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King John I signed the document, which regulates that the king should be under the law, under military pressure from some nobles.
This is the first English document that officially confirms the principle of limited monarchy. -
After defeating king Henry VIII's army, this rebel leader summoned the parliament in English history.
For the first time, it summoned not only nobles and bishops but also knights from the shires and burgesses from the towns. This established the precedent for the Commons as a part of Parliament. -
King Edward I summoned a parliament to raise funds for war, modelling it on de Montfort's earlier assembly.
The parliament's composition, including representatives from the lords, clergy, knights, and burgesses classes, was, for the first time, so comprehensive that it became the "model" for all future Parliaments, cementing the idea that governmental policies should be consented by representatives from all classes of society. -
King Charles I was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall, London, marking the end of the English Civil War which had begun in 1642.
This was the first time that a monarch is executed in England, severely challenging the "holy" status of monarchs. -
Parliament invited the Dutch Stadtholder, William of Orange, and his wife Mary (daughter of King James II) to invade and take the throne, deposing the Catholic James II.
This was a revolution orchestrated by Parliament. It definitively established that the monarch ruled not by divine right, but with the consent of Parliament, which held the ultimate authority to determine the line of succession. -
As a condition for their coronation, monarchs William and Mary assented to this Act of Parliament.
The Bill of Rights explicitly forbade the monarch from suspending laws, levying taxes, or maintaining a standing army without Parliament's consent. It also guaranteed free speech in Parliament and the right to petition the monarch. It is the cornerstone of Britain's constitutional monarchy. -
Later being the most powerful minister for Kings George I and II, Walpole became Britain's first Prime Minister.
His long tenure established the conventions that the cabinet should be chosen from the majority party in the Commons, that it should be united under a single leader, and that the government is ultimately accountable to Parliament, not just the king. This completed the shift of executive power from the monarch to the elected representatives.