At one point in history, the king’s rule was absolute. While today we think of Parliament as a body that stretched back centuries, the truth is that the body as we know it developed formally with the Acts of Union in 1707. In fact, nothing remotely resembling a parliament existed before 1303. The first monarch to actually open his decision-making up to persons beyond his immediate family was King William I in 1066. William formed a council of advisers to aid his rule of England. This body was mostly made up of tenants-in-chief (wealthy property owners who swore allegiance to him) and ecclesiastics (members of the church). As you might assume, this body was little more than advisory, and the king would ultimately take whatever action he saw fit.
This group of land-owning advisers gained more power courtesy of the Magna Carta in 1215. The document prescribed the barons certain rights, including consulting and advising King John I as part of his Great Council. This body was referred to as “Parliament” in some documents by 1236. By 1254, sheriffs were instructed to send representatives to advise the king on taxation, further growing the body until four years later in 1258 when the Great Council drafted the “Provisions of Oxford,” which called for regular parliamentary meetings and records began to be kept of the body’s meetings.
1295 saw the creation of what is known as the “Model Parliament,” which consisted of the members of the Great Council as well as two knights from each county, two burgesses from each borough, and two citizens from each city. The House of Commons began to form in the 14th Century as knights of the shire and burgesses, more like commoners than the nobles and clergy, started to hold their own meetings apart from the more esteemed parliamentarians. Both bodies began meeting in Westminster Hall, which eventually developed into the Palace of Westminster. It was during this time that Parliament began to take on a more legislative function, with “bills” passed in the Commons and the House of Lords going to the King for his Royal assent.
Parliament grew in 1542 when King Henry VIII formally invited members from Wales to join the body as he wanted to prevent the country from falling under the influence of the Catholic Church. Five years later, his son, King Edward VI gave the Commons St. Stephen’s Chapel to use for their meetings. Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, parliamentary power grew such as to require any taxation to have Parliament’s consent and the Bill of Rights declaring the body’s supremacy over the monarch. The Acts of Union with Scotland in 1707 led to the creation of the Parliament of Great Britain.
Parliament cannot bind its successors. Legislation is the handmaiden of policy. Major changes of policy often require major changes of legislation, and under the British constitution there has been a continuous process of legislation by Parliament since the 13th century, except from 1649 to 1660.
It would be in 1801 that what we know as Parliament truly began, however. The Acts of Union in that year brought Ireland into the United Kingdom and added representatives from that country to form a Parliament made up of members from England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. However, the Commons would not develop its ministerial functions until the 19th Century, and the House of Lords remained the superior body in theory and in practice. Throughout the century the Lords regularly meddled in the Commons by having supporters or relatives stand for election in small constituencies (also known as “rotten boroughs”). It wouldn’t be until Reform Bill of 1832 that the Commons’ elections would free themselves of the Lords’ influence, permitting the body to eventually become the more dominant of the two in regards to policy. By the 20th Century, the Commons had fully established their dominance over the Lords, a power balance that has remained to this day, chipped away periodically by the commons from the 1909 “People’s Budget” through the premiership of Tony Blair.