British Parliament

View of the Houses of Lords and Commons from Old Palace Yard, 1808 by Isaac Cruikshank

## History

### Preceded by

Parliament of England; Parliament of Scotland

### Succeeded by

Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

## Location

### Location

Palace of Westminster, London

The **Parliament of Great Britain** was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdom of Great Britain and created the parliament of Great Britain located in the former home of the English parliament in the Palace of Westminster, near the City of London. This lasted nearly a century, until the Acts of Union 1800 merged the separate British and Irish Parliaments into a single Parliament of the United Kingdom with effect from 1 January 1801.

## History

The evolution of the British Parliament up to and through the 18th century had already been long and convoluted. In the most general sense, early rulers of various tribes and kingdoms within the Island of Great Britain inevitably had some formal or informal collection of higher status followers whose buy-in or counsel was deemed prudent or necessary for governing the territory; power might ebb and flow over time between the ruler and the advisors.

The centuries from the inception of formalized recurring meetings of representatives from the areas, and eventually classes, being governed saw a slow shift of power away from the monarch and into the hands of an ever-more complex parliament — a shift punctuated along the way by reversals, ruptures in the status quo and significant turning points that cemented the new power relationship.

The Parliament of Great Britain that was created in 1707 through the Acts of Union was, essentially, "the continuation of the Parliament of England with the addition of 45 Members of Parliament (MPs) and 16 Peers to represent Scotland."

## House of Lords

The bicameral Parliament was well-established by the 18th century, consisting of the House of Lords (The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, encompassing archbishops, bishops, abbots and nobility) and House of Commons (shire and borough representatives). While the Lords, as great landowners and influential prelates, were initially far more powerful than the Commons, the effects of the end of feudalism, the Wars of the Roses and the English Civil War saw a gradual diminution of the Lords' outsized power relative to the Commons. The House of Lords (along with the Monarchy) was abolished entirely from 1649-1660. With the Restoration, however, the Lords returned to its prior position as the more powerful chamber — a status it held until the 19th century.

## Maiden Lane series

### *Wicked Intentions*

Main article: Title
Lord Caire and Godric St. John discuss Duke of Wakefield's call "for yet another gin bill" in the course of their meeting at a coffee house.

### *Title*

Main article: Title
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## Trivia

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1. ↑ Wikipedia: Parliament of Great Britain — accessed 27 September 2023.
2. ↑ UK Parliament: Birth of the English Parliament — accessed 27 September 2023
3. ↑ UK Parliament: Anglo-Saxon Origins —accessed 27 September 2023
4. ↑ Wikipedia: Government in Medieval Scotland — accessed 27 September 2023
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Wikipedia: House of Lords-History — accessed 27 September 2023