Britain never develops institution of Parliament

Hi!

What would have happened if Britain never developed the institution of Parliament? From what I've come across, it became customary to consult Parliament whenever the king wanted to raise taxes from the people.

What happens if either Parliament never gets set up or it doesn't have serious control of the king?
 
Hi!

What would have happened if Britain never developed the institution of Parliament? From what I've come across, it became customary to consult Parliament whenever the king wanted to raise taxes from the people.

What happens if either Parliament never gets set up or it doesn't have serious control of the king?

Well certainly Britain did not invent parliament*, it was imported from Germany by the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians, Franks and other Germanic tribes who fancied a crack at grabbing land off of the Britons. That is not to say that Brythonic cultures did not have some kind of consultative process but it seems to have vested more in the keepers of the sacred lore rather than the community of free folk.

Even William (Guillaume) had inherited such traditions of consulting the free men of his realm both via his Scandinavian ancestors who practised the moot in ancient times and via the remnants of the Roman concept of the popular assembly.

Not only that but the English Parliament would borrow yet more ideas from the Dutch system of republican government along with one of their kings William III.

So it maybe that King Arthur (he of the dubious existence) winning is the POD you need to stymie the constitutional development of the British Isles as occurred OTL.

I would probably expect a poorer nation to result but that may simply be my biases. Further you need to consider that ideas of consultation could equally be imported from the Continent to a more Brythonic Briton or even perhaps recreated whole cloth from Roman ideas at a later date.

*Parliament is not even an English word it is derived from parlement which actually started off a kind of court.
 
I'm pretty sure that most major medieval monarchies had some sort of Parliament equivalent- the French Estates-General, the Spanish Cortes, Imperial Reichstag, the Swedish Riksdag and the Dutch States-General.

The main difference in England was that Parliament was established early on as meeting regularly and having a component elected by the Common people. This is relatively easy to avoid as it came from the political machinations of Simon de Montfort in the Second Baron's War.

I would say that without this the most likely situation is that a Parliament is created some time in the late 13th or early 14th Century, but it has much less powers and meets much less regularly. Of course, if the Hundred Years War still occurs (which seems pretty likely as France will want Aquitaine and Britain will want to keep it) then we might see the need to raise taxes for it lead to the creation of a relatively powerful Parliament anyway.

EDIT: Yes there was a Witengamot, but that had been dead and buried for 200 years by the time de Montfort came along. Admittedly Magna Carta laid the groundwork for the Baron's revolt and their eventual decision to enlist the common populace to their side against the King, so the PoD does perhaps need to be before that.
 
I'm pretty sure that most major medieval monarchies had some sort of Parliament equivalent- the French Estates-General, the Spanish Cortes, Imperial Reichstag, the Swedish Riksdag and the Dutch States-General.

The main difference in England was that Parliament was established early on as meeting regularly and having a component elected by the Common people. This is relatively easy to avoid as it came from the political machinations of Simon de Montfort in the Second Baron's War.

I would say that without this the most likely situation is that a Parliament is created some time in the late 13th or early 14th Century, but it has much less powers and meets much less regularly. Of course, if the Hundred Years War still occurs (which seems pretty likely as France will want Aquitaine and Britain will want to keep it) then we might see the need to raise taxes for it lead to the creation of a relatively powerful Parliament anyway.

EDIT: Yes there was a Witengamot, but that had been dead and buried for 200 years by the time de Montfort came along. Admittedly Magna Carta laid the groundwork for the Baron's revolt and their eventual decision to enlist the common populace to their side against the King, so the PoD does perhaps need to be before that.

Britain's House of Commons was not really elected by common people until the later 19th century.
 
Britain's House of Commons was not really elected by common people until the later 19th century.

Actually, the franchise was much larger until 1430 when the franchise was introduced. I think it dropped a bit further with some of the changes from the 16th Century.
 
RR wrote:

Parliament is not even an English word it is derived from parlement which actually started off a kind of court.

I'd argue that Parliament is merely a revival of the Witanegemot with a Frenchified name, and that it wasn't until the 17th century that Parliament got the same sort of power that the Witan had in 1066.
 
Parliament wasn't really powerful until the 17c, though. The medieval institution was consultative, and its power gradually eroded as the monarchy became more stable. In the 15c, England was solidly absolutist - the Wars of the Roses have to be understood as a conflict between two factions fighting for absolute control, and individual nobles could decide who to side with, but Parliament overall wasn't much of a factor. In the 16c, it was even more absolutist. Parliament only became relevant once Britain got a weak king in Charles I, who was too sympathetic to a despised religious minority to boot.

What really happened in the 17c is that the monarch pissed off too many powerful magnates at once, and moreover the powerful magnates were a commercial class and not merely a nobility as under Henry VI. Once we shift from the traditional (and wrong) story of Parliament slowly evolving into a powerful legislature to a story in which Parliament acquired power through revolution against Charles I, mirroring revolutions in the Netherlands and Switzerland (both against the Habsburgs), the question of what happened in the Middle Ages becomes moot.

In other words, a TL in which Parliament was never formed in the 13c couldn't really affect future political development, except through distant butterflies. If the centuries of monarchical feuding end up producing a strong commercial class, then eventually this commercial class would rebel and establish something like a republic, as happened in OTL in 17c England, 18c France, the 16c Low Countries, 13c Switzerland, and the 14c Hanseatic League. If there's no strong commercial class, there's not going to be such a revolution. By the Early Modern Era, any such revolution is going to produce something like a parliament of its own; if there were no national parliament to use, it would have invented one.
 
Parliament wasn't really powerful until the 17c, though. The medieval institution was consultative, and its power gradually eroded as the monarchy became more stable. In the 15c, England was solidly absolutist - the Wars of the Roses have to be understood as a conflict between two factions fighting for absolute control, and individual nobles could decide who to side with, but Parliament overall wasn't much of a factor. In the 16c, it was even more absolutist. Parliament only became relevant once Britain got a weak king in Charles I, who was too sympathetic to a despised religious minority to boot.

What really happened in the 17c is that the monarch pissed off too many powerful magnates at once, and moreover the powerful magnates were a commercial class and not merely a nobility as under Henry VI. Once we shift from the traditional (and wrong) story of Parliament slowly evolving into a powerful legislature to a story in which Parliament acquired power through revolution against Charles I, mirroring revolutions in the Netherlands and Switzerland (both against the Habsburgs), the question of what happened in the Middle Ages becomes moot.

In other words, a TL in which Parliament was never formed in the 13c couldn't really affect future political development, except through distant butterflies. If the centuries of monarchical feuding end up producing a strong commercial class, then eventually this commercial class would rebel and establish something like a republic, as happened in OTL in 17c England, 18c France, the 16c Low Countries, 13c Switzerland, and the 14c Hanseatic League. If there's no strong commercial class, there's not going to be such a revolution. By the Early Modern Era, any such revolution is going to produce something like a parliament of its own; if there were no national parliament to use, it would have invented one.

This interpretation of English (and other British Nations history) would be news to amongst others Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland. The history of Britain does not show a strong executive monarchy, but rather the limits on monarchical power, again and again, which are overcome occasionally by personality or force (see Henry VIII).
Now it is true that an Anglo Saxon victory or a Danish one might have limited this power even more, but the English Monarch never consistently HAD strong Executive power to be overthrown. Charles' problem was he thought it should have
I would also point out that Parliament was 2 houses of 3 estates not just the House of Commons, which it is being conflated with here. It is not just the Commons control of Tax that is important, but.other rights and interests. After all Magna Carta was the defence of the privilege of the Great Lord's above all else, nor should the church benches in the Lords be ignored.
Finally the idea that not forming a Parliament could not change British history or political development seems on the face of it a totally unjustified assertion unsupported by any evidence and I would be interested in seeing if there is a supporting argument. For example if there had been no parliament it is hard to see the war of 3 nations developing in the same way (not saying it could not happen, but it would have been very different) It was the appeal to ancient traditions that gained the Parliamentary side most of its adherents in the early and middle stages, and without this appeal what of 1688 and 1776?
There may have been a glorious revolution and an American war of independence, but without the Whig interpretation of history political development would clearly have been different.
The point with ideology is often not what IS true, but what people believe to have been and to remain true. Change the belief and you change the world.
 
Last edited:
This interpretation of English (and other British Nations history) would be news to amongst others Elizabeth and Mary of Scotland. The history of Britain does not show a strong executive monarchy, but rather the limits on monarchical power, again and again, which are overcome occasionally by personality or force (see Henry VIII).

Elizabeth managed to execute Mary on trumped-up charges of treason. There was a lot of court politics at the time, but the same can be said of, say, Bourbon France. Henry VIII had a lot of personal charisma, but Tudor absolutism as we know it began with Henry VII. Even Tudor absolutism goes back to earlier absolutism; to the Angevins, England was a stable domain with direct administration and little local interference, whereas the French holdings were more precarious and had stronger local nobility.

Finally the idea that not forming a Parliament could not change British history or political development seems on the face of it a totally unjustified assertion unsupported by any evidence and I would be interested in seeing if there is a supporting argument. For example if there had been no parliament it is hard to see the war of 3 nations developing in the same way (not saying it could not happen, but it would have been very different) It was the appeal to ancient traditions that gained the Parliamentary side most of its adherents in the early and middle stages, and without this appeal what of 1688 and 1776?

1776 was a war of independence with a few revolutionary ideas that were influenced by French Enlightenment thinkers as much as by Britain. 1688 was a via media following an actual revolution and restoration. Contra the usual "economic revolution in Britain and political revolution in France" notion of modern history, Britain did in fact have a revolution, it was just followed by counterrevolution. The same is true of France, but in France the revolutionaries never pretended there was some earlier tradition they were restoring.

The big difference was not political, but ethnic. In Britain, and in the Netherlands, the revolutions were infused with Protestant rejection of Catholic rule, which the Protestant elites viewed as foreign; in the Netherlands it was actually foreign, and in Britain it was portrayed as such. Tellingly, unlike the American bill of rights, the British one was all about the rights of Protestants. In France, both sides were French-speaking and historically Catholic, just one was much more secular than the other.
 
Feudal obligations were very clear and definite. They also were not practical anytime the king needed to fight a war of any length. But the medieval kings could not simply change feudal obligations on a whim - the barons would revolt. So the only way they could get consent was to assemble parliament and ask them to agree that the king could get what he wanted (usually taxes) in exchange for something else (usually elimination of some of the feudal obligations, or in certain cases they just approved the motion provided it was for a limited time).

This happened all throughout Europe, not just England.

Once gunpowder armies came about, it made more sense for kings to raise a professional army paid by taxes instead of mucking about with feudal armies. Eventually many of the kings succeeded in not being dependent on their feudal nobles anymore and ignored parliament (often this was a result of a generous revenue approved by previous parliaments, in France's case this was the salt tax). Then the age of absolutism happened. This failed to develop in England because parliament won its battles against increased royal power.

In a sense, it is impossible for England not to have a parliament. It is simply how European medieval politics worked. But it is possible for the English kings to become powerful enough to not call parliament in session, especially not as long as it was in session for several periods of medieval and renaissance times. The English kings just need an increased source of revenue that allows them to not need to call parliament. If that happens, England can go the way the continental monarchies did.
 
SNIP
Once gunpowder armies came about, it made more sense for kings to raise a professional army paid by taxes instead of mucking about with feudal armies. Eventually many of the kings succeeded in not being dependent on their feudal nobles anymore and ignored parliament (often this was a result of a generous revenue approved by previous parliaments, in France's case this was the salt tax). Then the age of absolutism happened. This failed to develop in England because parliament won its battles against increased royal power.

So, in a sense, we have Parliament (and all its daughters) because of gunpowder?

This does cast a certain irony on Guy Fawkes, does it not? :D
 
Top