17th Century England

Lesson 2: Meet the King and the main personalities.

The Parliament

Parliament had not evolved much at all until Tudor times. Even then, though, given immense Royal power, it could not expand its role substantially until the whole country moved forward. In moving forward, the country as a whole became more civilised, modern thinking and literate, and this created new ways of thinking.

But Parliament had always been there in an advisory role. It met whenever the Monarch decided it was necessary and dissolved when that Monarch felt it was no longer needed. In short, there was no dedicated regularity in its meeting. Monarchs used Parliament to gauge public opinion and also to spread the reasons behind their policies and decisions.

The only power a Parliament did have was the sole authority to raise and levy taxes. A Monarch had an annuity, which never was enough for governing the country. This made Parliaments necessary, at least some of the time, e.g. when the Monarch went to war or faced rebellion.

At the start of each new reign, it was the Parliament who met to approve for the new Monarch the right to raise Tonnage and Poundage tax for his life. This was, of course, a formality, as the permission was always granted to the Monarch, but nevertheless, it showed that Parliament had sole control of taxation.

Parliament was roughly 400-500 strong, but it had no leader other than the person(s) who came to the fore to lead them. It was unofficially divided into two main parties, the Court Party (supporters of the King) and the opposition (those opposed to Royal policy). Out of five million English people, only about 300,000 were eligible to vote at the turn of the 17th century.

Henry VIII used Parliament to rubber stamp his break from Rome and also used it to officially approve his divorces. While Parliament could never refuse assent to a Monarch like Henry, just the fact that Henry followed this formality showed that it was growing in its role. Later generations were to decide how much that role should grow.

It was in this state that Parliament entered the new reigns of the Stuarts, James I and Charles I. In the past, Elizabeth I had handled her Parliaments well, but James and Charles quarrelled with Parliament as it moved towards seeking new power and role in Government, in line with new modern thinking.

  1  2  3  4  5  6  7