Origins of Parliamentary Democracy
Prior to the 1640s, there was no standing Parliament in England. The word 'parliament' designated one of a series of temporary committees, summoned occasionally at the pleasure of the King. Parliaments had no right to give orders to the King, and no means to enforce their wills. Their power was based primarily on the fact that the King, lacking a centralized bureaucratic government, greatly needed the willing and sympathetic cooperation of the English gentry in order to govern. Their power also had some basis in the prestige they held in the eyes of many Englishmen. By the early 17th century a King who mistreated his parliaments courted unpopularity.
Interior of Westminster Hall, Palace of Westminster
Parliamentary supremacy arises primarily from the English Civil War in the seventeenth century when members of the Long Parliament organized a Parliamentary army to resist the army of King Charles I. Parliamentary forces defeated the forces of King, and the remaining members of Parliament declared themselves the legitimate government of England. They tried and executed the King (the first time in European history that a King was tried by his own subjects) and reorganized the nation as a republic. In order to avoid certain connotations that the term republic carried at the time, they chose to describe the new state as the Commonwealth. The new government failed to become stable, however, and had to be reorganized several times, until finally Oliver Cromwell, whose military successes in the war had made him the most respected man in the government, took supreme power as Lord Protector (a politically acceptable term for dictator).
After Cromwell's death, no single man was able to fill the same role. The Monarchy was reinstated and Charles II invited back in 1660, with Parliament remaining as a full-time part of the system of governance. In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parliament deposed the Roman Catholic King James II/VII [1] and his infant heir and gave the throne to his protestant daughter and her husband, William of Orange. They reigned jointly as Mary II and William III. Parliament excluded all catholic descendants of James II/VII from the throne. Since then the monarch has been generally subservient to parliament. But full parliamentary control of the executive did not occur until the Great Reform Act of 1832, that broadened the voting franchise and so made parliament the full representative of public opinion. Since then, parliament had been dominant, though the monarch still remains an important player in government, with government governing through the Royal Prerogative (ie, powers of the monarch) and with the monarch's formal approval still being required for Acts of Parliament and Orders-in-Council (executive orders).
Since the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain that unified the crowns of England and Scotland in 1707, Parliament has been very nearly sovereign (known as the supremacy of Parliament), with the power to make or repeal nearly any law. That dominance continued in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (formed in 1801 when the crowns of Great Britain and Ireland were merged) and the modern United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (formed in December 1922 when twenty-six of Ireland's thirty-two counties left to form the Irish Free State. However Parliament has never been completely sovereign, although it has often acted as if it were. In particular its sovereignty over the Church of Scotland was disputed for three centuries with Parliament finally admitting its lack of sovereignty in the 1920s. More recently sovereignty has been further eroded by the European Union which, since Britain's accession to the European Economic Community in 1973, has the power to make laws which must be enforced in each member state, including Britain. On a regional level, a series of sub-parliaments or devolved administrations took over the day to day governance of certain regions, specifically Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. However, whereas it cannot block European legislation from the European Union (to which at a governmental level it can contribute and help shape) it can vary the powers of the devolved parliaments or even abolish them by a simple Act of Parliament.
A Parliament of sorts (consisting of the Barons, without any commoners) has existed for a very long time; the Barons first started stripping the King's powers away with the Magna Carta in 1215 but Parliament in a more recognisable form did not arise until many centuries later. Also, unlike now, Parliament only convened for short periods of time, and was then disbanded until the King called it again. Kings disliked calling Parliament, because the Members of Parliament were not under their control and so could cause problems. However, Parliament held the purse strings, so the King could not always ignore them, or bribe them, given that parliaments were not representative of public opinion, with many MPs elected from Rotten boroughs (corrupt constituencies where often only a handful of electors lived and could be bribed to elect a supporter or opponent of the King). These origins are reflected in the modern role of the monarch. It is she who formally summons, prorogues and dissolves parliament. At the moment that the latter royal order is made, all the MPs cease to hold office, with the resultant vacancies being filled by a general election. However this is always done on the advice (instruction) of Her Majesty's Government, which as it is answerable to parliament does parliament's wishes, or at least does not ignore the view of parliament, though parliament itself is not consulted.
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