Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- BOOK XVI THE LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II, 1675—1685 WHIGS AND TORIES
- BOOK XVII REIGN OF JAMES II, FEBRUARY 1685 TO SEPTEMBER 1688
- BOOK XVIII THE FALL OF JAMES II IN ITS CONNEXION WITH THE EUROPEAN CONFLICTS WHICH MARKED THE CLOSE OF 1688
- BOOK XIX COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION IN THE THREE KINGDOMS, 1688—1691
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I William of Orange in London. Summoning of a Convention
- CHAP. II First sittings of the Convention. Debates on the vacancy of the Throne
- CHAP. III Elevation of the Prince of Orange to the English Throne. Constitutional limitations of the power of the Crown
- CHAP. IV James II in Ireland supported by help from France
- CHAP. V Dundee in the Scottish Highlands
- CHAP. VI Military events in Ireland in the year 1689
- CHAP. VII Dissensions in the Convention Parliament
- CHAP. VIII Dissolution of the Convention Parliament. First sittings of the Parliament of 1690
- CHAP. IX The Court at Dublin. Rivalry of the French and English Navies
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- BOOK XVI THE LATER YEARS OF CHARLES II, 1675—1685 WHIGS AND TORIES
- BOOK XVII REIGN OF JAMES II, FEBRUARY 1685 TO SEPTEMBER 1688
- BOOK XVIII THE FALL OF JAMES II IN ITS CONNEXION WITH THE EUROPEAN CONFLICTS WHICH MARKED THE CLOSE OF 1688
- BOOK XIX COMPLETION OF THE REVOLUTION IN THE THREE KINGDOMS, 1688—1691
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAP. I William of Orange in London. Summoning of a Convention
- CHAP. II First sittings of the Convention. Debates on the vacancy of the Throne
- CHAP. III Elevation of the Prince of Orange to the English Throne. Constitutional limitations of the power of the Crown
- CHAP. IV James II in Ireland supported by help from France
- CHAP. V Dundee in the Scottish Highlands
- CHAP. VI Military events in Ireland in the year 1689
- CHAP. VII Dissensions in the Convention Parliament
- CHAP. VIII Dissolution of the Convention Parliament. First sittings of the Parliament of 1690
- CHAP. IX The Court at Dublin. Rivalry of the French and English Navies
Summary
It has been chiefly during great European conflicts that the English Parliament has obtained its power and importance.
Properly speaking, it owes its formation to such a conflict. When in the year 1265 Queen Eleanor, in alliance with the powers predominant in the West, the Pope and the King of France, was arming a mercenary force in Flanders for an invasion of England, Simon de Montfort, in order to obtain a broader basis for resistance, introduced the lower nobility and the deputies of the towns into the council of the spiritual and temporal magnates in England.
Parliament was formed while England stood on the defensive; it subsequently acquired its most important powers while the undertakings of different kings against Scotland and against France were being carried out. On the chief question in dispute during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, that relating to the succession to the French throne, the English Parliament gave the support of popular co-operation to its kings who claimed a right to that throne. There was no parallel to the personal position which kings like Edward III and Henry V, thus supported, attained in the world; but their government assumed at the same time a parliamentary character.
In the sixteenth century ecclesiastical questions came everywhere into the foreground. In England the crown and the Parliament made common cause in order to establish the ecclesiastical independence of the country,—under forms however which departed as little as possible from those previously accepted.
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- A History of EnglandPrincipally in the Seventeenth Century, pp. 473 - 476Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1875