Constitutional Monarchy / The Bill of Rights

• A Declaration of Rights was read at the coronation of William and Mary. This confirmed that the king would no longer be able to raise taxes or administer justice without agreement from Parliament. The balance of power between the monarch and Parliament had now permanently changed.
• The Bill of Rights, 1689, confirmed the rights of Parliament and the limits of the king’s power. Parliament took control of who could be monarch and declared that the king or queen must be a Protestant.
• A new Parliament had to be elected at least every three years (later, this became seven years, and now it is five years). Every year, the monarch had to ask Parliament to renew the army and navy funding.
• There were two main groups in Parliament: the Whigs and the Tories.
• From 1695, newspapers were allowed to operate without a government licence.
• The laws passed after the Glorious Revolution marked the beginning of a ‘constitutional monarchy’. The monarch remained very important but could no longer insist on particular policies or actions if Parliament disagreed.
• Only men who owned property of a certain value were able to vote. No women at all had the vote. Some constituencies were controlled by a single wealthy family. These were called ‘pocket boroughs’. Other constituencies had hardly any voters and were called ‘rotten boroughs’.