| After all the trouble - the Civil War, the execution of King Charles, Parliament ruling for a while and then Oliver Cromwell taking over - England eventually returned a king to the throne. This was King Charles II, the son of King Charles I.
When Charles II died, his brother James became king. James was quite a different kind of king from Charles; he was determined to control the Parliament. He set about selecting judges who would support him in the courts to say that it was the king's right to suspend any laws made by the Parliament. This was too much for many in Parliament, so much so that they were prepared to commit treason against the king to have him replaced.
Secretly, the Parliament invited William of Orange, who was the husband of James' daughter Mary, to invade England. William's arrival scared King James II away and allowed the Parliament time to declare that the throne was vacant. England had no monarch again and a replacement needed to be found.
The House of Commons put forward the idea that William and Mary could rule in James' place. There was no way that this king and queen could have absolute power as in the past. William and Mary became constitutional monarchs, which meant that they still remained the highest authority in the land but that they had to act according to a basic set of rules or a 'constitution'.
The House of Commons also devised a 'Declaration of Rights' which confirmed rights of petition, of free elections and of consent to taxation. |
