English Parliament's Rise to Power

English Parliament's Rise to Power

In the seventeenth century, the political power of the Parliament (The national legislature of various countries.) in England, and the Monarchy (an autocracy governed by a monarch who usually inherits the authority) in France increased greatly. These conditions were inspired by three major changes: the aftermath of the reformation, (forming again (especially with improvements or removal of defects; renewing and reconstituting), the need for an increased governmental financing, and the reorganizing of central governments. These three points were each resolved in a different way in both England and in France.

The first major point which eventually increased political power was the aftermath of the Protestant reformation (a religious movement of the 16th century that began as an attempt to reform the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the creation of Protestant churches). In England, after the establishment of the separate Anglican church of England there were many protestant groups left in England still in conflict. These groups all tried to push and pull parliament in their favor - which ultimately made it so that nothing could be done. These conflicts even came to the point of bloody civil wars and great suffering on both sides of the fighting. Parliament ultimately decided to stop these wars by creating religious Act of Toleration (1689) (a new tolerant attitude toward other faith-groups with their new denominational theory, this view of the church found only limited acceptance in England, where the Church of England still retained a favored position, even after the Act of Toleration in 1689 recognized the rights of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers to worship freely), for the non-conformist protestants. For many people, this caused more unity in England and increased power. In France, the decision was made to unify the country through the establishment of a single religious authority, the Catholic Church. The king of France became the heart of this policy, which gave him control of religion when this went into effect.

The next major point was the increase in need for governmental financing. In England, taxing had become under the control of Parliament. In addition to this, the cost of running a government in general had gone up and the country needed more money. Because the king didn't have as much power to tax as he pleases, the government could make a firm and accurate taxation of the people.