none that conflicted with her authority as the head of that church. After the pope excommunicated her in 1570, she had Parliament declare that Catholicism was treason. Parliament lost power during her reign. It did not meet often, as she needed to ask it levy taxes for her. In theory Parliament continued to have all of the powers it had won during the Middle Ages.
The Elizabethan reign later was called “The English Renaissance”. And this is right. She did a lot to her Kingdom. On of it was the opening of the trade routs to Russia, trade companies like the East India Company, the Muscovy Company and the Virginia Company.
The Stuart monarchs who succeeded Elizabeth try to impose absolutism and to rule by “divine right”. But the English Parliament, asserting its ancient rights and privileges, challenged them. The result was a struggle that lasted through the better part of the seventeenth century, culminating in the victory of Parliament over the kings. In the age when absolutism triumphed almost everywhere, England was the striking exception of the rule. Growing opposition to the Stuarts centered in Parliament. The Stuarts disliked Parliament, but were dependent upon it because only the House of Commons had the right to levy taxes. The Stuarts insisted they had absolute authority to follow whatever policies they chose. The conflict between Parliament and the king came to a climax under Charles I (king 1625-1649). In 1626 Charles found himself at war with both France and Spain. Parliament refused to grant new taxes until it had had “redress of grievances”. Led by Sir John Eliot, the members of Commons finally forced Charles to sign the “Petition of Right” in 1628. This pact guaranteed certain rights of Parliament and of individual Englishmen against their king.
The first Parliament of 1640, the so-called “Short” Parliament, mat less then a month. But soon after Charles was forced to call another Parliament, which came to be called the “Long” Parliament because it met off and on for twenty years (1640-1660). In 1641 the Long Parliament set out to dominate the government. More important, it passed a series of acts to make absolute monarchy impossible.
From 1642 to 1645 the civil war broke in England. It was between Supporters of King Charles (Cavaliers) and the supporters of the Parliament (Roundheads) under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. The “Roundheads” won in this war and the members who remained from the previous Parliament come to be called the “Rump” (sitting part of Parliament). In 1649 Charles was beheaded and later Oliver Cromwell became the King of England. After his death in 1658 his son Richard took control over the country. But he was a poor ruler and soon resigned. In 1660 the surviving members of the Long Parliament were called back into session to invite Charles Stuart to become King Charles II of England.
Charles II had his problems with Parliament, but he was usually able to surmount them, and he always knew when the time had come to back down.
The growing power of Parliament against the monarch in the seventeenth century was reflected in the development of more organized political parties. Two groups (Whigs and Tories) became dominant, and this feature was to characterize future British two-party politics, in which political power has shifted between two main parties. The Whigs didn’t accept the Catholic sympathizer James II as successor to Charles II and wanted religious freedom for al Protestants. The Tories generally supported royalist beliefs, and helped Charles II to secure James’s right to succeed him.
He (James) attempted to rule without Parliament and ignored his laws. His manipulations forced Tories to join Whigs in inviting the Protestant William of Orange to intervene. William arrived in England in 1688, James fled to France and William succeeded to the throne as England’s first constitutional monarch. Since no force was involved, this event is called the Bloodless or Glorious Revolution. Royal powers were further restricted under the Declaration of Rights (1689), which strengthened Parliament and provided some civil liberties.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the Bill of Rights of 1689 established Parliament once and for all as the equal partner of the king. This division of power was soon to prove itself a far more effective means of government than the absolute monarchies of the continent, and it assured that the constitutional development of England would continue.
