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1642 Bishops Exclusion Act, Cavalier Parliament, Duke of Monmouth, Franco-Dutch War, King Charles II of England, Parliament of England, William III of Orange
The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from May 8, 1661 until January 24, 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, and longer than any Great British or UK Parliament to date, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Like its predecessor, the Convention Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist and is also known as the Pensioner Parliament for the many pensions it granted to adherents of the King.
The first session of the Cavalier Parliament opened on May 8, 1661. Among the first orders of business was the confirmation of the acts of the previous year’s irregular Convention of 1660 as legitimate (notably, the Indemnity and Oblivion Act).
Parliament immediately ordered the public burning of the Solemn League and Covenant by a common hangman. It also repealed the 1642 Bishops Exclusion Act, thereby allowing Church of England bishops to resume their temporal positions, including their seats in the House of Lords.
Other notable pieces of first session legislation include the Militia Act placing the armed forces unambiguously under the king’s authority, and the Sedition Act. It also continued proceedings against the regicides of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland.
The prior Convention of 1660 had promised King Charles II a generous annual revenue of £1.2 million, secured on customs duties and excise taxes. It was up to Cavalier parliament to ensure that the promise was kept. But in the first few years, the revenue fell short of the promised amount, and parliament had to look for new ways to make up for it.
Parliament was responsible for the introduction of the controversial hearth tax (1662), with its unpopular and intrusive method of assessment (tax collectors had to go inside everyone’s private homes to count hearths).
The session of 1677 had been called by Charles II to finance England’s re-entry into the Franco-Dutch war, which had been dragging on since England left in 1674, and hopefully get himself a seat at the peace table. Parliament was inclined, provided the king joined the Dutch side. To this end, Danby negotiated the marriage of James of York’s eldest daughter Mary to the Dutch Stadtholder Willem III of Orange in November 1677. But parliament was unwilling to provide enough funds to raise an army.
The memoirs of the French ambassador Paul Barillon d’Amoncourt reveal extensive French communication (and bribery) of the MPs to delay supply – even Country Party leaders like Henry Powle, William Harbord and Thomas Littleton were paid. This has led some historians to speculate that parliament’s war-call was a bluff from the start, that they were more interested in denying the king a foreign policy victory and embarrassing Danby. Nonetheless, King Charles II hurried things along in late 1677 by precipitously signing a treaty with Willem III, Prince of Orange to re-enter the war, and presenting it to parliament as a fait accompli.
The reluctant parliament was forced to cough up enough funds to dispatch an expeditionary force of around 15,000 troops under the Duke of Monmouth to Flanders in May, 1678. But it was too late – the French and Dutch quickly wound up their negotiations (without England), and went on to sign the Treaties of Nijmegen ending the war. In June, parliament quickly voted a sum to finance the disbanding of the expeditionary force, but Charles II decided to use the money to maintain it instead for a few months longer, in the hope he might still affect the final treaty.
This humiliating conclusion to the king’s war policy dragged the political reputation of the King and Danby to a low point, making them vulnerable when the Popish Plot erupted in August and September 1678. When the 17th session opened that October, parliament was in a tremendously combative mood. Worked up by the Popish Plot, they strengthened the Test Act with the Papists’ Disabling Act excluding Catholics from both houses of Parliament and the king’s court (James exempted).
Parliament also demanded to know why the King had misapplied the June funds and was still maintaining the expeditionary force in Flanders. The session was finally wrecked when details emerged that, on King Charles II’s instructions, Danby had entered into secret negotiations with King Louis XIV of France and Navarre in early 1676, promising England would not re-enter the war on the Dutch side, negotiations which had not been revealed during the 1677 debate. Parliament immediately impeached Danby, forcing King Charles II to prorogue the session in December, 1678.
In the recess, King Charles II entered into negotiations with Shaftesbury and other parliamentary leaders. In return for saving Danby from trial in the House of Lords, King Charles II reluctantly agreed to their demands to finally dissolve parliament and call for new elections. The dissolution was announced on 24 January 1679, bringing the seemingly interminable Cavalier Parliament to its end.
After the elections, the new parliament – known as the Habeas Corpus Parliament (or “First Exclusion Parliament”) – was assembled in March, 1679.