccessful monarch. In December 1203 John left Normandy to seek urgent help from his barons at Oxford in saving the duchy: they promised obedience but demanded ‘the rights of the kingdom inviolate’. In 1257, when Henry III was absent fighting in Gascony, his regents called another council to appeal for money. Though they augmented the barons with representatives of the lower clergy and two knights from each shire, the money was not forthcoming. During the conflict between Simon de Montfort's party and the king, each side used Parliament in turn: de Montfort's Parliament in January 1265 included both knights and members from certain boroughs.

By this time, Parliament was becoming a familiar institution, but its composition still varied considerably. The lesser clergy, summoned for the first time in 1257, attended irregularly thereafter, and then dropped out, using convocation instead. Edward I's ‘Model’ Parliament of 1295 totalled more than 400 members. Though not a model in the sense that its composition was subsequently adhered to, it was very different from a small council of 40 to 50 members.

We must not however exaggerate the importance of Parliament at this stage. Attendances were not always good, partly because travel was difficult, partly because involvement was not always welcome. Sessions were short—sometimes no more than a week. But the Commons were beginning to assert themselves. Taxation, which had been voted jointly, was said in the reign of Henry IV to be by the Commons ‘with the assent of the Lords’—a significant change.

The Tudor period saw a great leap forward, the power of Parliament and that of the monarchy advancing together. Henry VIII's use of Parliament to regulate the succession and to reform the church strengthened its authority and the elimination of the abbots from the Upper House left the lay lords in a strong majority. In 1536, the Act of Union brought the principality of Wales into Parliament's range. Yet, by and large, it remained under royal control. During Elizabeth's reign there were signs of restiveness, but in the last ten years of her reign, Parliament was in existence for only some seven months.

In the course of the 17th cent. Parliament made a decisive breakthrough. The ineptitude of James I and Charles I led in 1642 to civil war. But the result was stalemate. The restoration of the monarchy in 1660 could be seen as proof that, as kings had always argued, it was the bulwark against anarchy or despotism. Yet Parliament in 1660 was far from discredited. It had demonstrated a remarkable capacity to improvise in government and to wage war, and an important part of Charles II's appeal from exile had been his promise to summon a free parliament. Even so, relations with parliaments during the rest of his reign were often fraught. The balance tipped in 1688. After James II's flight, the House of Commons took advantage of the situation to improve its position in relation to the new monarchs. The financial settlement given William III was deliberately ungenerous: ‘when princes have not needed money, ’ declared Sir Joseph Williamson, with great candour, ‘they have not needed us.’Twenty-five years of almost continuous warfare guaranteed annual sessions and assured Parliament of a regular and inescapable place in the machinery of government. Ministers like Harley and Walpole learned how to control Parliament through patronage and cajolery and made reputations as managers. They were helped in their task by the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707 since the 45 MPs and 16 representative peers who arrived at Westminster were, by and large, penurious and purchasable.

In many ways, Parliament after the revolution was at its zenith. The government of aristocracy and gentry, who had a near monopoly of wealth, leisure, and education, seemed natural and inevitable and could boast of notable achievements. The constitution was greatly admired, at home and abroad. The standard of debate was high, with orators like Pulteney, Murray, Pitt the Elder, North, Fox, Burke, Sheridan, Pitt the Younger, and Canning. In 1801, the Act of Union with Ireland meant that, for the first time, Parliament could claim total sovereignty over the British Isles, though the result was not an unmixed blessing.

Yet even when Parliament was at its strongest, there were tremors. The breakaway of the Americans in 1776 foreshadowed the time when Canada, Australia, India, New Zealand, Ireland, and the colonies would follow suit. At the same time, Parliament, with great reluctance, allowed reports of its proceedings to appear in newspapers. ‘This’, Pulteney had once declared, ‘looks very like making us accountable without doors for what we say within.’ He was right and through that gap public opinion forced an entrance. The movement of population, the growth of great unrepresented towns, and the development of a more critical, utilitarian attitude gnawed at the foundations of aristocratic rule. In 1832 the first great reform took place. As its opponents gloomily forecast, it led, by stages, to full democracy, though not at the speed which they had envisaged. A continuous series of adjustments, many of them piecemeal, changed the nature of Parliament—the abolition of religious tests, more equal electoral areas, payment for MPs, extension of the franchise through to 1948. Though the Parliament Act of 1911 stripped the House of Lords of much of its remaining power, the introduction of life peerages in 1958 gave it an unexpected and new lease of life.

Irish Parliament

The Irish Parliament was instituted at much the same time as the English, Sir John Wogan summoning an assembly in 1295 to Kilkenny, which included the lords and two knights from certain counties. Burgesses were added in 1311. The native Irish were excluded as ‘not fit to be trusted with the counsel of the realm’. Control was exercised through Poynings's law (1494), which subjected the Irish Parliament to the English Privy Council. More counties and boroughs were brought in during the 17th cent., and after the Glorious Revolution the Commons consisted of 64 knights, 234 burgesses, and 2 representatives from Trinity College, Dublin. There were some 80 peers in the House of Lords.

Though the Irish Parliament had a splendid building on College Green, begun in 1729, real power was in the hands of the lord-lieutenant and the English government. Debates were often eloquent but they did not engage directly on the levers of power. Until the Octennial Act of 1768 parliaments lasted the length of the reign: there was no parliament between 1666 and 1692 (save for James II's Assembly of 1689), and the first Parliament of George II in 1727 lasted until 1760. Sessions were held every other year.

Throughout much of the 18th cent. there were repeated attempts to wriggle free from English control. Not until England began to run into difficulties after the Seven Years War were concessions forthcoming. The granting of the Octennial Act in 1768 came at a time when the English were anxious to increase the Irish army, and the repeal of Poynings's law in 1782 came when the Volunteers carried a clear threat in the midst of the American War.

The grant of legislative independence ushered in the final phase of the Irish Parliament, which has been bathed in a golden light as ‘Grattan's Parliament’. But in the end the decisive factor was that law and order broke down in the great rising of 1798. Without a union, Ireland would, wrote the lord-lieutenant Camden, be ‘dreadfully vulnerable in all future wars’. By the Act of Union of 1801 the Irish Parliament was suppressed and representation transferred to Westminster. The new parliament house in Dublin, no longer required, became the Bank of Ireland.

Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament differed significantly from its English counterpart. No equivalent of the Houses of Commons and Lords ever existed; instead, the three estates—clergy, barons, and burgh commissioners—assembled in one chamber. Legislation, from the early 15th cent., was drafted by the lords of the Articles, a smaller committee elected by the estates, before being passed in full Parliament. Parliament was supplemented by the institutions of general council, until the late 15th cent., and from the 16th cent. by the Convention of Estates, effectively parliaments without judicial powers.

Evolving from the king's council of bishops and earls, Parliament is first recorded in 1235, referred to as a colloquium. In the early 14th cent. the presence of knights and freeholders became important, and from 1326 burgh commissioners attended, because of the need to secure their consent for taxation. Called in this period on average more than once a year, Parliament was expected to provide support for many crown policies. However, it could be a dangerous place for a monarch, and James IV (1488-1513) avoided meetings after 1509.

With the Scottish constitutional settlement (1640-1), the royal prerogative was curtailed, and Parliament took control of the executive, a precedent for the English Long Parliament. The Interregnum saw a union of parliaments (1657), but the Scottish Parliament returned strongly after the Restoration (1660). In 1689 the attendance of clergy was abolished, followed by the Committee of the Articles (1690). Bribery and parliamentary division, rather than dominant unionism, best explain the crown's ability to secure a parliamentary majority in favour of incorporating union with England (16 January 1707). Finally dissolved on 28 April 1707, the Scottish Parliament remained important to Scottish national identity, and in 1999, after a referendum, it was restored.

Welsh Parliament

Though there is no evidence of a Welsh parliament as a regular part of government, there was a tradition of consultation. Llywelyn called an assembly of magnates at Aberdovey in 1216 to decide on the territorial divisions of south Wales. Glyndŵr is said to have summoned two parliaments—at Machynlleth in 1404 and at Harlech in 1405. Some representatives from Wales were summoned to the English Parliament in 1322 and 1327 but Wales was not included in the regular representation until after 1536. A Welsh Assembly was instituted in 1999.

Although not the oldest legislative body in history, the British Parliament has been the model, both positive and negative, for the legislative branches of most Western countries, including the Congress of the United States of America.

The Anglo-Saxons had a legislative assembly called the witenagemot, but this institution was suppressed by the Norman invasion of 1066. The genesis of the House of Lords occurred in the thirteenth century, with the Curia Regis, the king's feudal council, more commonly called the great council, to which he summoned his tenants in chief, the great barons, and the great prelates, to serve primarily as a judicial and executive body.

The House of Commons originated in the thirteenth century in the occasional convocation of representatives of other social classes of the state—knights and burgesses—usually to report the consent of the counties and towns to taxes imposed by the king. Its meetings were often held in conjunction with a meeting of the great council, for in the early thirteenth century there was no constitutional difference between the two bodies; the formalization of Parliament as a distinct organ of government took at least another century to complete.

During the Barons' War, Simon de Montfort summoned representatives of the counties, towns, and lesser clergy in an attempt to gain support from the middle classes. His famous Parliament of 1265 included two representative burgesses from each borough and four knights from each shire, admitted, at least theoretically, to full standing with the great council. Although Edward I's so-called Model Parliament of 1295 (which contained prelates, magnates, two knights from each county, two burgesses from each town, and representatives of the lower clergy) seemed to formalize a representative principle of composition, great irregularities of membership in fact continued well into the fourteenth century.

The division of Parliament into two houses did not coalesce until the fourteenth century. Before the middle of the century the clerical representatives withdrew to their own convocations, leaving only two estates in Parliament. The knights of the shires, who, as a minor landholding aristocracy, might have associated themselves with the great barons in the House of Lords, nevertheless felt their true interest to lie with the burgesses, and with the burgesses developed that corporate sense that marked the House of Commons by the end of the century.

The Growth of Parliamentary Sovereignty

The constitutional position of Parliament was at first undifferentiated from that of the great council. Large assemblies were called only occasionally, to support the king's requests for revenue and other important matters of policy, but not to legislate or consent to taxation in the modern sense.

In the fourteenth century, Parliament began to gain greater control over grants of revenue to the king. From Parliament's judicial authority (derived, through the Lords, from the judicial powers of the great council) to consider petitions for the redress of grievances and to submit such petitions to the king, developed the practice of withholding financial supplies until the king accepted and acted on the petitions. Statute legislation arose as the petition form was gradually replaced by the drafting of bills sent to the king and ultimately enacted by Commons, Lords, and king together. Impeachment of the king's ministers, another means for securing control over administrative policy, also derived from Parliament's judicial authority and was first used late in the fourteenth century.

In the fourteenth century, through these devices, Parliament wielded wide administrative and legislative powers. In addition, a strong self-consciousness on the part of its members led to claims of parliamentary privilege, notably freedom from arrest and freedom of debate. However, with the growth of a stronger monarchy under the Yorkists and especially under the Tudors, Parliament became essentially an instrument of the monarch's will.

The House of Lords with its chancellor and the House of Commons with its speaker appeared in their modern form in the sixteenth century The English Reformation greatly increased the powers of Parliament because it was through the nominal agency of Parliament that the Church of England was established. Yet throughout the Tudor period Parliament's legislative supremacy was challenged by the Crown's legislative authority through the privy council, a descendant of part of the old feudal council.

With the accession (1603) of the Stuart kings, inept in their dealings with Parliament after the wily Tudors, Parliament was able to exercise its claims, drawing on precedents established but not exploited over the preceding 200 years. In the course of the English civil war, Parliament voiced demands not only for collateral power but for actual sovereignty. Although under Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate, parliamentary authority was reduced to a mere travesty, the Restoration brought Parliament back into power—secure in its claims to legislative supremacy, to full authority over taxation and expenditures, and to a voice in public policy through partial control (by impeachment) over the king's choice of ministers. Charles II set about learning to manage Parliament, rather than opposing or circumventing it. James II's refusal to do so led to the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which permanently affirmed parliamentary sovereignty and forced William III to accept great limitations on the powers of the Crown. During the reign of Queen Anne even the royal veto on legislation disappeared.

The Ascendancy of Commons

Despite a general division into Whig and Tory parties toward the end of the seventeenth century, political groupings in Parliament were more inclined to form about a particular personality or issue. Although members had considerable freedom to make temporary political alliances without regard to their constituencies, control over members was exercised by the ministry and the Crown through patronage, which rested on the purchase of parliamentary seats and tight control over a narrow electorate. As members were paid no salaries, private wealth and liberal patronage were prerequisites to a seat in Commons; as a result, Parliament represented only the propertied upper classes, and private legislation took precedence over public acts throughout the eighteenth century. The parliamentary skills of Sir Robert Walpole, in many respects the first prime minister, both signified and contributed to the growing importance of Commons. The Crown retained the theoretical power to appoint a ministry of its choice, but the resignation (1782) of George III's minister Lord North established, once and for all, a tendency that had developed gradually since the Glorious Revolution—that the prime minister could not function without the support and confidence of the House of Commons.

The part played by Parliament in the administration of the colonies before 1763 was very small, for North America was regarded as an appurtenance of the Crown and governed by ordinances of the privy council. Only in matters of combined domestic and colonial interest, or involving the welfare of the empire as a whole, did Parliament legislate for the colonies, as in the Molasses Act of 1733, designed to promote trade between New England and the British West Indies and to benefit West Indian planters.

Not until the firm establishment of the principle of parliamentary supremacy in England, concurrent with the close of the French and Indian War (1763), did Parliament seriously set itself to the direction of colonial affairs (see Colonial Policy, British). It quickly made itself odious to Americans by asserting its authority in regard to colonial taxation and appropriation, which the assemblies had long looked upon as their exclusive domain. Americans felt that Parliament had no right to assume powers that the Crown had formerly been unable to make good, and the uncompromising attitude of the ministry of George Grenville concerning the Stamp Act (1765) precipitated a crisis in which colonial opinion everywhere stiffened against Parliament. Two years later, the passage of the Townshend Acts widened the breach, and in 1773 the resolution of the British prime minister, Frederick, Lord North, to "try the issue [of taxation] in America" led directly to the Revolution.

Bibliography

Bank, Dina Citron. How Things Get Done. 2d rev. ed. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1979.

Cruikshanks, E. Parliamentary History. 4 vols. 1985.

Jones, Ossie Garfield. Parliamentary Procedure at a Glance. Enl. and rev. ed. New York: Hawthorn, 1971.

Mackenzie, Kenneth R. The English Parliament. Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin, 1950, repr. 1963.

Namier, Lewis, and John Brooke. The House of Commons, 1754– 1790. Published for the History of Parliament Trust. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964.

Pollard, A. F. The Evolution of Parliament. 2d ed. rev. London: 1964.

Sayles, G. O. The King's Parliament of England. New York: Norton, 1974.

Ryan, M. Stanley. Parliamentary Procedure: Essential Principles. New York: Cornwall, 1985.

Between 1450 and 1700 the English Parliament developed from a medieval institution dominated by the monarch to one whose role, function, and procedure is still recognizable today. During this transition, Parliament developed omnicompetence in statutory matters; expanded its membership dramatically (particularly in the House of Commons); revived the early medieval process of impeachment; and became a permanent and essential part of the government structure in England. Parliament during the period of the English Civil War and Interregnum (1642–1660) assumed the role of the executive and ordered the trial and execution of Charles I (ruled 1625–1649) in January 1649 before internal dissension and political circumstances brought about the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Although the Restoration Settlement again limited the power of Parliament, its growing role in fiscal matters and the highly charged political and religious atmosphere of the late-seventeenth century enabled it to play a role in deposing another monarch, James II (ruled 1685–1688), in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The subsequent passage of the Bill of Rights (1689) and the Triennial Act (1694) gave Parliament a more closely knit relationship with the monarchy and the governance of England. This period also saw the rise of the political parties and the increasing reliance of the monarch on Parliament for financial support.

Elections

Parliament was called and dissolved at the whim of the monarch until the enactment of the Triennial Act of 1641. Forty days before the start of the Parliament, individual writs of summons were sent to all the peers of the realm, except those disqualified by lunacy, poverty, or minority of age (usually under 21). Sometimes, as in 1626 with the case of the earl of Bristol, who was imprisoned due to his bitter dispute over foreign policy with Charles I, political confrontation with the monarch also determined whether a writ was received. The senior judges in the land were also summoned to act as legal advisers to the monarch. The membership of the House of Commons was determined by elections (under widely varying rules) held among the enfranchised in the constituencies. Towns and boroughs normally elected two members of Parliament (although a few single-member constituencies existed, primarily in Wales), while two Knights of the Shire were elected for each county. The elections were determined by the vote of 40-shilling freeholders—those men who were resident in the county and held 40 shillings per annum in freehold land. The borough franchise, however, was not so clear-cut and ranged from the most common, voting by the freeman of the borough, to oligarchic control of the town corporation, and on occasion only those resident in the borough. This led to a select few controlling the vote in certain areas. An extreme example of this was the Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, election of 1572, where one person selected the two M.P.s. The elections were further complicated by the interference of both the crown and noble patrons. The crown certainly enjoyed considerable influence, particularly in areas in which it controlled the majority of the property, while powerful magnates, such as William Herbert, third earl of Pembroke, supposedly influenced favorably at least 98 seats between 1614 and 1628.

Members

Until 1540, membership of the House of Lords consisted of the nobility, bishops, and representatives of the regular clergy (abbots and priors). Throughout the early Tudor period the spiritual peers reached a maximum of 48, and they easily outnumbered the temporal peers, whose numbers fluctuated between 34 and 45. However, Henry VIII's (ruled 1509–1547) break with Rome in the mid-1530s signaled dramatic changes in membership. With the dissolution of the monasteries in 1540, the parliamentary careers of abbots and priors ended, thereby removing 27 spiritual peers. Even with the creation of six new bishoprics between 1540 and 1542, the temporal peers now outnumbered their spiritual colleagues—a situation that was never reversed. For the next 100 years, the nobility summoned to Parliament continued to fluctuate. Elizabeth I (ruled 1558–1603), who was notoriously parsimonious in handing out favors, only elevated two commoners to the peerage, and the natural attrition through the failure of peers to produce male heirs, as well as nobles executed for treason, actually caused the numbers to fall from 57 to 55 over the course of her reign.

The accession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne as James I (ruled 1603–1625) changed this situation dramatically. In part, James was anxious to make up for years of Elizabethan parsimony by creating new peers, but he also saw the peerage as a money-making device. Elevation through both deserving recognition and the sale of titles meant that by the end of James's reign in 1625, the peers eligible to attend Parliament numbered 104. This process continued under Charles I (ruled 1625–1649) until the nobility reached 123 at the start of the Short Parliament (April 1640). However, during the political turmoil of the early 1640s, Charles attempted to use the bishops to ensure he always had a loyal voting bloc. This led to the exclusion of the bishops in 1642, and the numbers of the nobility attending the Lords dropped even further when the Civil War broke out and Royalist peers deserted the Parliament. By late 1642, the number in the Lords had fallen to 30. In March 1649, after Charles had lost the Civil War and been executed, the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished. With the Restoration in 1660, the Lords returned in its familiar pre–Civil War guise with the bishops taking their place alongside the nobility. The temporal peerage continued to grow and exceeded 150 by the turn of the century.

Changes in the Commons membership were not as drastic as those in the Lords, except during the Civil War and Interregnum. Before 1640, the number of M.P.s steadily increased, from 296 in 1485 to 493 in 1628 and 513 in 1689. In a similar fashion to the Lords, the king's supporters deserted Parliament after 1642, and over 100 attended a rival Royalist Parliament that convened in Oxford in early 1644. The numbers dropped further in December 1648 when Colonel Thomas Pride, in what has come to be known as "Pride's Purge," arrested 45 members and excluded 186 more. Other M.P.s stayed away of their own volition, leaving the "Rump Parliament" with a little over 200. Further changes in membership occurred during the Protectorate Parliaments before the Commons was restored to its pre–Civil War state in 1660.

Function

The three major functions of Parliament were legislation, advice, and supply. To this may be added the revival in 1621 of Parliament as the highest court in the land. During the medieval period, Parliament had acted as a law court. This role fell into abeyance during the sixteenth century, but in 1621 charges of impeachment were presented against the Lord Chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626). This process continued throughout the 1620s and later. This role was supplemented by the like revival of the role of the Lords as the highest appellate court.

The legislative aspect of Parliament also changed. The medieval House of Commons was not an equal part of the parliamentary trinity of King, Lords, and Commons, but precedents in the fifteenth century saw it grow into a constitutionally equal partner. In 1489, the judges ruled that legislation did not have the force of law unless the Commons and the Lords assented to it. The Commons had the right to initiate legislation, like the Lords, and throughout the sixteenth century the three-reading procedure developed into the norm. This required each bill to be read three times in both the Lords and the Commons before it was presented for the monarch's assent, or, occasionally, veto. Equally, it became more common for each bill to be committed for detailed scrutiny and amendment after the second reading. During the 1530s it was accepted that statute law could regulate every sphere of life, including religious and spiritual matters and property rights. This omnicompetence of statute law increased the monarch's need for Parliament through this extension of legislative jurisdiction.

Parliament's conciliar or advice function grew out of its origins in the king's great council, which was called together to advise the king on matters of national importance, such as war. Although Parliament was primarily called for matters of taxation, it also offered the governing elite a chance to present grievances to the king and to offer advice. For example, James I in 1624 asked Parliament to advise him on England's reaction to the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648).

The supply side of parliamentary operation was its most important role. During times of peace, monarchs were expected to live off their own revenues, although this became increasingly difficult after the inflationary years of the first half of the sixteenth century. In practice, monarchs became more accustomed to requesting taxes from Parliament for day-to-day fiscal matters. Supply was passed by act of Parliament in two distinct forms: lay and clerical taxation. The Clergy voted a clerical tax and the Commons initiated a tax based both on income and movable property. Both forms were enacted as statutes and required the assent of the parliamentary trinity. Because of drastic underassessment of income and the failure of an effective collection method, England remained one of the most lightly taxed nations in Europe, while the amount brought into the crown declined dramatically during the period.

Historiography of Crown and Parliament

The relationship between the English crown and Parliament in early modern England has been the subject of major debate in British history. Until the 1970s, the dominant historiography saw the House of Commons marching onward from an embryonic power under Henry VIII to executive power in the mid-seventeenth century and then to a Glorious Revolution led by Parliament, before the late Victorian model of parliamentary government eventually emerged. This Whig view of parliamentary history, most eloquently championed by S. R. Gardiner, was challenged first by Marxist historians, who viewed the Civil War and parliamentary tensions as a bourgeois revolution. However, the Marxist interpretation foundered because the Civil War can be better explained as an aristocratic and/or religious rebellion and because no widespread or lasting social revolution occurred. Furthermore, relations between Parliament and the crown returned in 1660 to their pre–Civil War status.

The more fundamental challenge to the Whig interpretation was led by a diverse group of revisionists, in particular, Geoffrey Elton, Conrad Russell, and Kevin Sharpe. They emphasized consensus, not conflict, as the primary mode of interpreting the relationship between crown and Parliament. Elton and Russell, especially, saw the Parliament as an effective, businesslike institution in which conflict was often more the result of misunderstanding than hostility or the competition for power. Sharpe, on the other hand, saw what conflict there was in Parliament as the result of competing factions. Since the late 1980s, this revisionist view has been nuanced by the work of scholars such as Thomas Cogswell, Ann Hughes, and Richard Cust. In their "postrevisionist" view, an underlying tension and conflict was ever present, but it usually only manifested itself in times of political crisis—for example, during the mismanagement of the war against France and Spain by Charles I in the late 1620s.

Crown and Parliament Relations

Henry VII (ruled 1485–1509) and Henry VIII both needed Parliament to achieve their objectives. Henry VII solidified his hold on the throne by calling and consulting seven Parliaments between 1485 and 1509, while Henry VIII enacted the Reformation through Parliament. Although there was some parliamentary opposition to the policies of both monarchs, generally relations between the crown and Parliament in the early Tudor period were good. Henry VIII, in particular, adopted a style of personal intervention in parliamentary affairs, even appearing in the Commons on occasion to use his physical presence to sway M.P.s toward royal policies. There was opposition in Parliament, especially in the Lords, to the religious reformation of the 1530s, but this was defeated without a significant crisis or breakdown in relations. The mid-Tudor Parliaments of Edward VI (ruled 1547–1553) and Mary I (ruled 1553–1558) likewise witnessed some opposition to the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation (both carried out through parliamentary statute), but again those opposed to government policy were in the minority. That changes in England's official religion, including the introduction of the Protestant Book of Common Prayer (1549) and the return of England to Roman Catholicism (1553–1554), were enacted through Parliament was testimony to its increased role in the governance of the nation and the newfound awareness of the omnicompetence of statute.

Under Elizabeth I, both Parliament and the Privy Council attempted to persuade the queen to marry or, later, to name a successor. Elizabeth had no particular liking for Parliaments and avoided calling them whenever possible, and Parliament only assembled on 13 occasions between 1559 and 1601. Furthermore, these sessions were short and relatively harmonious. No constitutional crisis erupted during the period and Elizabeth effectively managed her Parliaments by curtailing discussions on her marital status and on further Protestant reformation. Although her policy of granting manufacturing monopolies to individuals and companies came in for severe criticism in the Parliaments of 1597, 1598, and 1601, her "golden speech" of 30 November 1601, in which she promised to abolish the monopoly grants, won her fulsome praise. At the end of the Tudor dynasty, relations between the Parliament and crown were in good shape.

The policies of the first Stuart monarch, James I and VI, did cause friction between the crown and Commons in his first Parliament (1604–1610). In particular, James's desire to enact a union between England and his native Scotland aroused the ire of many M.P.s, and anti-Scottish hysteria in the Lower House. James was forced to abandon his plans for union in 1607. Similarly, disagreement arose in 1610 over the Great Contract, a scheme to reform the English financial system, but neither the Commons nor James could agree to the terms stipulated by the other party. Relations between the king and Parliament sank lower in 1614, during the "Addled Parliament." No legislation was enacted and a bitter session was dissolved by the king after claims of undue royal influence on the elections. Although the Parliament has now been seen as an example of two factions competing for influence, it certainly discouraged James from relying on the goodwill of Parliament. In the next Parliament (1621), the king once again dissolved the Parliament in anger after it refused his decree regarding not meddling with foreign policy and the marriage of his son, Prince Charles. However, in the final Jacobean Parliament (1624), both the crown and Parliament worked together to enact legislation and debate the impending crisis with Spain.

This legacy of relative goodwill, if punctuated by friction and occasional moments of high tension, was rapidly dissipated by Charles I. His first Parliament of 1625 ended in acrimony over money and religion; the 1626 Parliament was dissolved in similar circumstances, and in 1628 both Houses forced Charles to accept the Petition of Right—a statement of the freedom, liberties, and privileges of Parliament. With relations at a low point in 1629, Charles vowed to live without Parliaments. The political reality of a Scottish army camped in northern England saw Charles once again turn to Parliament for financing to fight a campaign in 1640. However, he found Parliament even less inclined to his policies in 1640 than eleven years earlier. In the subsequent struggle between Charles and his Parliament, the king was forced to cede some of his authority to Parliament, but he refused to give up the right to control the army. The conflict culminated in war between Parliament and king—a war won by Parliament—and Charles was executed in 1649, the House of Lords was abolished, and a republic declared. The parliamentary trinity of King, Lords, and Commons had been destroyed.

Parliament during the 1640s had gradually assumed executive powers, taxing the populace, fielding an army, and effectively running the country. Parliament continued in this role and acted as the sole legal governing authority until 1653, when Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) was named Lord Protector. After the establishment of the Protectorate, Parliament sat only intermittently until 1659. The relationship between Parliament and Cromwell was often fractious and they never managed to establish an effective working relationship. This contributed to the ineffectiveness of the republic, and Parliament finally voted in early 1660 for the restoration of the monarchy.

The next major constitutional crisis between Parliament and the crown arose during the Exclusion Crisis. Between 1679 and 1681, a majority in the Commons assisted by a substantial minority in the Lords attempted to exclude Charles II's brother, the Catholic Duke of York, from the succession to the throne. Although this movement failed, it left Charles at odds with substantial sections of his Parliament. The crisis spilled over into James's reign, and after a series of pro-Catholic policies championed by the king, an Assembly of Peers invited the Dutchman William of Orange (ruled 1689–1702) to take over the throne. James fled England, and when Parliament met in 1689 it enacted the Revolution Settlement. The situation was complicated by the emergence in the previous twenty years of embryonic political parties. The Whigs believed in a contractual form of government and the right to resist a tyrannical monarch. In contrast, the Tories favored the view of a monarch's divine right to rule, where civil authority descended directly from God. Negotiations between the two parties and the king led to a compromise in which William agreed to rule jointly with his wife, Mary Stuart (ruled 1689–1694). It also led to fundamental changes in the relationship between Parliament and the crown. The Bill of Rights (1689) stipulated the "undoubted rights and liberties" of Parliament and that it was required to meet frequently. The revised coronation oath stated that monarchs ruled according to the statutes made by Parliament and the Protestant religion established by law, thus excluding Catholics from the succession. Furthermore, the 1689 Mutiny Act established that a standing army could only be raised in the kingdom with the consent of Parliament. Finally, the financial settlement imposed on William and Mary ensured that the crown revenue was forever tied to parliamentary taxation. This in turn assured that Parliament would meet every year from 1689. The settlement witnessed the establishment of Parliament as a permanent institution of government, and in it we can see the structures and actions of the modern Westminster Parliament.

Bibliography

Cogswell, Thomas. The Blessed Revolution: English Politics and the Coming of War, 1621–1624. Cambridge, U.K., 1989.

Cust, Richard, and Ann Hughes, eds. Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–1642. London, 1989.

Elton, G. R. The Parliament of England, 1559–1581. Cambridge, U.K., 1986.

Foster, Elizabeth Read. The House of Lords, 1603–1649: Structure, Procedure and the Nature of its Business. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1983.

Gardiner, S. R. History of England from the Accession of James to the Outbreak of the Civil War. 10 vols. London, 1883–1884.

Graves, Michael A. R. The Tudor Parliaments: Crown, Lords and Commons, 1485–1603. London, 1985.

Kenyon, J. P., ed. The Stuart Constitution, 1603–1688: Documents and Commentary. 2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K., 1986.

Kishlansky, Mark A. Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early Modern England. Cambridge, U.K., 1986.

Kyle, Chris R., and Jason Peacey, eds. Parliament at Work: Parliamentary Committees, Political Power, and Public Access in Early Modern England. Rochester, N.Y., 2002.

Russell, Conrad. Parliaments and English Politics, 1621–1629. Oxford, 1979.

Sharpe, Kevin. "Re-writing the History of Parliament in Seventeenth-Century England." In Remapping Early Modern England: The Culture of Seventeenth-Century Politics, edited by Kevin Sharpe, pp. 269–293. Cambridge, U.K., 2000.

Smith, David L. The Stuart Parliaments, 1603–1689. London, 1999.

—CHRIS R. KYLE

Quotes:

"A severe though not unfriendly critic of our institutions said that the cure for admiring the House of Lords was to go and look at it." - Walter Bagehot

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament." - Edmund Burke

"You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it -- low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion -- and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national. The direct tyranny will come on by and by, after it shall have gratified the multitude with the spoil and ruin of the old institutions of the land." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" - Oliver Cromwell

"The House of Commons starts its proceedings with a prayer. The chaplain looks at the assembled members with their varied intelligence and then prays for the country." - Lord Denning

"You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest." - Benjamin Disraeli

See more famous quotes about Parliament