PARLAMENT LIMITS THE ENGLISH MONARCHY

 Elizabeth I :
 died in 1603 the Queen of England and Scotland, Tudor dynasty
 James VI,- the king of Scotland, became the English king James I.:
 Stuart Dynasty. James ruled both countries, England and Scotland. His son
Charles I followed him on the English throne.

Both Stuart Kings were determined to rule as absolute rulers, as they did not want to share
power with Parliament, not wanted to be limited by the laws, they did not call Parliament.

 King Charles dissolved Parliament in 1629 and he did not call it into session against
until 1640.
 In 1640, a rebellion in Scotland started after Charles tried to force the
Presbyterian Scots to accept a version of the Anglican book. Scotland rebelled
against religious reforms. A conflict erupted when Scottish troops invaded
northern England. Charles needed money to face this rebellion and therefore
had to call Parliament into session to deal with tax issues.
 The Parliament met in April 1640 and was willing to raise taxes, if certain royal
officials were punished – these officials were proponents of an absolute monarchy
and thus opposed to the parliamentary system.

Both James I and Charles I were supported by Anglicans in England and by Catholics in
Scotland and Ireland. However, a new religious group called the Puritans (an orthodox
branch of Calvinism) was still more and more vocally opposing the Anglican Church.

 The Puritans rejected absolute rule of the monarch and stressed that every person had
individual freedom. They also opposed the luxurious and ostentatious lifestyle of the
elites and stressed other virtues: responsibility, hard work, modesty, and thrift.
Because they were persecuted, many of them left for North America. A part of them
left England in 1620 and settled in present-day Massachusetts. They became known as
Father Pilgrims and Americans today commemorate this date as an important event
in US history.

Beginning of the 1st ENGLISH CIVIL WAR:

The English society was divided into two camps: one supported the king and the other
opposed him.

 The king was supported by some nobles, by the Anglican Church, the Royalists
and by the peasants.
 The Parliament was supported by other nobles. It also had supporters amongst
the Puritans and in towns and cities. The army of parliament was led by Oliver
Cromwell
 The battle of NASEBY /June 1645/ was one of the most important battle of the war. The
army of Parliament gained a decisive victory and the king fled to Scotland. The king was
captured, found guilty of treason and executed.

England as a republic

The execution of Charles I ended the monarchy in England. England became a republic
called the Commonwealth of England.

In 1651, Parliament issued the Navigation Acts.

 These laws stated that goods imported to Britain can only be imported on
British ships or on ships from the country where the goods were made. In this
way, Holland was excluded from trade facilitation and England was on its way to
becoming the strongest naval power in the world. (The Navigation Acts also led to
a series of wars between Holland and England.)

In 1653, Cromwell dissolved Parliament and became Lord Protector, ruling in England
as a dictator until his death in 1658. He dissolved the Parliament and eliminated his
political opponents. He used the king´s property to create a powerful navy. Conquered
Scotland and Ireland and thus for the first time, the one state of Great Britain was created.

There were other consequences of the revolution as well.

 First, two political fractions formed in the Parliament which were the direct
predecessors of modern political parties:
 Rich nobles from the countryside were conservative and defended
traditional social and political order. They became known as the Tories.
 The members of lower social groups were more liberal, they wanted
change and more reforms, and became known as the Whigs.

The restoration

When Cromwell died, the Scottish army captured London and the monarchy was
restored, the Stuarts regained the throne, but the power of the king was now
significantly limited.

 Charles II, the son of Charles I, was invited back to England. Parliament passed
an important document that guaranteed basic freedoms- Habeas Corpus. - that
no one can be imprisoned unlawfully
 Charles II died in 1685 and his brother became King James II.
 James was a devout catholic, who wanted to restore Catholicism in
England.
 Parliament offered the English throne to Jame´s daughter Mary and her
husband William of Orange from the Netherlands, who were Protestants.
When William entered London with his army, James fled to France. This
 event is known as the Glorious Revolution it was bloodless and secured
stability and balance in English society.

William and Mary agreed to share power with Parliament and thus England became a
constitutional monarchy after they signed the famous document the Bill of Rights.

The document officially limited royal power.

1) the king cannot make or abolish laws without approval of the Parliament;

2) that elections are free;

3) that freedom of speech for Members of Parliament is guaranteed.

 This was the beginning of the modern parliamentary system and England
became a constitutional monarchy. The parliamentary system in England
developed further during the beginning of the 18thcentury.
 A new dynasty (the House of Hanover) ascended the throne, an official
opposition appeared in the Parliament (it had the right and the duty to criticize
government policies), and censorship was abolished. The parliament was elected,
but the right to vote was not universal. Women were not allowed to vote and only
rich men had this right (this is known as property based suffrage).
 After the revolution, the geopolitical situation on the British Isles also changed. In
1707, the Kingdom of England was joined with the Kingdom of Scotland to
from the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
 In 1800, the Kingdom of Ireland was also included and the new state became
known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.