Sovereignty: The House of Lords and The House of Commons! British Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and its territories. The British Parliament, in its famed Longitude Act of 1714, set the highest bounty of all, naming a prize equal to a kings ransom (several million dollars in todays currency) for a Practicable and Useful? means of determining longitude, Davy Sobel. The history of British Parliament surpassed several milestones that have influenced the modern practice of government.
Under a monarchical system of government, the monarch usually must consult and seek a measure of acceptance for his policies if he is to enjoy the broad cooperation of his subjects. Early kings of England had no standing army or police, and so depended on the support of powerful subjects. The monarchy had agents in every part of the country. However, under the feudal system that evolved in England following the Norman Conquest of 1066, the laws of the Crown could not have been upheld without the support of the nobility and the clergy.
The former had economic and military power bases of their own through major ownership of land and the feudal obligations of their tenants (some of whom held lands on condition of military service). The Church was virtually a law unto itself in this period as it had its own system of religious law courts. A typical Great Council of the Parliament would consist of archbishops, bishops, abbots, barons and earls, the pillars of the feudal system. When this system of consultation and consent broke down, it often became impossible for government to function effectively.
The most prominent instances of this prior to the reign of Henry III are the disagreements between Thomas Becket and Henry II and between King John and the barons. Becket, who served as Archbishop of Canterbury between 1162 and 1170, was murdered following a long running dispute with Henry II over the jurisdiction of the Church. John, who was king from 1199 to 1216, aroused such hostility from many leading noblemen that they forced him to agree to Magna Carta in 1215.
John’s refusal to adhere to this charter led to civil war (House). The nation’s cultural diversity has been increased by migration within the British Isles and by immigration from Europe and overseas. Until 1920, Ireland was incorporated within the United Kingdom. Movement across the Irish Sea had existed since the eighteenth century, even among Ireland’s poorest people. In the nineteenth century, there was a regular pattern of seasonal migration of farm workers from Ireland to Britain.
Irishmen volunteered for the Royal Navy and British Army regiments in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and saw service in all parts of the empire. A wide variety of other Irish people spent periods in Britain, which had a more highly developed economy than Ireland. From 1841 onward, the censuses of Scotland, England, and Wales have enumerated Irish-born people in every part of the country. Similarly, Scottish and Welsh people have settled in England. Most British people have ancestries that are mixtures of the four nationalities of the British Isles (Parliamentary).
The Parliament Act 1911 (1 & 2 Geo. 5. c. 13) asserted the supremacy of the House of Commons by limiting the legislation-blocking powers of the House of Lords (the suspensory veto). Provided the provisions of the Act are met, legislation can be passed without the approval of the House of Lords. Additionally, the 1911 Act amended the Septennial Act 1716 to reduce the maximum life of a Parliament from seven years to five years. The Parliament Act 1911 was amended by the Parliament Act 1949 (12, 13 & 14 Geo. 6. c. 03), which further limited the power of the Lords by reducing the time that they could delay bills, from two years to one. The Welsh Church Act 1914 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom under which the Church of England was separated and disestablished in Wales and Monmouth shire, leading to the creation of the Church in Wales. The Act was a controversial measure, and was passed by the House of Commons under the provisions of the Parliament Act 1911 (Wikipedia. ) The bill was also an attempt to place the relationship between the House of Commons and House of Lords on a new footing.
Other public bills could no longer be vetoed; instead, they could be delayed for up to two years. This two-year period meant that legislation introduced in the fourth or fifth years of a parliament could be delayed until after the next election, which could prove an effective measure to prevent it being passed (Wikipedia). In 1770, the British Parliament even went so far as to pass a law banning lipstick, claiming that “women found guilty of seducing men into matrimony by a cosmetic means could be tried for witchcraft? In 1770). . The Parliament Act 1911, as it became, prevented the Lords from blocking a money bill (a bill dealing with taxation), and allowed them to delay any other bill for a maximum of three sessions (reduced to two sessions in 1949), after which it could become law over their objections. However, regardless of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the House of Lords has always retained the unrestricted power to be able to block and veto any bill outright which attempts to extend the life of a parliament. (Project Britain).
Although those who had signed Charles I’s death warrant were punished (nine regicides were put to death, and Cromwell’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and buried in a common pit), Charles II pursued a policy of political tolerance and power-sharing. (United). Parliament had not always submitted to the wishes of the Tudor monarchs. But parliamentary criticism of the monarchy reached new levels in the 17th century. When the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, died in 1603, King James VI of Scotland came to power as King James 1, founding the Stuart monarchy.
In 1628, alarmed by the arbitrary exercise of royal power, the House of Commons submitted to Charles I the Petition of Right, demanding the restoration of their liberties (United). Currently, Parliament has a fixed term of 5 years. Originally there was no fixed limit on the length of a Parliament, but the Triennial Act 1694 set the maximum duration at three years. As the frequent elections were deemed inconvenient, the Septennial Act 1715 extended the maximum to seven years, but the Parliament Act 1911 reduced it to five. During the Second World War, the term was temporarily extended to ten years by Acts of Parliament.
Since the end of the war the maximum has remained five years. Modern Parliaments, however, rarely continued for the maximum duration; normally, they were dissolved earlier. For instance, the 52nd, which assembled in 1997, was dissolved after four years. The Septennial Act was repealed by the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (Untied). The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the UK Parliament or the British Parliament, is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories.
It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories. British Parliament alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and its territories. The history of British Parliament surpassed several milestones that have influenced the modern practice of government. We live in a democratic country, which means we all have a say in how the country is run. Parliament represents the people. It is where we send our chosen representatives to represent our views in the House of Commons.
