English Kings and Parliament

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1215, the landlords in England secured
Magna Carta Libertatum, or the Great Charter, from King John, which established that the king may not levy or collect
any taxes without the consent of his royal council, which gradually developed into the Parliament of England. Over the
centuries, it progressively limited the power of the English monarchs, and more often than not, the Parliament and
Sovereign made an uneasy combination. This arguably culminated in the English Civil War (execution of Charles I in
1649) and Glorious Revolution in 1688, after which the supremacy of Parliament was settled principle and all future
English sovereigns were restricted to the role of constitutional monarchs with limited executive authority.

In England there was a political and religious doctrine called “the divine rights of kings” which stated that a monarch
was subject to no earthly authority, he derived his right to rule directly from the will of the god. The king was not a
subject to the will of is people, the aristocracy or any other estate of the kingdom. The doctrine implied that any
attempt to depose of the king or to restrict his powers ran contrary to the will of God, however, the kings realised that
they, in the times of hardship, needed to rely on the landed gentry. Historians generally trace the birth of parliaments to
this and initially, parliaments were mostly summoned when the king needed to raise money through taxes. Following
the Magna Carta, this became a convention. The English barons had momentum on their side and in times of a weak
monarch, it was them who controlled the king. This meant that the ideas of the Magna Carta, most notably that the
king was not above the law and actually did have to formally ask the noblemen for permission to put in taxes (which
would later become part of parliamentary prerogatives) actually did take hold in England.

However, the power of the English monarch was a couple of centuries from reaching its apex. Despite having legal
restrictions put on the Crown from here on out in English history, this was a time of fairly weak kings. Though there
were a handful of authoritative kings, like Edward I or Edward III, the monarchs were mostly weak, such as Edward II
or Richard II. Though the first group generally succeeded in controlling the aristocracy, usually it was the aristocracy,
who sat in Parliament, who controlled the kings.

However, the Tudor dynasty is where the power of English monarchs reached its great height, in my opinion, as there
were often periods of several years when parliament did not sit at all . Henry VII declared his reign the day before the
Battle of Bosworth Field, which allowed him to execute a large number of noblemen who had survived the battle and
were a part of the then-Parliament. He also set up an institution called “the Star Chamber” where people could be
convicted for doings that he believed should have been declared illegal, but weren’t actually so. Henry VIII, famous
for the breaking with the Catholic church and establishing Protestantism in England, did so even while there was a
Parliament at this point, as the nobles were all signing to the monarch’s tune and the commoners didn’t matter. Mary I
and Elizabeth I also followed the authoritarian approach, unlike their younger brother Edward VI, who was too young
to rule effectively, and, though compromise was, at times, made in order to avoid conflict, showed that monarchs had
supremacy over the Parliament, who was unable to dominate.

After the death of the Virgin Queen, the throne went to James I, of the House of Stuart, and it according to many
historians marks the downfall of the monarchy’s supreme power. While the English hadn’t had any issue with being
ruled autocratically by the Tudor dynasty, it was behavior greatly unaccepted when it came from the Stuart dynasty,
who were Scots and therefore foreign. Furthermore, Parliament had not always submitted to the wishes of the Tudor
monarchs, but parliamentary criticism reached its new levels during the reign of the House of Stuarts. However, the
wedge between the Parliament and monarchs was not made at the time of James I who generally sought consensus on
all matters and proposed moderate policies – the expenditure was reasonable and taxation kept low, as economy was
stable. On the other hand, his son, Charles I did not follow a consensual approach, and was fond of keeping the
taxation at high levels. Parliament was against proposals, and was mostly Puritan at this point, which caused a conflict
between them who believed Charles was harbouring Catholic sympathies. This resulted in the Civil war and execution
of Charles I in 1649. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688 the supremacy of Parliament was settled principle and all
future English sovereigns were restricted to the role of constitutional monarchs with limited executive authority. After
this, the powers of Parliament gradually began to increase at a natural level, and the monarch, by the time the
Hanovers arrived, was reduced only to the de jure head of state, but Parliament was sovereign.

To conclude, the relationships between English monarchs, and Parliament was frequently uneasy one from its very
beginning with Magna Carta until the Glorious Revolution. Though some of the kings sought to reach a consensus,
others were too extreme with their policies which caused Parliament, that was necessary for every king to rule
adequately, to essentially rally the people against the monarchy. Similarly, the relationship between the Parliament and
the monarch largely depended upon the strength of the monarch – a stronger monarch was more likely to dominate
over Parliament, whilst a weaker one was always bound to accept the proposals suggested by the Parliament and the
barrons.