HOUSE OF COMMONS

The House of Commons Was Able to Challenge Elizabeth's Control Successfully

The House of Commons Was Able to Challenge Elizabeth's Control Successfully

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and analyze the fact that how the House of Commons effectively challenged Queen Elizabeth's control. Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, sent Cabot's son, Sebastian, back to America, but showed no interest in further discoveries or colonization. Under the reign of her brother, Edward VI, more progress had been made as merchant adventurers headed east through the Baltic Sea and established trade with Russia. In contrast to her predecessors, Elizabeth grasped the possibilities that exploration and trade held for her nation. Elizabeth I was the Queen of England and daughter of King Henry VIII. This paper will discuss the rise and fall of Elizabeth's era and analyze the fact that the House of Commons effectively challenged Elizabeth's control. According to different sources, there were contrasting arguments regarding the rule of Elizabeth I; nonetheless, majority of the sources clearly state that Elizabeth I proved to be a remarkable ruler.

House of Commons' Success in Challenging Elizabeth's Control

The House of Commons is the lower chamber of parliament, representing the `communities', or counties and towns (compare House of Lords). Its origin lay in the requirement that taxation must be consented to by those who have to pay it. The summoning of non-baronial representatives to parliament occurred in 1213, 1254, and 1258, when shire representatives attended, and in 1265 Simon de Montfort's parliament included borough representatives. By the end of the 14th century taxation was being granted `by the Commons, with the advice and consent of the Lords'. Nevertheless, for most of the Middle Ages the Commons were an adjunct to parliament rather than a part of it (Dunn, 2004, 438).

The third interpretation analyzing House of Common's influence on Elizabeth's control enlightens that due to the fact that the Queen herself invented the 'matter of state', her own interests reflected in the lists of topics with which she was trying to bar the Commons. As per the Queen, private members were the root cause of all major matters, which she classified as the 'matter of concerning the commonwealth. Apart from that, foreign policies, religion, succession and marriages as well as the royal administration were grouped under the 'matter of state' by the Queen. She failed to completely exclude the Commons from all these areas. However, she did succeed in excluding the Commons from the matters of succession and marriages.

Free speech, regular parliaments, and control over taxation were not achieved until the Glorious Revolution (1688-89), and even then the Lords remained the more important forum for political debate (Dunn, 2004, 441). Patronage gave the crown and the peers' extensive influence over the membership of the Commons until the end of the 18th century. Nonetheless, important themes in the history of the Commons in the 19th century were the importance of the Irish members, consequent on the Act of Union (1801) and Roman Catholic emancipation (1829), and the widening of ...