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PARLIAMENT

PARLIAMENT. 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.

See also Charles I (England); Church of England; Cromwell, Oliver; Edward VI (England); Elizabeth I (England); England; English Civil War and Interregnum; Exclusion Crisis; Glorious Revolution (Britain); Henry VII (England); Henry VIII (England); James I and VI (England and Scotland); James II (England); Mary I (England); Political Parties in England; Representative Institutions; William and Mary.

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