We all have vague ideas about parliament: it’s the gargantuan Gothic building next to Big Ben; it makes laws; it’s something to do with the government; and for some reason the Queen submits to it, instead of taking charge and, say, re-colonising America. But we’re probably a little less sure how Parliament became so important, or what its present importance even is. In this post, we’ll look at the first of these: the winding, erratic history of Parliament and its half-fraught, half-harmonious relationship with king and power and government. In the next, Part II, we’ll examine the diminishing place of Parliament today. We’ll consider whether the power and government which Parliament once controlled now control Parliament.
But for now, back to the past. Our story has two big themes. Keep a weather eye out for them. One is the relationship between Parliament and king. Are their swords crossed and their eyes shooting daggers? Or are they working together? And if they are, who’s the top dog? The other theme is how power, especially the king’s power, was slowly limited and institutionalised to protect liberty and promote the interests of the whole nation.
The Magna Carta & Parliament give the Barons a share in the king’s power
Our story begins with the Magna Carta, the same Magna Carta whose 800th anniversary we celebrated last year, partying, as all of us did, til the early hours and burning banners blazoned with ‘vis et voluntas’ (force and will), the slogan of naughty king John, this very Magna Carta is at the start of Parliament’s story. You see, 13th century barons had a problem: kings had a lot of power, and tended to misuse it: the phrase ‘vis et voluntas’ basically meant, I can do what I want. But, 13th century barons also had a solution: they had a big punch-up with the king, and made him agree to the Magna Carta. In it, the barons demanded that the king must stop being such a loose canon, and govern through their council. This meant, among other things, insisting that the king should only collect taxes if the baron’s council permitted him to. The king had to agree because if the baron’s didn’t pay their taxes then he wouldn’t get any dollar. No dollar, no power, no fun. So the king agreed to the Magna Carta.
Not long afterwards, the barons’ council was amalgamated with the parlement. Parlement comes from the French word parler, meaning, to have a chat. So parlement, or Parliament, was a gabfest, and the people who ran it gabbed about law, specifically judging legal cases, as a high court, and making laws, as a legislature. And soon Par-lee-a-ment became an opportunity for big wigs to chat about all things government. Government and council and parliamentary court and legislature--all these institutions were all integrated under the king’s power.
This would be a good time to Define a Term: government. Government, funnily enough, comes from the French word governer, a fact which is, funnily enough, irrelevant. The government is also called the executive, and its job is to execute, to do stuff and administrate, to wage war and enforce law.
The king is the chief executive: he’s in charge of the government. The barons wanted to weasel their way into government as minor executives, which was why they busied about with the council and parlement. So Parliament didn’t oppose the king. Quite the opposite: it was jolly useful for running his legal system and helping him govern. But Parliament did give the Barons a share in the king’s power, shielding them from the king indiscriminately taxing their cash, or arbitrarily acting against them. Parliament protected their liberties.
Parliament’s rise & the king’s diminution
Parliament became more powerful as rulers used it more. Henry VIII is well known as the king who was fond of women and executions, but he was also really fond of Parliament, and he used it a lot. He used it to break with Roman Catholicism, and to eliminate many of the English church’s privileges, bringing it under his assertive thumb. The arrangement worked so effectively that he once exclaimed in a speech, ‘we at no time stand so highly in our estate royal as in the time of Parliament’. Ding ding ding. Acts of Parliament became the highest expression of law. If I may Define Another Term, institutions that make laws are called legislatures. As the most important legislature, and Parliament began to take itself awfully seriously.
… which set it on a collision course with the incompetent and tyrannical Charles I. He tried to rule without Parliament. He claimed his governmental power derived from divine appointment. He said stuff like ‘the king can do no wrong’, a phrase that a less understanding ear might hear as ‘the king can do whatever he wants’. That’s what the parliamentarians heard anyway, and they weren’t impressed. They had started to think that governmental power wasn’t derived from God, but from the People; and if the government derives its right to rule from the people, it shouldn’t use its power against the people, against their liberty. Though once integrated, Parliament and the King start to separate.
Things came to a head when Charles ran out of shekels and had ask Parliament if he could please levy some taxes, please my good chums. The answer was ‘no way, Jose’ (or, Charles), there was a civil war (you’ll recall all that stuff from school about Roundheads and Cavaliers biffing each other) a civil war that was won by Cromwell, who set up a parliamentary republic, and who was followed shortly afterwards by the brief and blundering rule of his useless son, which was soon followed by the brief and blundering reign of Charles I’s son, James II, before Parliament finally asked William of Orange to be the new king. Phew. There was also a new constitutional settlement, expressed in Parliament’s Bill of Rights (1689), a settlement which specifically limited the king’s powers.
Parliament had now made a man king, by law, and defined his powers, by law. That, dear readers, is what you call absolute legislative authority, and Parliament felt pretty chuffed with it. The technical term is Parliamentary Sovereignty, that is, Parliament can make laws about anything, and their laws trump everything. Let’s quickly take stock of our themes. Firstly, though the monarchs still had control of the government, Parliament really held the reigns of power. For instance, the monarch still controlled the army, but Parliament could legislate to control its size. It’s hard to get anything done if the law-makers don’t work with you. As for our other main theme, the monarch’s powers had been limited, and were now restrained by an institution that believed in protecting liberty, not just the liberty of the barons or parliamentarians, but the liberty of the people.
The king found the new restraints galling, so he tried to get a stake in this wretched Parliament business by appointing influential MPs as his ministers. The king’s ministers ministered to the king by running the government for him. By ordaining MPs as ministers, the king was basically bribing them with power, hoping that they could get all the other Members of Parliament to support his policies. This cunning plan backfired, because if a minister annoyed Parliament too much, Parliament could just take a vote and force the minister to resign as an MP, a fate too horrifying for most ministers to even contemplate. So instead of the ministers manipulating Parliament for the king, the king’s ministers were manipulated by Parliament. The king carried on appointing ministers, but they did what Parliament told them to. Power was now strongly institutionalised: it could no longer be wielded by the whims and injustices of an absolute ruler.
Parliament and the People
Although Parliament was in charge at the start of the 19th c., not the monarch, the people were still underrepresented. MPs were mostly aristocrats and the people who were allowed to vote for them were mostly their aristocratic buddies. But a succession of reforms (1832-1928) made adult suffrage universal. In other words, everyone got the vote, and Parliament focused itself on the interests of the whole nation. People also started to vote in less aristocratic MPs, so much so that the Marquees of Sailsbury bitterly complained that he ‘expect[ed] that the House of Commons will mainly be filled by tradesmen trying to secrete gentility’. Tradesmen these new MPs might have been, but they were the people.
Not only so, but when in 1909 the House of Lords—read, house of aristocrats—opposed the government’s budget, the government demonstrated the people’s support by calling and winning a general election. The Lords backed down, and the government passed the Parliament Act, 1911, an act which removed the Lord’s veto power and legislated that “money bills” would not require their consent. If you cast your minds back to the Tax Credits kerfuffle, you might recall that Parliament passed a bill, that this bill had something to do with money, that the Lords blocked said bill, and that some MPs glowed scarlet with constitutional indignation. That’s a boring story for a more boring day, but the interesting point of it all is that elected politicians should have the biggest say, because they represent the voice of the people. The people’s voice was authoritative, and power was there to listen to them.
Postscript
And that’s roughly the story of Parliament until the early 20th c. I say roughly because aside from the fact that it’s been an impressionistic whirlwind, we’ve ended with Parliament in charge and government ministers underneath it. In fact, by then, the government was subordinating Parliament. In the next post we’ll discuss what changed: whether Parliament plays much of a role any more; whether it has been demoted to the position of second tree on the stage of politics; and whether government has risen from understudy to be the chief actor. Look out for Part II!
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