THE HISTORY OF THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT

Parliament is one of the oldest and most honoured parts of the British government. Its name, from the French word parler (“to talk”), was given to meetings of the English king’s council in the mid-13^th century. Its immediate predecessor was the king’s feudal council, the Curia Regis, and before that the Anglo-Saxon witan or witenagemot. It was a device resorted to by the medieval kings to help them in running their governments and reflected the idea that the king should consult with his subjects.

In the 13^th century, several elements combined to influence the development of Parliament: the need, stated in the Magna Carta (1215), for taxes to have the consent of the taxed; the custom of summoning to the royal council not just barons but elected representatives of towns and counties; the convenience of dealing with petitions at enlarged meetings of the king’s council; and the genius of men such as King Edward I who saw how Parliament could be used to their advantage.

At first, Parliament was not an institution but an event. During the quarrel between King Henry III and his barons, the Oxford Parliament (1258) forced Henry to establish a permanent baronial council, which took control of certain key appointments. The barons’ leader, Simon de Montfort, summoned representatives of towns to Parliament for the first time in 1265. De Montfort was killed at the battle of Evesham in 1265, but his innovation of summoning the commons to attend parliaments was repeated in later years and soon became standard. Thus it is from him that the modern idea of a representative parliament derives. The so-called Model Parliament of Edward I (1295) contained all the elements of a mature Parliament: bishops and abbots, peers, two knights from each shire, and two representatives from each town.

In the 14^th century, Parliament split into two houses. Under King Edward II it was accepted that there should be no taxation without parliamentary consent, still a fundamental principle today. The 14^th century also saw the use of ‘impeachment’, as a result of which the House of Commons as a body could accuse officials who had abused their authority and put them on trial before the Lords.

Growth continued under the Lancastrian kings and in the 15^th century the Commons gained equal law-making powers with the Lords, under King Henry V. But then the growth fell off, only to begin again in Henry VIII’s Reformation Parliament (1529-1536). Commons especially gained experience and confidence under Henry and his successors, but was generally subservient to the Crown.

The 16^th century saw the legal union of Wales – which had long been subject to the English crown – with England under King Henry VIII (1536). Henry’s reign also saw the Church of England break away from the Roman Catholic Church. The ‘Gunpowder Plot’ of 1605 may have been contrived when it became clear that the new King, James I, intended to do nothing to ease the plight of Catholics in the country. The Queen today remains the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and, as the sovereign, must by law be a member of that church.

In the 17^th century tensions increased between parliament and monarch, so that in 1641 the King and Parliament could not agree on the control of troops for repression of the Irish Rebellion. Civil War broke the following year, leading to the execution of Charles I in January 1649. Following the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the role of parliament was increased by the events of 1688-89 (the Glorious Revolution) and the passage of the Bill of Rights, which established the authority of Parliament over the King, and to fix in law the principle of freedom of speech in parliamentary debates.

The union of England and Scotland in 1707 brought 16 Scottish peers and 45 representatives into Parliament. That with Ireland in 1800 brought in 32 more peers, 4 of whom were bishops from the church in Ireland, and 100 more representatives, although most withdrew when the Irish Free State was created in 1922.

    In the 19^th century the House of Commons became democratic. The Great Reform Bill of 1832 gave the vote to the middle class for the first time. Acts in 1867 and 1884 enfranchised workingmen, and another in 1885 created equal electoral districts. The legislative primacy of the House of Commons over the Lords was confirmed in the 20^th century by the passing of the Parliament Act of 1911. Women aged 30 got the vote in 1918, those aged 21 in 1928. In 1969 the voting age for everyone was reduced to 18. Britain’s legislature, sometimes called the Mother of Parliaments, has been the model for legislative assemblies in many other countries.