Суд и процесс

Основные черты:

- демократизация судебного процесса («Закон о судах и правовом обслуживании» 1990 г.) – вводится в процесс категория правозаступников (адвокатов), потеснив монополии барристеров и солиситеров;

- с 1985 г. по наиболее важным уголовным делам действует система государственных обвинителей;

- возросла роль полиции в уголовном процессе (Закон «О полиции и доказательствах по уголовным делам» 1994 г.);

- снизился возрастной и отменен имущественный цензы (Закон 1974 г. «О присяжных») присяжных заседателей;

- унифицирована деятельность всех судов страны (Закон «О судах» 1971 г.).

Трудовое право

Основные черты:

- развитие социального страхования (на случай болезни, инвалидности, родов, по безработице);

- развитие социального обеспечения (Закон 1985 г.);

- установление равной заработной платы для мужчин и женщин (Закон 1970 г.);

- возрастает роль коллективных договоров – они определяют условия труда работников, размер заработной платы, продолжительность отдыха;

- для рассмотрения трудовых споров созданы специальные трибуналы, которые в своих действиях руководствуются кодексами практики (Codes of practice), составляются государственными органами и содержат рекомендации, несоблюдение которых не влечет за собой применения каких-либо санкций.

Семейное право

Основные черты

1. Наряду с гражданским браком, заключаемым в государственных органах, сохраняется церковный брак (Закон 1949 г.), браку может предшествовать помолвка.

2. Условия вступления в брак:

- достижение 16-ти летнего возраста;

- брачующиеся могут принадлежать к одному полу, а также быть близкими родственниками (Закон от 05.12.2005 г.);

- добровольность;

- вступающие в брак не должны быть связаны другими брачными узами.

3. Брак – разновидность контракта, предусматривает взаимную поддержку, совместное проживание и согласие на сексуальные отношения, хотя сохраняется институт «Separation» фактическое разделение семьи).

4. Существует общий и договорной режим имущества супругов.

5. Установлена юридическая ответственность родителей за действия детей до достижения ими 18 лет.

6. Установлено обязательное школьное образование для детей в возрасте от 5 до 16 лет, форму образования выбирают родители и несут ответственность за получение детьми образования (Закон «Об образовании» 1944 г.)

7. Предусматривается защита детей в возрасте до 16 лет от грубого обращения с ними, от оставления их родителями или изгнания из дома (Закон 1933 г.)

Гражданское право

Основные черты.

1. Сужение полномочий собственника:

- лишение землевладельца права пользования водной энергией, воздушным пространством и т.п.;

- упрощение порядка изъятия земельной собственности на государственные нужды.

2. Развитие государственной собственности.

(Законы о национализации угольной, газовой, сталелитейной отраслей промышленности).

3. Реорганизация деятельности акционерных обществ.

- поощрение включения мелких буржуа и рабочих в число акционеров;

- затруднения для участия мелких акционеров в деятельности компании;

- расширение полномочий правления за счет ограничения прав общего собрания;

- переплетение монополий в их производственной, финансовой и др. областях.

4. Ограничение «свободы договора»:

- ограничение договорной свободы путем включения дополнительных условий;

- вмешательство государственной администрации в сферу договорных отношений.

5. Обобществление производства и увеличение свободы экономических субъектов.

6. Развитие «антитрестовского» законодательства:

- запрещение или ограничение отдельных форм объединения предпринимателей.

- запрещение некоторых видов частной предпринимательской деятельности.

Part II. Great Britain: the History of State and Law

Introduction. Ancient England

Romano Britain AD43 – 409

Anglo-Saxon Britain 410 – 1066

The Anglo-Saxons Kings

Law and Order

Britain in Middle Ages 1066 – 1484

Anglo-Normans (1066-1215)

The Domsday Book

Maturing Feudalism

Magna Carta (1215)

The Plantagenets (1216-1347)

The Growth of Parliament

Tudors – Absolute Monarchy 1485 – 1602

The New Dynasty

The English Reformation

The Court of Star Chamber

The Stuarts and the Struggle of the Parliament against the Crown 1603-1713

The Stuart Kings and their Conflicts with the Parliament

Petition of Right (1628)

English Civil War (1642 – 1646)

Long Parliament (1640 – 1653)

Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum

The Glorious Revolution (1688) and the Bill of Rights (1689)

The 18^th Century

Technological Revolution and Power

The Union with Scotland (1707)

Whigs and Tories

The 19^th Century

The Victorian Age of the British Empire

Legal Profession in Great Britain – the Inns of Court

The 20^th Century

Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949

The Statue of Westminster (1931)

The British Parliament Today

Introduction

ANCIENT ENGLAND

(Charles Dickens "A Child's History of England", 1853)

You will see on the map of the world, in the left-hand upper corner of the eastern Hemisphere, two islands lying in the sea. They are England and Scotland, and Ireland. England and Scotland form the greater part of these islands. Ireland is next in size. The little islands looking like dots are chiefly bits of Scotland, broken off, in the course of time, by the power of the restless water. In the old days, long ago, the sea reared round them just as it roars now. But the sea was not alive then with great ships sailing to and from all parts of the world. The winds and waves brought no adventurers to the islands, and the savage islanders knew nothing of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world knew nothing of them.

It is supposed that the Phoenicians* came in ships to these islands, and found that they produced tin and lead – both very useful things, produced upon the sea-coast.[] The Phoenicians traded with the islanders – Britons* – for these metals, and gave other things in exchange. The islanders were poor savages, going almost naked, or dressed in the rough skins of beasts. The whole country was covered with forests and swamps. The greater part of it was misty and cold. There were no roads, bridges, streets or houses. A town was only a collection of straw-covered huts, hidden in a thick wood, with a ditch all round and a low wall made of mud, or the trunks of trees placed on upon another. The people planted little or not corn, but lived upon the flesh of their flocks and cattle. They made no coins, but used metal rings for money. []

The Britons had a strange religion, called the religion of the Druids. It seems to have been brought over, in early times, from the opposite country of France, and to have mixed up the worship of the Serpent and of the Sun and Moon with the worship of some of the heathen goods and goddesses. Its ceremonies were kept secret by the priests (Druids), who pretended to be enchanters. Their ceremonies included the sacrifice of human victims, the torture of suspected criminals, and on occasions the burning alive, in immense wicker-cages, of a number of men and animals together. [] Such was the condition of the Britons fifty-five years before the birth of Christ, when the Romans under Julius Caesar, were masters of all the rest of the world.

Phoenicians – финикийцы – народ, обитавший в древности на восточном побережье Средиземного моря и славившийся искусными мореплавателями.

Britons – Бритты – кельтские племена, жившие на Британских островах

ROMANO BRITAIN AD43 – 409

The Roman Emperor Julius Caesar carried out two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, neither of which led to immediate Roman settlement in Britain. Caesar's summer expeditions were a failure. Almost a century later in 43 AD Emperor Claudius sent his legions over the seas to occupy Britain. The occupation was to last more than three centuries and the Roman saw their mission of civilizing the country. The British were not conquered easily. There was a resistance in Wales; the Romans destroyed the Druids, a class of Celtic priests as their rituals allegedly involved human sacrifice.

The Roman occupation was spread mainly over England, while Wales, Scotland and Ireland remained unconquered areas of the Celtic fringe – preserving Celtic culture and traditions. The Romans were in Great Britain for over 350 years, they were both an occupying army and the rules. They imposed Pax Romana, - Roman peace – which stopped tribal wars, and protected Britain from the attacks of outsiders – Picts in the North and Saxons from overseas.

London was the center of Roman Rule in Britain, it was walled, the Thames was bridged; and the straight paved roads (Roman Roads, - that are as straight as a die) connected London with other towns. Under the Emperor Hadrian in 120 AD a great wall was built across Britain between the Tyne and the Solway to protect the Romans against the attacks of Scots and Picts. Hadrian's wall was a vast engineering project and it is still a material monument of the Roman times alongside with roads, frescoes and mosaics on the villas. The Roman also brought Christianity to Britain, and the British church became a strong institution. The native language absorbed many Latin words at that time.

By the fifth century the Roman Empire was beginning to disintegrate and the Roman legions in Britain had to return back to Rome to defend it from the attacks of the new waves of barbaric invades. Britain was left to defend and rule itself.

ANGLO-SAXON BRITAIN 410 – 1066

The term Anglo-Saxon is a relatively modern one. It refers to settlers from the German regions of Angeln and Saxony, who made their way over to Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire around 410 AD. The Roman armies withdrew from Britain early in the fifth century because they were needed back home to defend the crumbling center of the Empire. Britain was considered a far-flung outpost of little value. The Anglo-Saxons did little to keep the legacy of the Romans alive. They replaced the Roman stone buildings with their own wooden ones, and spoke their own language, which gave rise to the English spoken today. The Anglo-Saxons also brought their own religious beliefs, but the arrival of Saint Augustine in 597 converted most of the country to Christianity. The Anglo-Saxon period lasted for 600 years and in that time Britain's political landscape underwent many changes. The early settlers kept to small tribal groups, forming kingdoms and sub-kingdoms. The Anglo-Saxon England was a network of small kingdoms.

Anglo-Saxon Britain

In the Dark Ages during the fifth and sixth centuries, communities of peoples in Britain inhabited homelands with ill-defined borders. Such communities were organized and led by kings. Following the final withdrawal of the Roman legions from the provinces of Britannia in around 408 AD, these small kingdoms were left to preserve their own order and to deal with invaders and waves of migrant peoples such as the Picts, the Scots and Germanic tribes from the continent. The invading communities overwhelmed or adapted existing kingdoms and created new ones. By 650 AD, the British Isles were a patchwork of many kingdoms founded from native or immigrant communities and led by powerful chieftains or kings. In their personal feuds and struggles between communities for control and supremacy, a small number of kingdoms became dominant.

The seventh century saw the establishment of seven kingdoms, and the largest three of them – Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex – dominated the country at different times. Until the late seventh century, a series of warrior-kings in turn established their own personal authority over other kings, usually won by force or through alliances and often cemented by dynastic marriages. According to the later chronicles, the most famous of these kings was Ethelberht, king of Kent (reigned 560-616), who became the first English king to be converted to Christianity (St. Augustine's mission from the Pope to Britain in 597 during Ethelberht's reign prompted thousands of such conversions). Ethelberht's law code was the first to be written in any Germanic language and included 90 laws.

In the eighth century, smaller kingdoms in the British Isles continued to fall to more powerful kingdoms, which claimed rights over whole areas and established temporary primacies – in England, Mercia and later Wessex came to dominate, giving rise to the start of the monarchy. Throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the succession was frequently contested, by both the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy and leaders of the settling Scandinavian communities. The Scandinavian influence was to prove strong in the early years. It was the threat of invading Vikings which galvanized English leaders into unifying their forces.

The Anglo-Saxons Kings

The Anglo-Saxon kings were adept at framing laws, which reflected their authority. But they were also flexible enough to placate their regional sensibilities. In practice, this meant that most laws took local customs into account. It is easy to forget, as we contemplate a British monarchy empties of real power and drained of its magical aura, that kingship was one of the great medieval institutions. And English medieval kingship again was a creation of the 10^th century (we even still use their coronation order!). This was the institution on which the ultimate responsibility for social order rested. And it was the kingship of Alfred and Edgar of Wessex and their successors which gave substance to the English state.

The Anglo-Saxon kings, who were most successful, most praised and best remembered, were kings whose power base wasn't just in southern England. Success as a medieval king depended on maintaining a delicate approach which paid close attention to local sensibilities. You can see this particularly well in the law codes – Edgar's code, issued in 962-963, specifically talks about:

'…measures common to all the nation, whether English, Danes, or Britons, in every province of my kingdom, to the end that poor man and rich may possess what they rightly acquire…'

So, we can see that, by 960s, the Anglo-Saxon kings were taking into account several different linguistic groupings: the southern English, West Saxons, Mercians and East Angles, the Danes and the Britons. And it is obvious in their legislation that they allowed for regional difference in custom too. At one point, Edgar actually says:

'It is my will that secular rights be in force among the Danes according to as good laws as they can best decide on… Among the English, however, whatever I and my advisors have added to the customs of my ancestors for the benefit of all the nation.'

For example, in the lands settled by the Danes, they had their own marriage customs. Their administrative practice and land tenure were different in practice and terminology. Up north, they had 'wapentakes' instead of hundreds; they counted in 'carucates' instead of hides. A hide was about 120 acres, the area traditionally believed to be adequate to support one family.

And their legal traditions were different: it was among the Danes that the 12-man jury system evolved, to be borrowed by the English who exported it to the world, and now claim to have invented it!

Law and Order

In any state you need law, a written statement of the social norms which society, or the government, seeks to enforce. And the Anglo-Saxon state produced lots of laws – legal texts are among its most distinctive and most characteristic productions. Of course, to govern a medium-sized state (in early medieval terms) you have to meet rather different concerns than those for which law had previously provided. Early English law had been framed for tribal societies, and was based on the feud, on redress of injury, rather than a mutual sense of responsibility to the community. In the Viking era, law-making begins to change to reflect new social conditions. For example, in the 10^th century, when the English state was created, crime was no longer only an injury to the victim, but a crime against society at large, against the English nation.

The new conception of royal justice was aggressive. The Anglo-Saxons had brutal corporal and capital punishments at their disposal, including 'the ordeal' and grisly mutilations. And they also tried to persuade or enforce allegiance with the common oath. Like may traditional societies, the Anglo-Saxons placed a high value on person's work, their sworn promise.

At the heart of the 10^th century state was the oath, taken by all freemen from the age of 12, to abstain from and denounce any major crime. This common oath enshrined the sense of social community and responsibility that underpinned the law. In this light, theft was seen as an act of disloyalty. If you had broken your oath and committed a serious crime your entire kin could be punished. In the old days, you had the local assembly or the king's court. Now, there was a hierarchy of courts in each shire and borough, and revamped local courts known as hundred courts. The presiding officials of these courts were local agents of the king – royal appointees. Local cases would be heard in the hundred courts and it was the obligation of the hundred to find the miscreant and bring him back to face justice and, if necessary, to punish the kin. The hundred court would organize the pursuit of notable criminals who fled, and punishment could include exile – you could be transported with your kin group to a completely different part of the country. Harsh methods, to be sure, but these were harsh times.

'The Christian king must severely punish wicked men… He must be merciful and yet austere; that is the king's right – and that is the way to get things done in a nation.'

Archbishop Wulfstan

Crime and violence were the central problem for the early English kings, all the more so as they were Christians who saw it as their job to be Christ's vicar on earth. In one of his law codes, King Athelstan is recorded apologizing for the bad state of public order: "I am sorry my peace is kept so badly: my advisors say I have put up with it too long." With brutal punishments at their disposal, it would have been easy for a king to respond with an iron first. Which makes the mitigating touches of humanity that we occasionally find all the more touching. King Athelstan, for example, is reported saying to his councilors that he was concerned about the number of young people being executed under the death penalty, 'as he sees everywhere is the case.' In his day, the penalty could be enforced on anyone twelve years old or over, but the king raised the age of criminal responsibility to sixteen because, as he said simply, 'it is too cruel.' That was around 930, while as late as the early 19^th century there were cases of ten, nine, and even eight year olds being executed for sheep stealing!

The story provides a salutary warning against patronizing people in the past, or assuming our ancestors of 1,000 years ago were more cruel, or less civilized, than we are. This was a genuine effort to create a humane government, however, unpalatable some of its methods may seem to us now, and however ineffectual the king sometimes admits they were at the time.

BRITAIN IN MIDDLE AGES 1066 – 1484

Anglo-Normans (1066 –1215)

The Normans came to govern following one of the most famous battles in English history: the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William of Normandy was crowned King of England (1066 - 87). Various revolts against William I (both English and Norman) were repeatedly crushed. In 1069, William forced the Scottish King to submit to him as superior. Military conquest followed by settlement and firm administrative control led to the Normanisation of England, Wales and lowland Scotland.

The Norman Conquest did have immediate social, political and cultural implications. There were considerable changes in the social structure of the British kingdoms as a new aristocracy was introduced with attendant views on obligations and service. Effects of the conquest included a complete change of the ruling classes in English society: only thirteen English magnates can be found in the Domesday Book. The new rough foreign aristocracy captured power and lands. By 1100 there were 500 Norman castles in the English countryside. Stone castles became a common sight, serving as administrative centers as well as military and economic strongpoints.

There was a blow against the Church as well; Saxon bishops were either deposed or replaced by Normans. During the 11^th and 12^th centuries an apparatus of government of exceptional effectiveness was established. England was also drawn into close links with the other side of Channel. Cultural and economic links with France and continental Europe were re-established.

However, there was a language gap between the local (Anglo-Saxon) population and the new landowners, of both the Church and the Norman Aristocracy. French replaced English as the official language. Latin was a language of monasteries, Norman French was now the language of law and authority. Inflected English, spoken differently in the various regions remained the language of the people.

The Domesday Book (1086)

The brightest evidence of the situation in the country was the Domesday Book, a survey of England's land and people. The Domesday Book was the result of a great survey commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085. He sent officials to 13,418 places to determine who lived there and what they owned. The main manuscript, "Great Domesday," is an exhaustive record of landholders, their titles and possessions. It was written by a single scribe and contains entries for all the English counties which comprised England at that time. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were included in a smaller manuscript known as Little Domesday. The purpose of the survey is a matter of historical debate. Some argue that the primary purpose was financial, pointing to the emphasis on assessment within the text. However, it can also be viewed as a register of title, aimed at resolving disputed titles and lands. The first draft was probably brought to William by August 1, 1086 in preparation for the Salisbury Oath, where 'landowning men of any account' were summoned to swear allegiance to the king. It was the most complete record of any country at that time and continued to be consulted on legal and tenurial matters well into the Middle Ages. It came to be known as the Domesday Book, Domesday meaning 'day of judgment.'

According to the Domesday Book, Norman society still rested on "lordship, secular and spiritual, and the King, wise or foolish, was the lord of lords, with only Lord in Heaven and the Saints above him." Historians have introduced into their interpretation of Norman and other European lordship the term "feudalism."

Feudalism

Feudalism comes form the Late Latin word feudum, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. Even though the word origin is from the Middle Ages, the concept of feudalism was not invented until the 17^th century, in the modern era. Feudalism is a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility of Europe during the Middle Ages revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. Feudalism is defined by how these three elements fit together. A lord was a noble who owned land. A vassal was given land by the lord. The land was known as a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism.

The term was used in both narrow and broad sense. Narrowly it was related to military (knightly) service as a condition of tenure of land. Broadly it was related to the tenure of land itself, obligation and dependence, as expressed in the term "vassalage." The first relationship focuses on warfare in an age of violence, the second on the use as well as the tenure of land in an age when land was the key to society.

All land in the country belonged to the Crown. The king was the greatest landowner in the country and he gave away the land to the great landowners who were his tenants-in-chief (barons). The barons held their land as a gift, in return for specified services to the Crown. When barons gave away their land, they also required knightly services for their tenants. During the reign of William I 170 barons had in their service about 4000 knights who were distinguishable as a social group. In the 13^th century King John Lackland (1199-1216) replaced military service of his tenants-in-chief by payments, known as "shield money." The Domesday Book was designed for fiscal purposes to increase and protect the King's revenue.

The full implications of the social, political and cultural changes following the Norman Conquest took time to work themselves out. They were: a political unification of the country and the centralization of government – a strong royal government, feudal interdependence; the supreme power of the King over all his vassals; the establishment of the feudal hierarchy, a further development of the relationship between the King and the barons, sometimes stormy, sometimes cohesive, an emergence of English Common law (from precedent to precedent), and the making of Parliament.

Common Law

The Common Law originally developed under the auspices of the adversarial system in England from judicial decisions that were based in tradition, custom, and precedent. The form of reasoning used in common law is known as casuistry or case-based reasoning. Common law may be unwritten or written in statutes or codes. The common law, as applied in civil cases (as distinct from criminal cases), was devised as a means of compensating someone for wrongful acts known as torts, including both intentional torts and torts caused by negligence and as developing the body of law recognizing and regulating contracts. Today common law is generally thought of as applying only to civil disputes; originally it encompassed the criminal law before criminal codes were adopted in most common law jurisdictions in the late 19^th century. The type of procedure practiced in common law courts is known as the adversarial system; this is also a development of the common law.

Before the institutional stability imposed on England by William Conqueror in 1066, English citizens were governed by unwritten local customs that varied from community to community and were enforced in arbitrary fashion. For example, courts generally consisted of informal public assemblies that weighed conflicting claims in a case and, if unable to reach a decision, might require an accused to test guilt or innocence by carrying a red-hot iron or snatching a stone from a caldron of boiling water or some other "test" of veracity. It the defendant's wound healed within a prescribed period, he was set free as innocent; if not, execution usually followed.

In 1154, Henry II became the first Plantagenet king. Among many achievements, Henry II institutionalized common law by creating a unified system of law "common" to the country through

• incorporating and elevating local custom to the national,

• ending local control and peculiarities,

• eliminating arbitrary remedies,

• reinstating a jury system of citizens sworn on oath to investigate reliably criminal accusations and civil claims.

The jury reached its verdict through evaluating common local knowledge, not necessarily through the presentation of evidence, a distinguishing factor from today's civil and criminal court systems.

Henry II 's creation of a powerful and unified court system, which curbed somewhat the power of canonical (church) courts, brought him (and England) into conflict with the church, most famously, with Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. Things were resolved eventually, at least for a time, in Henry's favor when a group of his henchmen murdered Becket. For its part, the Church soon canonized Becket as a saint.

Basic Principles of Common Law

Statutes which reflect English common law are interpreted in light of the common law tradition, and so may leave a number of things unsaid because they are already understood from the point of view of pre-existing case law and custom.

Codification is the process where a statute is passed with the intention of restating the common law position in a single document rather than creating new offences, so the common law remains relevant to their interpretation. This is why even today American law schools teach the common law of crime as practices in England in 1750, since the colonies (and subsequently the states) deviated from the common law as practiced in England only after that date.

By contrast to the statutory codifications of common law, some laws are purely statutory, and may create a new cause of action beyond the common law. An example is the tort of wrongful death, which allows certain persons, usually a spouse, child or estate, to sue for damages on behalf of the deceased. There is no such tort in English common law; thus, any jurisdiction that lacks a wrongful death statute will not allow a lawsuit for the wrongful death of a loved one. Where a wrongful death statute exists, the damages or compensation available are limited to those outlined in the statute (typically, an upper limit on the amount of damages). Courts generally interpret statutes that create new causes of action narrowly – that is, limited to their precise terms – because the courts generally recognize the legislature as being supreme in deciding the reach of judge made law unless such statute should violate some "second order" constitutional law provision.

Where a tort is grounded in common law, then all damages traditionally recognized historically for that tort may be sued for, whether or not there is mention of those damages in the current statutory law. For instance, a person who sustains bodily injury through the negligence of another may sue for medical costs, pain, suffering, loss of earnings or earning capacity, mental and emotional distress, loss of quality of life and more. These damages need not be set forth in statute as they already exist in the tradition of common law.

Magna Carta

Magna Carta is a document that marked a decisive step forward in the development of constitutional government and legal ideas in England. In later centuries, much of the rest of the world also benefited from Magna Carta because many countries followed English models in creating their own governments. These countries include the United States and Canada. The Latin words Magna Carta mean Great Charter. English barons forced King John to approve the Charter in June 1215 at Runnymede, southwest of London. In the Charter, the king granted many rights to the English aristocracy. The ordinary people gained little. But many years later, Magna Carta became a model for those who demanded democratic government and individual rights for all. In its own time, the greatest value of Magna Carta was that it limited royal power and made it clear that even the king had to obey the law.

Reasons for the charter. From the Norman invasion of England in 1066 through the 1100's, most of the kings who ruled England were able and strong. They usually tried to govern justly and respected feudal law. Under feudal law, nobles called barons received land in return for military and other services to the king. But there was no actual control over the kings' power. When John became king in 1199, he exercised his power even more forcefully than earlier kings. He demanded more military service than they did. He sold royal positions to the highest bidders. He demanded larger amounts of money without consulting the barons, which was contrary to feudal custom. He decided cases according to his wishes, and people who lost cases in his court had to pay crushing penalties.

English barons and church leaders began to express dissatisfaction with John's rule early in his reign. Their unhappiness grew when he lost most of the English possessions in France in war lasting from 1202 to 1206. In 1213, a group met at St. Albans, near London, and drew up a list of demands based in part on the coronation charter of Henry I, who had been king from 1100 to 1135. After John lost an important battle against France at Bouvines (in what is now western Belgium) in 1214, civil war broke out in England. John saw that he could not defeat his opponents' army, and so he agreed to a set of articles on June 15, 1215. Four days later, the articles were engrossed (written out in legal form) as a royal charter. Copies of the charter were distributed throughout the kingdom.

Promises in the Charter. Magna Carta contained 63 articles, most of which pledged the king to uphold feudal customs. These articles chiefly benefited the barons and other landholders. One article granted the church freedom from royal interference. A few articles guaranteed rights to residents of towns. Ordinary free people and peasants were hardly mentioned in the charter, even though they made up by far the largest part of England's population.

Some articles, that in 1215 applied only to feudal landholders, later became important to all the people. For example, the charter stated that the king could make no special demands for money without the consent of the barons. Later, this provision was used to support the argument that no tax should be raised without the consent of Parliament. Still other articles became foundations for modern justice. One article says that the king will not sell, deny, or delay justice. Another says that no freeman shall be imprisoned, deprived of property, exiled, or destroyed, except by the lawful judgment of his peers (equals) or by the law of the land. The idea of due process of law, including trial by jury, developed from these articles. In John's time, however, there was no such thing as trial by jury in criminal cases.

Magna Carta tired to make the king keep his promises by establishing a council of barons. If the king violated the Charter and ignored warnings of the council, the council could raise an army to force the king to live by the charter's provisions, but these measures were unsuccessful.

The Charter after 1215. Magna Carta did not end the struggle between John and the barons. Neither side intended to abide by the charter completely. Pope Innocent III canceled the Charter at the king's request, and war broke out immediately. After John's death in 1216, however, his son Henry III and later English kings promised to abide by the Charter. The most famous of these promises was that of Edward I in 1297. Through these promises, the Charter came to be recognized as part of the fundamental law of England.

In the 1600's, members of Parliament used Magna Carta to rally support in their struggle against the strong rule of the Stuart kings. These lawmakers came to view the Charter as a constitutional check on royal power. They cited it as a legal support for the argument that there could be no laws of taxation without the consent of Parliament. These members of Parliament used the charter to demand guarantees of trial by jury, safeguards against unfair imprisonment, and other rights.

In the 1700's, Sir William Blackstone, a famous lawyer, set down these ideals as legal rights of the people in his famous Commentaries on the Laws of England. Also in the 1700's, colonists carried these English ideals on legal and political rights to America. The ideals eventually became part of the framework of the constitution of the United States.

Four originals of the 1215 Charter remain. Two are in the British Library in London, one is Salisbury Cathedral, and one in Lincoln Cathedral. For many years, the document was commonly known as Magna Charta, but in 1946, the British government officially adopted the Latin spelling, Magna Carta.

THE PLANTAGENETS (1216 – 1347)

The Plantagenet period was dominated by three major conflicts at home and abroad. Edward I attempted to create a British empire dominated by England, conquering Wales and pronouncing his eldest son Prince of Wales, and then attacking Scotland. Scotland was to remain elusive and retain its independence until late in the reign of the Stuart Kings. In the reign of Edward III the Hundred Years War began, a struggle between England and France. At the end of the Plantagenet period, the reign of Richard II saw the beginning of the long period of civil feuding known as the War of the Roses. For the next century, the crown would be disputed by two conflicting family – the Lancaster and the York.

The period also saw the development of new social institutions and a distinctive English culture. Parliament emerged and grew. The judicial reforms begun in the reign of Henry II were continued and completed by Edward I. Culture began to flourish. Three Plantagenet kings were patrons of Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English poetry. During the early part of the period, the architectural style of the Normans gave way to the Gothic, in which style Salisbury Cathedral was built. Westminster Abbey was rebuilt and the majority of English cathedrals remodeled. Franciscan and Dominical orders began to be established in England, while the universities of Oxford and Cambridge had their origins in this period.

Amidst the order of learning and art, however, were disturbing new phenomena. The outbreak of Bubonic plague or the "Black Death" served to undermine military campaigns and cause huge social turbulence, killing half the country's population. The price rises and labor shortage which resulted led to social unrest, culmination in the Peasants' Revolt in 1381.

Simon de Montfort and the Origins of Parliament

By the 1250s King Henry III (1216-72) was running into difficulties with his nobility. Henry III faced a further development of baronial ambitions and protests. They accused the King of violating their rights and liberties. They were angry at the cost of some of his schemes, such as the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey. After a very bad harvest in 1257 the King demanded a third of all English property. This aroused a new baronial riot. The barons finally came armed at Oxford and drew up "provisions" – "Oxford Provisions" and additional "Westminster Provisions" – to protect the knights from barons which gave all the power in the country to barons.

The Provisions of Oxford (1258), imposed on Henry by his barons, established a permanent baronial council which took control of certain key appointments. The leader of the baronial movement was Earl Simon de Montfort. In 1259 the Provisions of Westminster reformed the common law. Henry eventually renounced both sets of provisions and challenged the barons. Civil war broke out in 1264, initially going well for Simon de Montfort. The same year Earl Simon took the King prisoner. During the conflict de Montfort sought to boost his baronial support by summoning knights of the shires and burgesses to attend his parliament. In 1265 – Parliament was summoned with "commons" represented in it – two knights from a shire and two merchants from a town. This was the first time that commoners had been represented. De Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, but his innovation of summoning the commons to attend parliaments was repeated in later years and soon became standard. The 1295 Parliament was called Model Parliament, though it assured a continuity of the 1265 Parliament of Simon de Monfort. Thus it is from him that the modern idea of a representative parliament derives.

LATE MEDIEVAL (1348 – 1484)

The 13^th century was described by historians as a Plantagenet spring after a grim Norman winter. It was the century of the new gothic style in architecture, foundation of universities, the emergence of English as the language of the nation, and the development of the Parliament and Common Law. As early as the 15^th century, it became the practice that litigants who felt they had been cheated by the common-law system would petition the King in person. For example, they might argue that an award of damages (at common law) was not sufficient redress for a trespasser occupying their land, and instead request that the trespasser be evicted. From this developed the system of Equity, administered by the Lord Chancellor, in the courts of chancery. By their nature, Equity and Common law were frequently in conflict and litigation would frequently continue for years as one court countermanded the other, even though it was established by the 17^th century that Equity should prevail. In England, courts of common law and equity were combined by the Judicature Acts of 1873 and 1875, with equity being supreme in case of conflict

The 14^th century brought the disasters of the Hundred Years War (1337-1453), the Peasants' Revolts (1381), the extermination of the population by the Black Death (1348-1349) and further strengthening of the English language.

The 15^th century saw the continuation of the struggle for the crown and the establishment of the Lancaster.

The Wars of the Roses (1455 – 1487) is the name generally given to the intermittent civil war fought over the throne of England between adherents of the House of Lancaster and the House of York. Both houses were branches of the Plantagenet royal house. The name Wars of the Roses was not used at the time, but has its origins in the badges chosen by the two royal houses, the Red Rose of Lancaster and the White Rose of York. The Wars were fought largely by armies of mounted knight and their feudal retainers. The House of Lancaster found most of its support in the north and west of the country, while support for the House of York came mainly from the south and east. The Wars of the Roses, with their heavy casualties among the nobility, were a major factor in the weakening of the feudal power of the nobles, leading to the growth of a strong, centralized monarchy under Tudors.

TUDORS – ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 1485 – 1602

The New Dynasty

The end of the Wars of the Roses, the victory of Henry Tudor and his marriage with Princess Elizabeth, heiress of the House of York (1485), were the events that symbolized the end of the Middle Ages in Britain. The year of 1485 is traditionally considered the watershed and the beginning of the Tudor Age. The five sovereign of the Tudor dynasty are among the most well-known figures in Royal history. Of Welsh origin, Henry VII succeeded in ending of Wars of the Roses between the houses of Lancaster and York to found the highly successful Tudor house. Henry VII, his son Henry VIII and his three children Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I ruled for 118 eventful years.

In historical development the rule of the Tudors with their absolute power in the long run contributed to the strengthening of its role in international affairs. The 16^th century was the age of a growing absolutism of monarchy and centralization of the state; these phenomena facilitated the development and foundation of new capitalist relations in production. During this period, Henry VII and Henry VIII greatly increased the power of the English monarch. A similar pattern was unfolding on the continent as new technologies, such as gunpowder, and social and ideological changes undermined the power of the feudal nobility and enhanced that of the sovereign.

Absolute Monarchy

Absolute monarchy is an idealized form of government, a monarchy where the ruler has the power to rule his or her country and citizens freely with no laws or legally-organized direct opposition telling him or her what to do, although some religious authority may be able to discourage the monarch from some acts and the sovereign is expected to act according to custom. As a theory of civics, absolute monarchy puts total trust in well-bred and well-trained monarchs raised for the role from birth. In theory, an absolute monarch has total power over his or her people and land, including the aristocracy, but in practice, absolute monarchs have often found their power limited.

The theory of absolute monarchy developed in the late Middle Ages from feudalism during which monarchs were still very much first among equals among the nobility. With the creation of centralized administrations and armies backed by expensive artillery, the power of the monarch gradually increased relative to the nobles, and from this period was created the theory of absolute monarchy.

In the 16^th century, efforts by the English monarch to create an absolute monarchy led to persistent struggle with Parliament which the monarch eventually lost.

The English type of absolute monarchy was shaped by Henry VII, who was opposed by the power of old barons. He ordered the old castles to be destroyed and feudal baronial armies to be disbanded. The king was very rich with the confiscated wealth of his defeated rivals. He was strong enough to prevent any revival of armed strength of any group of nobles, and he enjoyed support of merchants and small landowners who had all suffered from the war. These two groups, linked by a common interest in the wool trade, were not yet powerful enough to claim the political power. They were strong enough to be useful allies of the Tudor kings and queens. Their support enabled the Tudors to become despotic rulers, while at first playing a progressive historic role. But the Tudors' reign was abundant in various controversial arbitrary developments. The financial policy filled the Treasure and strengthened the throne and the church position, improved the contracts with Rome. The king skillfully steered through the complexities of European politics.

The English Reformation

Henry VIII was outrages with the power of Catholic Church in England and he started his own Reformation. In 1531, Henry was elected the Head of the Church of England and in 1534, the Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy declaring him the Supreme Head of the Church of England. He made use of the Protestant Reformation to seize the power of the Catholic Church, confiscating the property of the monasteries and declaring himself the head of the new Anglican Church. The lands of the monasteries were either sold or given to the new supporters who turned out to be enthusiastic protestants. Within a few years an enormous wealth went into the empty treasure of the King. In 1536, Henry managed to unite Wales with England, as the Welsh nobility were showing interest in the support of their representative on the English throne. It was the first Act of Union in the history of Britain.

The new power of the monarch was given a basis by the notion of the divine right of kings to rule over their subjects. James I was a major proponent of this idea and wrote extensively on it. The same forces that had reduced the power of the traditional aristocracy also served to increase the power of the commercial classes. The rise of trade and the central importance of money to the operation of the government gave this new class great power but power that was not reflected in the government structure. This would lead to a long contest during the seventeenth century between the forces of the monarch and parliament.

Exploration and the beginning of empire. In 1497, Henry VII hired Italian navigator Giovanni Caboto to cross the Atlantic on behalf of the English Crown. Caboto became the first European to discover what is today Canada and he claimed it for the English Crown. Soon after, colonies would be founded in North America and trading posts and enclaves would be established in India and elsewhere around the world. Eventually English, and later British, overseas holding would grow and the British Empire would span the globe. England developed into one of the leading European colonial powers.

Under the Tudors the English state was centralized and rationalized as a bureaucracy built up and the government became run and managed by educated functionaries. The most notable new institution was the Star Chamber.

Star Chamber

Star Chamber was an English court of law during the 1500's and 1600's. It tried people who were too powerful to be brought before the ordinary, common-law courts. The Star Chamber consisted of men from the King's Council, a group of royal advisers. It passed judgment without trial by jury. The court was so named because it held sessions in the Star Chamber of Westminster Palace. Today, the term star chamber refers to an unregulated, secret meeting of any court of justice or official organization.

The Star Chamber was popular for a long time because it protected ordinary people from their oppressors. But eventually it abused its powers. Unlike the common-law courts, which protected the accused, it used torture to obtain confessions. King Charles I used the Star Chamber to crush opposition to his policies. In 1641, the Long Parliament abolished the court.

Further Development of Common Law

The English legal system possesses one remarkable feature which derived from the days of feudalism. This feature distinguishes the English legal system from the legal systems of nearly all other counties in the world: an important part of the law has never been considered, debated or approved by any Parliament. Many of the laws of England are not contained in Parliamentary statute, but in the reports of the cases decided by judges of the High Court, Court of Appeal, and the House of Lords.

The practice of recording the judgments of the Royal judges is of ancient origin, having begun as far back as the reign of Edward 1. From the 16^th century, it became accepted that a decided case constituted an authoritative "precedent." It means that when one judge has decided a point of law, any judge who is subsequently confronted with a similar set of facts must apply the law declared in the earlier judgment, even though he may personally think that the yearly case was wrongly decided. In this way the law was gradually built up by generations of different judges.

This vast tangled mass of reported cases stretching back to the days of Elizabeth I, each being the authority for a single point of law, and some being inconsistent with other, is the famous English "common law." Thus English law has been built up through a combination of statute law and judge-made law, the later being known as the common law.

THE STUARTS AND THE STRUGGLE

OF THE PARLIAMENT AGAINST THE CROWN 1603 – 1713

The Stuart Kings and their Conflicts with the Parliament

While continental European states were developing absolute and centralized monarchies, England, in a chaotic and violent century, radically reduced the power of the monarch and developed an alternative state in which the powers of the monarch became subsidiary to the power of the branches of government. The political experiments of England would be dramatic, from absolutist tendencies at the beginning of the century, to the overthrow of the monarch in the middle of the century and the development of an English Republic, and finally to the restoration of the monarch and the severe limitation of monarchical powers. These titanic changes were largely driven by religious concerns as the issues of monarchy in England collided with the concerns and complaints of an increasingly large and increasingly radical Protestant minority.

When James I (1603 – 1625) succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603 he became king at an especially difficult time to become King of England. The government was deeply in debt, the English Church was divided while a radical Protestant minority was growing, and the Parliament was not happy with the power that had been accruing to the monarch over the past several decades. James's problem was that the could not pay his bills without the approval of Parliament, for English law forbade the king from raising revenues independently of the consent of Parliament. The king argues that he had some privileges to raise money through customs duties; these duties, called impositions, lit the fire beneath Parliament's feet and the subsequent history of James's reign is a long, protracted battle with Parliament over the powers of the king.

The church was an even bigger mess. The English church was dividing into a conservative camp that wanted to retain the religious ceremonies and the hierarchy of the church and a radical, Calvinist camp called Puritans who wanted to "purify" the church of everything not contained in the Old and New Testaments. The Puritans demanded that the English church abandon the elaborate ceremonies and flatten the hierarchy of the church into something more closely resembling the voluntary associations of the Calvinist church. The king, however, would have none of the Puritan argument and declared, in 1604, that he was fully in the camp of the religious conservatives. This division between the monarch and the Puritans, which would be continued by his son, Charles I, lit the fire that ignited the English Civil War.

The Petition of Right (1628)

Charles I, who ruled England from 1625 until his execution in 1649, was chronically short of money. In addition, Charles was prosecuting a war against France and bungling it, but he still needed money. Since Parliament would not increase his funds through taxation and tariffs, Charles went about creatively raising money of his own. In 1628, Parliament met and drafted the Petition of Right in which it declared several important rights of individuals and Parliament that severely curtailed the power of the monarch:

• No funds could be borrowed or raised through taxes and tariffs without the explicit approval of Parliament;

• No free person could be imprisoned without a reason;

• No troops could be garrisoned in a private home without permission.

Parliament voted funds for Charles to prosecute his war with France under one condition: he had to sign the Petition of Right and so agree to its terms. However, the king never intended to keep his word – he immediately broke his promise and, to avoid confrontation with Parliament, he dissolved it and refused to call it again until 1640. Now he had to make his way alone, without funds from Parliament. So Charles instituted the first major budget cuts in the history of the modern state:

• he made peace with his enemies – peace is cheaper than war;

• he downsized the government administration;

• and he became extremely innovative in the raising of taxes.

He did this by enforcing new laws and applying existing tax laws to areas that were never covered by them. Charles had one and only one goal – to rule England without Parliament, as an absolute monarch. However, Charles did not have a large or strong standing army that was loyal to the king, nor did he have a civil bureaucracy trained or efficient in centralized government. In 1640 the king was forced to reconvene Parliament.

During the twelve years that Parliament did not meet, its members had been stewing in their juices and were loaded for bear. When they met in April of 1640, they refused to grant Charles any money until he had adequately redressed the long, long list of complaints that they brought with them. Charles, naturally refused and dismissed them in May of 1640; hence the title, "The Short Parliament." This, however, was not a working strategy, so he reconvened Parliament and finally agreed to their terms.

The English Civil War (1642 – 1646)

The Parliament set to work with ruthless efficiency when it reconvened in November. Raising taxes without Parliament approval was made illegal; the primary instruments of Charles' centralized bureaucracy were abolished; and finally, Parliament passed a law that allowed Parliament and Parliament along to dismiss itself; in addition, it passed the law that Parliament had to meet at least every three years.

Charles went along with these measures, but when rebellion broke out in Ireland, radicals in Parliament proposed a bold move. Charles was asking for troops to send to Ireland, but the radicals did not believe that Charles could be trusted with an army. So, they proposed that the army be directly under Parliament's control. This was too much for Charles to bear, so he invaded Parliament with his army. This move, bold and foolish at the same time, inspired Parliament to issue the Militia Ordinance, which declared the army under Parliamentary control. Thus began the English Civil War.

The English Civil War started as a conflict between Parliament and Charles over constitutional issues. The War fired its way to its conclusion through the growing religious division in England. The monarch was supported by the aristocracy, landowners, and by the adherents of the Anglican Church, which retained the ceremonies and hierarchy so despised by the Puritans. The Parliamentary cause was supported by the middle class, the Puritans, and the radical Protestants. In 1642, Parliament reorganized its army under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell, who called his army "The New Model Army." In 1645, the Parliamentary Army defeated the royal army and in 1646, Charles surrendered. However, the king did not lose his crown – Charles, in name at least, was still king of England, who did not wish to maintain this situation. After several years of trying to recapture power, Charles was finally arrested by Parliament, tried for treason, and executed.

It's impossible to describe how revolutionary this action was. Parliament had declared itself supreme over the king, who, in European political theory, ruled by the election of God. If something or someone is supreme over the king, why should people need a king? This was frightening new territory. When Charles was publicly executed, the gathered masses remained absolutely mute. No one said a word and many wept openly. They were experiencing the first great shock of a brave new world.

Long Parliament (1640 – 1653)

Long Parliament refers to a session of the English Parliament that lasted without a break from 1640 to 1653. It was not formally dismissed until 1660. The Long Parliament opened with a direct conflict with King Charles I. It met during the English Civil War in the 1640's, ordered the king's execution in 1649, and tried to rule in the uneasy years after the war. It was finally dismissed to make way for a new Parliament under King Charles II. In its early sessions, the Long Parliament make many lasting political reforms. It abolished courts controlled by the monarchy, including the Star Chamber and the Court of Requests. It declared that the king could neither collect money nor dismiss Parliament without its consent. It also brought about the execution of Charles's chief advisers, the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop William Laud.

On religious questions, the Long Parliament was seriously divided. Presbyterians opposed Puritans, and neither side would budge. Civil war began when the king's supporters withdrew from Parliament, and the House of Commons soon became divided into Presbyterians, who were moderate supporters of the king, and Independents, who favored strong controls on the crown. The army, under Oliver Cromwell, supported the Independents. In 1648, an army detachment under Colonel Thomas Pride kept the Presbyterian majority from entering the House. "Pride's Purge" resulted in what was called "the Rump Parliament," which had less than a fifth of the usual number of members. This remainder of the Long Parliament carried out the execution of Charles I, and it made England a commonwealth. Cromwell, the real power in the commonwealth, was unable to work with the Rump Parliament, and he suppressed it in 1653. However, he could not replace the Rump Parliament with an efficient legislature.

Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum

For eleven years, from 1629 to 1640, England had been governed without a parliament. Then, for another eleven years, from 1649 to 1660, it was to be governed without a monarchy. Soon after the execution of King Charles I the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished and England was named ‘a Commonwealth or Free State.’ It was to be run by Parliament, which would not only legislate and raise taxes, but would also perform the duties traditionally reserved for the monarch, such as running the judiciary and heading the army. A Council of State was appointed to carry out executive and administrative duties, working by means of a number of committees. The council was composed of forty-one members who had to be elected every year.

The real power, however, was Oliver Cromwell. He had the army. He eventually tired of the arguments and the corruption in Parliament, and dispersed it by force in 1653. Thus ended the English commonwealth.

The new state set up by Cromwell was called the "Protectorate," and the officers of the army drafted a new constitution for this unique institution. Cromwell, as "Lord Protector," served as a dictator. The Lord Protectorship was made a hereditary office, and the Parliament was dismissed permanently. For all practical purposes, Cromwell had made himself absolute monarch over England, an achievement that the English kings could only dream of.

The Restoration of Monarchy and

The Habeas Corpus Act (1679)

In 1660, two years after Cromwell's death, political chaos in England forced the army under General George Monk to intervene. Monk persuaded a newly elected Parliament to invite Prince Charles Stuart to become King Charles II. Charles accepted, and the monarchy was restored. The grand experiment in republicanism had failed in the most tawdry autocracy.

Charles II was crowned in 1661, his ministers were mainly old Royalists. The Puritan republic had been joyless country, and the Restoration of Monarchy brought back the gaiety of life: theatres were reopened, new dramatists wrote plays to entertain the court. It was also the restoration of Parliament, House of Lords, Anglican Church and Cavalier gentry (noblemen) with their old privileges and intolerance.

Charles II governed the country through the inner Council, which consisted of five men, two of them were Catholics and the other three were supporters of religious toleration. The Opposition to the King became organized into a party with a majority in the newly elected Parliament. They managed to pass the Habeas Corpus Act (1679), which provided a protection of human rights of the new bourgeoisie. The Act, originally adopted against the arbitrary actions of the king, has proved to be an essential milestone in the legal system of Great Britain.

In the Parliament, newly coined nicknames became applicable to the opposing groups in the political struggle: the opposition to the King which demanded a further curbing of the Monarch's prerogatives, was nicknamed "The Whigs" by their opponents. These opponents supported the King, and they were nicknamed as "The Tories." These two parties, the Whigs and the Tories became the basis of Britain's two-party parliament system of government.

The Glorious Revolution (1688)

and the Bill of Rights (1689)

The political events of 1688 were called "the Glorious Revolution" as they had realized the bourgeois theories of the nature of government and the demands that the powers of the king should be restricted and that the Parliament should be overall power in the state. Though some historians insists on calling it a coup d'etat of the ruling classes, the changes are recognized as a historic turning point in the conception and practice of government. It can be justly regarded as a "glorious compromise" between the new bourgeoisie and the old feudal institutions like the Monarchy and the House of Lord, but also in imposing new bourgeois parliamentary privileges and relations. The Parliament secured in superiority by adopting the Bill of Rights in 1689.

The Bill of Rights is an English Act of Parliament. It is one of the basic documents of English constitutional law, alongside Magna Carta, etc. The Bill of Rights (1689) is not a bill of rights in the sense of a statement of certain rights that citizens or residents of a free and democratic society have, but rather addresses only the rights of Parliamentarians sitting in Parliament as against the Crown.

The basic tenets of the Bill of Rights are:

• Englishmen, as embodied by Parliament, possessed certain civil and political rights that could not be taken away. These included:

  • freedom from royal interference with the law (the Sovereign was forbidden to establish his own courts or to act as a judge himself);

  • freedom from taxation by royal prerogative, without agreement by Parliament;

- freedom to petition the king;

• freedom from a peace-time standing army, without agreement by Parliament;

• freedom for Protestants to bear arms for self-defense, as allowed by law;

• freedom to elect members of Parliament without interference from the Sovereign;

• freedom of speech in Parliament, in that proceedings in Parliament were not to be questioned in the courts or in any body outside Parliament itself (the basis of modern parliamentary privilege);

• freedom from cruel and unusual punishments and excessive bail;

• Certain acts of the king were specifically named and declared illegal on this basis.

• Roman Catholics could not be king or queen of England. The Sovereign was required to swear a coronation oath to maintain the Protestant religion.

In addition, the Sovereign was required to summon Parliament frequently (reinforced by the Act 1694 which required the regular summoning of Parliaments).

The Glorious Revolution and the English Bill of Rights are two of the most astonishing and far-reaching events of the modern period. From them were planted the seeds of the American Revolution and the American constitution and ultimately, the fundamental structure of all modern government: representation and checks and balances.

For the government that the English slowly forged after the Glorious Revolution was one in which the branches of government were independent of one another. The executive branch, headed by monarch, was subject to the authority of the legislative branch – the Parliament, which was dependent of the executive power of the monarch. The judiciary functioned independently of both Parliament and the king. After a century of uncertainty and violence, the English solution was to limit the powers of all branches of government to prevent any branch from exerting excessive influence.

In 1701, the Parliament passed the Act of Settlement that secured Protestant succession to the throne of England and Ireland, outlawing any Catholic Pretenders. The Act of Settlement was passed to amend the English Bill of Rights. In addition, it specifies that it is for Parliament to determine who should succeed to the throne, not the monarch. This Act was, in many ways, the major cause of the union of Scotland and the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The seventeenth century was the age of the Stuarts – their rise in 1603, their tragedy and defeat from 1648 – 1660, their restoration in 1660, their constant struggle against the Parliament, which resulted in their forced compromise and the victory of the Parliament, the victory of the new ruling classes.

THE 18^TH CENTURY

The Acts of Union (1707)

The end of the 17^th century and the start of the new century were the periods of wars in Europe. In foreign affairs, the grand strategy of Britain was to stop the French expansionist policies: to struggle against the French competition in trade, and also to interfere in the affairs of the Spanish Empire. In the British Parliament the Whigs were actively preparing the Union with Scotland.

The Acts of Union were twin Acts of Parliament passed in 1707 in the Scottish and the English Parliaments. The effect was twofold:

• to create a new Kingdom of Great Britain, though the name had been used on occasion since 1604 when speaking on the Kingdoms of England and Scotland together. Up to this time, England and Scotland had been separate Kingdoms, although since 1603 had shared the same monarch. Wales was also part of this Great Britain since it had been absorbed by England by the Acts of Union 1536 – 1543.

• to dissolve both parliaments and replace them with a new Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain. Although the new parliament was to be based in the former home of the English parliament.

The Act incorporated provisions for Scotland to send representative peers from the Peerage of Scotland to sit in the House of Lords. It guaranteed that the Church of Scotland would remain the established church in Scotland. Other provisions included to restate the Act of Settlement 1701 and the ban on Roman Catholics from taking the throne. It created a customs union and monetary union. The treaty provided that if any "laws and statutes" were contrary to or inconsistent with the terms of the Treaty, that they would be null and void.

Whigs and Tories

The most significant development in political life over that century had been the growth of clearly defined and opposing parties, which had taken the opprobrious titles Whigs (Scottish horse thieves) and Tories (Irish cattle rustlers). Parties had first formed during the exclusion crisis of 1679-81, but it was the Triennial Act (1694) that unintentionally gave life to party conflict. (The Triennial Act 1694 – закон о проведении всеобщих выборов в Англии каждые три года).

Nine general elections were held between 1695 and 1713, and these provided the structure whereby party issues and party leaders were pushed to the fore. Though party discipline was still in its infancy, the ideology was a novel aspect of politics. Clearly recognizable political parties had emerged by the end of the reign of William III. In general, the Tories stood for the Anglican Church, the land, and the principle of passive obedience. They remained divided over the impending Hanoverian succession, wistfully dreaming that James III might convert to Protestantism so that the sanctity of the legitimate succession could be reaffirmed. From their country houses the Tories opposed an expensive land war and favored the “blue sea” strategy of domination the Atlantic and Mediterranean shipping lanes. Their leaders had a self- destructive streak. Only Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, was a politician of the first rank, and he always shrank from being labeled a Tory. The Tories generally had a majority in the Commons and a friend on the throne, but they rarely attained power.

The Whigs were blessed with brilliant leadership and an inexhaustible supply of good luck. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, was the outstanding military figure of his day. His victories at Blenheim (1704) and Ramillies (1706) rank among the greatest in British history. During the first part of Anne’s reign his wife, Sarah, was the queen’s confidante, and together they were able to push Anne to support an aggressive and expensive foreign policy. Continental warfare was costing 4 million a year, paid for by a tax on land, and after the early years successes were few and far between. Sidney Godolphin kept Marlborough supplied and financed to manage the Whigs interest by disciplining government officeholders to vote for Whig policies in Parliament. Among these policies were support for dissenters who, to avoid the rigors of the Test Acts, would take Anglican Communion. Both the Queen and the Tories were opposed to these occasional conformists, and three bills to outlaw the practice were passed through the Commons but defeated in the Lords. When the Tories attempted to attach one of these to the military appropriations bill, even the Queen condemned the maneuver.

For the first half of Ann’s reign Whig policies were dominant. Marlborough’s victories set off a wave of nationalistic pride and forced even Tories to concede the wisdom of a land war. Unfortunately, military success built overconfidence, prompting the Whigs to adopt the fruitless policy of “no peace without Spain,” which committed them to an increasingly unattainable conquest of Iberia. Yet the capture of both Gibraltar (1704) and Minorca (1708) made England the dominant sea power in the western Mediterranean and paid handsome commercial dividends. So too did the unexpected union with Scotland (1707). Here again, Godolphin was the dominant figure, calling the Scottish bluff when they announced they would not accept the Hanoverian succession. Godolphin passed an Aliens Act (1705) that would have prohibited all trade between England and Scotland – no mere scare tactic in light of the commercial policy that was crippling the Irish economy. Rather than risk economic strangulation, Scottish leaders negotiated for a permanent union, a compact the English monarchy had sought for more than a century. The union was a well-balanced bargain: free trade was established, Scottish Presbyterianism was protected, and provisions were made to include 45 Scottish members in the House of Lords. England gained security on its northern border, and the Whigs gained the promise of a peaceful Hanoverian succession.

The consequences were that the Whigs surrounding the king were handed over many of the royal prerogatives and their leader became the Chairman of the King's council. That was the beginning of the Cabinet system of Government in Great Britain, with a Prime Minister presiding over the Cabinet.

Technological Revolution and Power

The technological Revolution was a new breakthrough in the economic and social development of Great Britain. It was a British way of bourgeois development, in contrast to the French Revolution. Chronologically, its beginning is referred to the middle of the 18^th century; and the first achievements were in the agricultural production due to the new farming techniques. Mechanical inventions facilitated the unprecedented growth of iron and coal production. By 1800 Britain was producing four times as much coal as it had done in 1700, and eight times as much iron. Cotton textiles played the leading part in Britain's economic expansion. Britain was importing raw cotton from its colonies and exporting the finished cotton cloth to sell in Europe and in the colonies as well. The industrial revolution involved a revolution in transport. Man-made canals together with rivers linked the main ports of England, roads were improved and a service of post coaches was started in 1784.

The end of the 18^th century was the period of social disintegration – the wealth of the few was growing while the misery and poverty of majority of people were increasing rapidly. Deprived of the means of production workers had lived in slums and worked long hours for very low wages in factories and mines. The country was splitting into two nations – the rich and the poor. There were many reasons for discontent in Britain, but the Revolution in France in 1789 was first welcomed in England by liberals. But as the Revolution was becoming ferocious and bloody, the British ruling classes were frightened that similar event might happen in Britain. The Government took tough measures against the working class movement and organizations that were appearing: mass meeting were forbidden, associations of workers were declared illegal.

THE 19^TH CENTURY

The Victorian Age of the British Empire

In the 19^th century the post-Napoleonic wars period of reaction was being gradually reformed and more liberal ministers were included in the Government, more progressive policies and laws were adopted. Under ultra-conservatory Wellington, who became Prime Minster in 1828, some reforms were introduced: Robert Peel, the Home Secretary, created an efficient police force, and the policemen were called peelers of bobbies. The Catholic Emancipation Act was a forced decision that split the Tory party and brought the Whigs to power in 1830. The Whigs were determined to reform the Parliament and the parliamentary franchise, which had not changed since the reign of Elizabeth I. The electoral franchise and distribution of seats in Parliament were in a mess. Different parts of the country were represented in uneven and unjust way. The country of Cornwall where the population was less than the population of Manchester or Birmingham elected 44 men to the House of Commons, but neither of these big industrial cities elected a single Member of Parliament. The voting was not secret, the whole system was corrupt and unrepresentative. The confusion at Westminster reflected the situation in the country. There were outbreaks of machine-breaking and riots: people exploited at the factories by factory owners and left unemployed by machines replacing them, were outraged.

The Parliament Reform came together with railways. The reformed Parliament passed a number of progressive acts – the first effective Factory act was passed, limiting the hours worked by children in cotton factories to nine, prohibiting their employment under nine years of age, and appointing inspectors to see that the decisions were enforced. The state assumed also some responsibilities for the poor. According to the Poor Law all the able poor were to go to the workhouses where the conditions were terrible. The working classes were infuriated by the injustice and inhumanity of the Poor Law and demanded more radical reforms.

In 1838 the first petition – the People's Charter – was drawn up by leaders of first association of workers. The Petition included six main demands for changes: vote for all males, parliamentary constituencies of equal size, voting by secret ballot, a salary for MPs, no property qualifications for MPs, and annual Parliaments. All these reforms seemed revolutionary at that time. The Chartist movement was supported by the working people, but it had it ups and downs. The first Charter was rejected by Parliament in 1839, which was followed by protests of the working people and repressions by the Government. The Chartist leaders were arrested, the Movement was defeated when the second Petition was also rejected by Parliament in 1842. The revival of Chartism in 1848 coincided with the Revolutions in Europe and with nationalist demands of the Irish, but the third Petition having been rejected. Chartism began to decline and grew into the cooperative and trade unionist movements. The Parliamentary struggle of the Tories and the Whigs, the working class struggle for social rights and a better life, were all developing against the background of a drastic change in the Monarchy.

THE 20^TH CENTURY

Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949

The Parliament acts are two Acts of Parliament of the United Kingdom, passed in 1911 and 1949 respectively. They form part of the Constitution of the United Kingdom. The first Act 1911 limited the powers of the House of Lords to block House of Common legislation, asserting the supremacy of the Commons. The Parliament Act 1911 was amended by the second Act 1949, which reduced the power of the Lords further by cutting the time they could delay bills from two years to one.

The Parliament Acts have been used only a handful of times. Since Tony Blair's Labor government came to power in 1997, there has been repeated speculation that the government would rely on the Parliament Acts to reverse a check from the Lords. In the event, the Parliament Acts were not required to enact, for example, the Criminal Justice Bill in 2000 (which originally proposed to give magistrates, not defendants, the choice of where an "either way" offence would be tried). The threat of the Parliament Acts has been employed by British governments on a number of occasions to force the Lords to accept its legislation.

Statute of Westminster (1931)

The Statute of Westminster 1931 was the enactment of the United Kingdom Parliament which established the legislative equal statute of the self-governing dominions of the British Empire and United Kingdom. The Statute applied to the dominions of Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland, the Irish Free State, the Commonwealth of Australia, the Union of South Africa and except in relation to revision of the acts of parliament upon which the constitutions of Canada, Australia and New Zealand were founded. Today the Statue of Westminster is relevant for outlining the powers which Commonwealth Realms hold over any changes to the structure of their Monarchy.

Statute of Equality. The Statute gave effect to certain political resolutions passed by the Imperial Conferences of 1926 and 1930. One of the effects was removing the last imperial bond of power of British Parliament over dominions. After the Statute was passed, the British government could no longer make ordinary law for the dominion, otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that dominion.

The key passage of the Statute provides that:

No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend or be deemed to extend, to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.

It was also enacted that:

No law and no provision of any law made after the commencement of this Act by the Parliament of a Dominion shall be void or inoperative on the ground that it is repugnant to the law of England, or to the provisions of any existing or future Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, or to any order, rule, or regulation made under any such Act, and the powers of the Parliament of a Dominion shall include the power to repeal or amend any such Act, order, rule or regulation in so far as the same is part of the law of the Dominion.

Commonwealth powers over the monarchy. The preamble to the Statute of Westminster sets out conventions which impact on attempts to change the rules of succession to the Crown. This means that any change to the Act of Settlement's provisions barring Roman Catholics from the throne or giving males precedence over females would require the unanimous consent the Parliaments of the Commonwealth realms. Note, however, that preambles to an Act of Parliament do not form part of the act itself and has no force in law, so the preamble merely expresses a constitutional convention, albeit one fundamental to the basis of the Commonwealth. In any case, there can be no effective restriction on the powers of those Parliaments which recognize the doctrine of Parliamentary supremacy, namely the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

The UK Parliament Today

The UK Parliament is one of the oldest representative assemblies in the world, having its origins in the mid-13^th Century. The United Kingdom Parliament today comprises members from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The present two-chamber system began in the 14^th Century in England: the House of Lords (the upper house) and the House of Commons (the lower house) sit separately and are constituted on entirely different principles. The relationship between the two Houses is governed largely by convention but is defined by the Parliament Acts.

The legislative process involves both Houses of Parliament and the Monarch.

The main functions of Parliament are to:

• make all UK law

• provide, by voting for taxation, the means of carrying on the work of government

• protect the public and safeguard the rights of individuals

• scrutinize government policy and administration, including proposals for expenditure

• examine European proposals before they become law

• hear appeals in the House of Lords, the highest Court of Appeal in Britain

• debate the major issues of the day.

Parliament has a maximum duration of five years. At any time up to the end of this period, a general election can be held for a new House of Commons.

The Houses of Parliament

Close by Westminster Abbey on the riverside stands the Palace of Westminster, generally known as the Houses of Parliament. Although these buildings are in Gothic style, the are not truly historic, for they were built in 1840 on the site of the old Palace which was destroyed by fire in 1834.

Parliament consists of two separate chambers whose membership and duties have evolved slowly over centuries: the House of Lords (or Upper House), whose members sit there by hereditary right or conferred privilege (there is an increasing number of life peers, whose titles cease when they die), and the House of Commons, where the elected Members of Parliament sit.

Although the Upper House is larger in membership – more than one thousand peers have the right to attend the sittings – nearly all the legislation is initiated in the House of Commons and presented to the Lords for approval. This is, however, little more than a formality, for the powers of the House of Lords are strictly limited. The Queen opens Parliament at the House of Lords.

The six hundred and fifty elected members of the House of Commons meet in a Chamber which is still sometimes called St. Stephen's Chapel. The original chapel where the first parliaments assembled centuries ago was lost in 1834, and the present Chamber is a replica of the one built in 1840, but destroyed during World War II. The members sit on two sides of the Chamber, one side for the Government and the other for the Opposition. Between them sits "Mr. Speaker," who acts as chairman in the debates. Traditionally, his role was to inform the House of Lords and the monarch of decisions taken by the elected parliament, and as there have been periods in British history when such a duty could be dangerous, the member chosen to be Mr. Speaker always accepted the position with the pretence of great reluctance and fear!

It is a privilege of democratic government that anyone may visit the Houses of Parliament and may sit in the Strangers' Gallery, looking down into the House of Commons, to listen to a debate. The Central Lobby entrance hall is usually busy with people coming and going, some just curious to see the inside of the buildings, others wanting to see their own elected MPs. On fine days, the terrace overlooking the river is crowded with small tables where Members can entertain their guests to tea.

The Parliamentary session begins in November and, with recessions at holiday periods (Christmas, Easter and in summer), lasts for about one hundred and sixty days. The sittings begin at 2.30 p.m. from Monday to Thursday and at 11 a.m. on Friday. There is no set finishing time for sittings and if there is urgent business to discuss the sittings may go on until late at night or, indeed, all through the night. All the time Parliament is in session, a flag flies at the top of the Victoria tower, and when the House is still sitting after dark, a light burns over the clock face of Big Ben.

Parliamentary Developments: 14^th – 20^th Centuries

In the 14^th Century, under King Edward III (1327-77) it was accepted that there should be no taxation without parliamentary consent, still a fundamental principle today. Two distinct Houses of Parliament were emerging for the first time, with the Commons sitting apart from the Lords from 1341. The 'Good Parliament' of 1376 saw the election of the first Speaker, Thomas Hungerford, to represent the Commons. It also saw the use of 'impeachment,' whereby the House of Commons as a body could accuse officials who had abused their authority and put them on trial before the Lords.

In the 15^th Century, the Commons gained equal law-making powers with the Lords, under King Henry V.

The 16^th Century saw the legal union of Wales – which had long been subject to the English Crown – with England under King Henry VIII (1536). Henry's reign also saw the Church of England break away form the Roman Catholic Church. The 'Gunpowder Plot' of 1605 may have been hatched when it became clear that the new King, James I, intended to do nothing to ease the plight of Catholics in the country. The Queen today remains the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and, as the sovereign, must by law be a member of that Church.

In the 17^th Century, tensions increased between parliament and monarch, such that in 1641 the King and Parliament could not agree on the control of troops for repression of the Irish Rebellion. Civil War broke out the following year, leading to the execution of King Charles I in January 1649. Following the restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the role of parliament was enhanced by the events of 1688-89 (the 'Glorious Revolution') and the passage of the Bill of Rights which established the authority of Parliament over the King, and enshrined in law the principle of freedom of speech in parliamentary debates.

1707 brought the Union with Scotland and the first Parliament of Great Britain. Union with Ireland, which followed in 1801, lasted until its independence and the separation of Northern Ireland in the 1920s. Growing pressure for reform of Parliament in the 18^th and 19^th centuries led to a serious of Reform acts which extended the electoral franchise to most men (over 21) in 1867 and, finally, to women over 21 in 1928.

The legislative primacy of the House of Commons over the Lord was confirmed in the 20^th Century by the passing of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. Until the early years of the 20^th century, the House of Lords had the power to prevent legislation, as bills had to be passed by both Houses of Parliament. David Lloyd-George's so-called people's budget of 1909 brought this arrangement under strain, when the House of Lords originally refused to pass it. Eventually, the budget was passed after a general election in 1910; a second election was then fought on the issue of reform of the House of Lords. The result was the Parliament Act of 1911, which removed from the House of Lords the power to veto a bill, except one to prolong the lifetime of a parliament. Instead, the Lords could delay a bill by up to two years. The Act also educed the maximum lifespan of a Parliament from seven years to its present five years. The Parliament Act of 1949 further reduced the Lords' delaying powers to one year.

Since 1949 four acts have been passed into law without the consent of the House of Lords:

• The War Crimes Act 1991

• The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999

• The Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000

• The Hunting Act 2004.

Some Traditions and Customs of the House of Commons

There are number of traditions and customs employed in the House of Commons. Some of these are ceremonies or aspects of official dress, etc. They are described in Sir Peter Thorne's Ceremonial and the Mace in the House of Commons (HMSO, 1980).

Prayers. Each sitting of the House of Commons begins with prayers. Members stand for prayers, facing the wall behind them. This practice has sometimes been attributes to the difficulty Members would once have faced of kneeling to pray whilst wearing a sword. The Speaker's Chaplain, who is usually the incumbent of St Margaret's Westminster, the House of Commons church, reads the prayers, though in his or her absence another member of the clergy of the Church of England may deputize. A woman minister has occasionally deputized. On rare occasions, in the absence of clergy, the Speaker has read the prayers.

The form of the main prayer is as follows:

"Lord, the God of righteousness and truth, grant to our Queen and her government, to Members of Parliament and all in positions of responsibility, the guidance of your Spirit. May they never lead the nation wrongly through love of power, desire to please, or unworthy ideals but laying aside all private interest and prejudices, keep in mind their responsibility to seek to improve the condition of all mankind; so may your kingdom come and your name be hallowed. Amen."

Since 1997, an additional prayer has been used to day after the death of a Member has been reported to the House. Although information on the origin of daily prayers is sketchy, it is believed that the practice of having such prayers started about 1558, and was a settled practice by 1567. The use of fixed forms of prayer and the appointment of a clergyman to read them appear to have been developments of the 1580's or later. The present form of prayers probably dates from the Restoration.

The Form and Style of Debate. By convention, Ministers sit on the front bench on he right hand of the Speaker; the Chief Whip usually sits in this row immediately next to the gangway. Elder statesman and former Prime Ministers have often sat on the first front bench seat beyond the gangway. Parliamentary Private Secretaries usually sit in the row behind their minister. Official Opposition spokesmen use the front bench to the Speaker's left. Minority parties sit on the benches (often the front two).

Unparliamentary Language. Language and expressions used in the Chamber must conform to a number of rules. Erskine May states "good temper and moderation are the characteristics of parliamentary language." Objection has been taken both to individual words and to sentences and constructions – in the case of the former, to insulting, coarse, or abusive language (particularly as applied to other Members); and of the latter, to charges of lying or being drunk, and misrepresentation of the words of another. Among the words to which Speakers have objected over the years have been "blackguard, coward, hooligan, and traitor." The context in which a word is used is, of course, very important.

The Speaker will direct a Member who has used an unparliamentary word or phrase to withdraw it. Members sometimes use considerable ingenuity to circumvent these rules (as when, for instance, Winston Churchill substituted the phrase "terminological inexactitude" for "lie") but they must be careful to obey the Speaker's directions, as a Member who refuses to retract an offending expression may be named or required to withdraw from the Chamber.

Naming of a Member. If a Member has disregarded the authority of the Chair, or has persistently and willfully obstructed the House by abusing its rules, he or she (after generally being given every opportunity to set matters to rights) may be named. That is, the Speaker says "I name Mr George White" or whoever. In such instances, the Leader of the House, the Government Chief Whip, or the senior Minister present, moves "that Mr George White be suspended from the service of the House." A division may follow: if the motion is agreed to, the Member is directed to withdraw, and suspension (for five sitting days for a first offence) follows. A second offence in the same session will lead to suspension for 20 sitting days, and a third, to suspension for a period the House has to decide. Any Member so named loses their parliamentary salary for the period of suspension. Should a Member refuse to withdraw, and then resist removal, suspension for the remainder of the Session ensues.

Sitting in Private. The House nowadays allows members of the public (everyone who is not a Member or Officer of the House is a "Stranger") to be present at its debates, though not at prayers. This, however, was historically not always the case; and the right to debate a matter in private is maintained. Should it be desired to conduct a debate in private, a Member moves "That this House sit in private," the Speaker or whoever is in the Chair, must then put the motion "That this House sit in private" without debate. The House has not gone into private session since the Second World War. However, if the House did go into private session, sound or television record of that session would be made.

Previously, a Member could achieve "sitting in private" by declaring "I spy Strangers." But as Members tended to use this as a device of expressing political indignation on a subject, or to delay proceedings, the Modernization Select Committee recommended its abolition. In ancient times, a Member "spying strangers" meant that they had to withdraw automatically – there was no division. On one famous occasion in the 1880s, Mr Biggar, an Irish Nationalist Member, caused the Prince of Wales to be removed by use of this device.

Activations which are out of order during debate. Briefcases are not allowed in the Chamber, and the reading of newspapers, magazines, letters or other material (except when connected with the issue under discussion) is not permitted. Members must not pass between the Chair and the Member who is speaking. The Speaker has deprecated the noise of distracting electronic pagers, telephones and other electronic devices in the Chamber, although they are acceptable provided they are silent.

Eating and drinking are not permitted, in contrast to what must have happened in previous centuries, when visitors observed Members sucking oranges and cracking nuts.

The Police. The police shout "Who goes home?" when the House rises. This is often explained as an invitation to Members to join together in bands to cross what in the past were the dangerous unlit fields between Westminster and the City, or to hire boats homeward on the Thames as a party in order to save the individual fares.

Another call is made during the Speaker's procession, when the inspector on duty in the Central Lobby shouts "Hats off, Strangers." There are of course few wearing hats; but the police remove their helmets. This is another relic of the elaborate hat wearing and doffing etiquette of former centuries.

The Police, though on duty in and about the Palace, do not enter the Chamber when the House is sitting. If the House sits beyond midnight, they remove their helmets.

Relations with other Members. By convention, a Member intending to make an accusation against or reflection on another must notify the other Member in advance. A Member who intends to speak in another's constituency will generally inform the other Member in advance. This is regarded as essential between Members of the same party, but is not always observed to the same extent where political opponents are concerned. Ministers always inform the constituency Member of such a speaking engagement. Members will in general take up constituency cases only from their own constituents. If they receive a letter from a non-constituent they will forward it to the constituency MP concerned.

Endorsements on Bills – the Use of Norman French. There are some of the conventions and practices governing the sending of bills between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. The processes of legislation require that the same text of every Bill be approved by both Houses. The transmission of bills between the Houses always involves a formal procedure.

If the House of Lords has passed one or more Bills, they send a message to the Commons by one of their senior Clerks. Messages have taken the same form for more than 200 years: "The Lords have passed a Bill, entitled… to which they desire the concurrence of this House." However, endorsements on the Bills themselves are made in Norman French ( in this case "soit baille aux communies") a relic of the very early days of Parliament. On a Commons Bill to which the Lords have agreed, is endorsed "A ceste Bille les Seigneurs sont assentus," if amended "avecue des amendements" is added after "Bille."

If a Commons Bill has been amended by the Lords, and the Commons subsequently disagree with the Lords Amendments, Reasons for the disagreement are stated in the message to the Lords. The Bill is endorsed "Ceste Bille est remise aux Siegneurs avecque des raisons." These Reasons are drawn up by a Reasons Committee that is nominated and directed to withdraw forthwith after the votes on the merits of the amendments have been taken. The Reasons – in English – are usually concise and extremely terse. Before the mid-19^th century, the Houses held a conference to present or discuss these reasons.

Bills sent by the Commons to the Lords that are Money Bills in the meaning of the Parliament Act 1911 are endorsed (in English) by the Speaker. Bills sent for the Royal Assent under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 without the agreement of the Lords are endorsed in English, and the enacting formula scored through and altered by the Commons.

A Bill, passed by one House and sent to the other, should not be withdrawn by the Member in Charge in the second House, out of courtesy to the first. However, should the Commons reject or decide not to proceed with a Lords Bill, the Commons does not inform the Lords of this fact nor do the Lords in the case of a Commons Bill.

The formulae for Royal Assent are also given in Norman French at the Prorogation ceremony. "La Reyne le veult" is the formula for public (and since 1850, also for most private) bills, and "Soit fait comme il est desire" for private bills due to become personal Acts.