h to the 17 th centuries, a class of professional parliamentarians developed, some of whom were used by the king to secure assent to his measures ; others would sometimes disagree with his measures and encourage the Commons to reject them, though the firm idea of ??an organized opposition did not develop until much later.
In the 17 th century Parliament became a revolutionary body and the centre of resistance to the king during the English Civil Wars (1642-1651). The Restoration period (1660-1688) saw the development of the first political parties - the Whigs and the Tories. The modern parliamentary system, as well as the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, quickly developed after the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. England became a «parliamentary monarchy» controlled by a constitution.
Nowadays one of the fundamental principles of the unwritten constitution is the sovereignty of the British Parliament. It means that Parliament has unlimited power in the legislative and the executive spheres and there is no institution that can declare its acts unconstitutional.consists of the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The main functions of Parliament are as follows: to pass laws, to provide the means of carrying on the work of Government, to control the Government policy and administration, to debate the most important political issues of the day. Nevertheless, the principal duty of Parliament is legislation.purpose of this course paper is to study the main aspects of historical development of the British Parliament; to determine its role in the governing of the country, its structure, organization, main functions in different historical periods and nowadays.course paper consists of four chapters. The main task of the first chapter is to determine the principles of the formation of Parliament as an institution of power, to study the historical conditions of the 11 th - 13 th centuries which affected the formation of the earliest predecessors of the British Parliament - the Anglo-Saxon Witan, Curia Regis and the Parliaments of 1265 and 1295.second chapter tells about the further development of Parliament in the Late Middle Ages, under the House of Tudor. The main task of this chapter is to reflect the main changes in the society and government in the 14 th - 16 th centuries, to determine the reasons of the growth of parliamentary power.third chapter describes Stuart Parliaments in the 17 th century. The main task of the chapter is to single out the reasons of the bourgeois revolution that resulted in the establishment of the republic in 1649, and also the reasons of the Restoration of monarchy.main task of the fourth chapter is to determine the structure and main functions of the British Parliament in the modern state management system.
1. The Beginnings of Parliament
.1 The Anglo - Saxon Witenagemot
Anglo-Saxons created institutions which made the English state strong for the next 500 years. One of these institutions was the King «s Council, called the Witan. The Witan probably grew out of informal groups of senior warriors and churchmen to whom kings like Offa had turned for advice or support on difficult matters. By the tenth century the Witan was a formal body, issuing laws and charters. It was not at all democratic, and the king could decide to ignore the W...
