Monarchy in the British Isles: image and reality

Gabriel Glickman

Relationship of kings and parliaments subject to major scholarly debates

• Whig historians (Macaulay, Gardiner, Trevelyan) – rising power of parliament the key point at issue .

• Challenge by revisionists (Morrill, Russell) – parliamentary a secondary issue to other conflicts e.g. over religion in Civil Wars, 1688 Revolution.

• 1689 parliamentary settlements after Revolution seen by most historians as marking major change e.g. works of Steven Pincus.

James I, coronation medal

The Banqueting House

Holyrood Palace

Rubens, Union of the Crowns, 1632-4

Rubens, detail from Union of the Crowns, 1632-4

Frontispiece to the Eikon Basilike, 1649

Church of Charles the Martyr, Tunbridge Wells

The Parliament of England

• Bicameral structure.

• Commons dominated by country gentry.

• Potential electorate of 250,000 (40-shilling freeholders).

‘An Event not an institution’?

• No structure of government and opposition.

• Seen as place to consult, present petitions, not to oppose the king.

• Dominance of private over public legislation.

• Long periods when not sitting.

Scotland – parliament of the ‘estates’

• Composed of bishops, peers and burgesses.

• Dominance of the crown through committee of the Lords of the Articles.

• Long periods when parliament does not sit.

Ireland

• Weakest of the three parliaments

• Major religious divisions – retention of Catholic majority in Lords, evenly-divided Commons.

• Constrained by Poyning’s Law since 1495.

Constitutional grey areas

• Idea of an English ‘ancient constitution’ constraining kings - influence of Coke’s Institutes of the Laws.

• Defeat of James VI and I’s Union project 1604-8.• Major clashes with crown over foreign policy

(England, 1621).• Early consensus against Charles I in Long Parliament

– abolition of Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission

Legacy of Civil War

• Ambiguities over how powerful parliament has become.

• Reassertion in idea of Divine Right kingship, but early Long Parliament legislation kept intact.

• Financial settlement for Charles II not enough to cover costs of government esp. in times of war.

• Charles II and James II voice absolutist ideas but try to govern through consent of parliament.

The Exclusion Crisis – return of ideological polarisation

• Whig case asserts historical power and importance of parliament.

• Return of Calvinist ‘monarchomach’ in proclamations of Scottish rebels

• Tory literature in England, Scotland and Ireland presents case for a more absolute monarch – writings of Brady and Sheridan.

• Crisis sets further precedent for parliamentary authority and self-organisation: creation of the party system.

Ireland 1688-91 – failed Catholic Revolution centred on Dublin Parliament

• Declaratory Act (May 1689) – Kingdom of Ireland ‘distinct’ from kingdom of England: no act of English Parliament can bind it.

• Overthrow of English Navigation Acts.• Defeat of Jacobite rebels and restoration of

English crown authority through Articles of Limerick (1691).

• But Protestant MPs of 1692 reinvigorate claim to greater rights from Dublin parliament.

1689 Revolution settlements - Scotland

• Claim of Right and Article of Grievances (1689) get close to turning Scotland into an elective monarchy.

• James II had ‘forefaulted the right to the the Crown’, invaded ‘the fundamental constitution of this kingdom and altered it from a Legal limited monarchy to an arbitrary despotic power’.

• Abolish committee of the Lords of the Articles – Parliament can now initiate legislation and debate it freely.

• Remodel the Church of Scotland in Presbyterian form.

Resolution of the Westminster Parliament, 6 February 1689

• ‘That King James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the Constitution of the Kingdom, by the breaking of the Original Contract between King and People, and by the advice of Jesuits, and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental Laws, and having withdrawn himself out of his Kingdom; has abdicated the Government, and that the Throne is thereby vacant.’

Revolution settlement - England

• Most complex and ambiguous revolution settlement of the three kingdoms.

• Compromise between Whig and Tory perspectives in parliamentary ‘Resolution’ – shift towards seeing ‘abdication’ of James II and ‘vacancy’ of the throne.

• Declaration of Rights sets out powers of parliament but lacks legal/constitutional force.

1690s England – the real revolution?

• William compelled to return regularly to Parliament for war funding – gives parliament leverage.

• 1694 – William agrees to sign the Triennial Act.

• Ten general elections 1695-1715. • Crown constrained to select ministers who can

deliver a parliamentary majority.