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==Background== In the [[medieval]] period, government in England was very much centred on the [[English monarchy|king]]. He ruled personally, usually assisted by his council, the ''[[curia regis]]''. The council members were chosen by the king, and its membership varied greatly, but members often included powerful [[nobility]] and churchmen, senior [[civil servant]]s, and sometimes certain members of the king's friends and family. Early parliaments began to emerge under [[Edward I]], who wished to implement [[taxation]] changes and wide-ranging law reforms, and sought to gain the consent of the nobility. Nevertheless, calling a parliament was an expensive and time-consuming process, requiring many personal invitations (for the [[House of Lords]]) and elections in the [[shire]]s and chartered [[city|cities]] and [[borough]]s. So parliaments would only be summoned on particularly important occasions. Once a parliament had finished its business, the king would dissolve it, and perhaps not summon another for an extended period; in the meantime, the ''curia regis'' β that is, the king with his chosen advisers β would make laws ("ordinances"), spend money, and carry on the business of government. From the 14th to the 16th centuries, the acknowledged powers of Parliament grew. In particular, it was established that Parliament was the only body that could authorise nationwide taxation and excise. Parliament did not obtain these powers as a result of any particular and/or explicit legal and/or constitutional sanction from the Crown, but rather due to a more or less mutual recognition that those who elected Parliaments (the landed gentry) possessed the practical leverage with which they could enforce Parliament's claim to these powers. Simply put, the landed gentry was the only stratum of society in a position to collect and remit taxes for the monarch on a large scale. If a sovereign were to attempt to impose new taxes without consulting the gentry then the gentry could have simply refused to collect the taxes, and the monarch would have had little feasible recourse. Once summoned, a parliament could take the opportunity to submit policy proposals to the monarch ("[[Bill (proposed law)|bill]]s"), which would be expected to take precedence over ordinances if signed into law by the monarch, although the monarch was under no obligation to grant the [[Royal Assent]] to any such proposal. However, monarchs did increasingly use parliaments more widely in lawmaking as a way of gaining popular support for their policies. One example was during the [[English Reformation]], when the Reformation Parliament acting at [[Henry VIII]]'s instigation passed a succession of laws regulating the [[Anglican Church|church in England]]. The first of the [[House of Stuart|Stuart]] monarchs to rule England, [[James I of England|James I]], was perennially short of money<ref>{{cite book |last= Anderson|first= Angela |author-link= |title= An Introduction to Stuart Britain, 1603β1714 |publisher= Hodder Education |series= Access to History |year= 1999 |doi= |isbn= 9780340737446 }}</ref> and he was obliged to summon parliaments often. Successive parliaments thereupon sought to turn the king's financial woes to their advantage, requiring various policy concessions before voting taxes. In 1625, James was succeeded by his son [[Charles I of England|Charles I]], who immediately plunged England into an expensive and ultimately unsuccessful [[Anglo-Spanish War (1625β1630)|war with Spain]], in an attempt to force the Catholic King [[Philip IV of Spain]] to intercede with [[Emperor Ferdinand II]] on behalf of Charles's brother-in-law [[Frederick V, Elector Palatine]], to regain the [[Electorate of the Palatinate]] and his hereditary lands, which Ferdinand had revoked from him. Parliament's protests about the war's mismanagement<ref>{{cite book |last= Seel |first= Graham |title= Regicide and Republic: England 1603β1660 |year= 2001 |publisher= Cambridge University Press |location= United Kingdom |isbn= 9780521589888 |page= 40}}</ref> by the [[George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham|Duke of Buckingham]], and others of Charles' policies, primarily regarding taxation and other methods of acquiring funds, and Charles' refusal to compromise, eventually led to Charles dissolving Parliament in March 1629. He also made peace with Spain and France,<ref>{{cite book |last= Lockyer |first= Roger |title= The Early Stuarts: A Political History of England, 1603β42 |year= 1989 |publisher= Pearson Education Limited |location= United Kingdom |isbn= 9780582493384 |page= 30}}</ref> largely because the financial burden of waging these wars could not be sustained without funds that Parliament alone could provide. For the next eleven years, Charles governed with only an advisory council of royal appointees.
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