Henry Parker and the Origin of Parliamentary Supremacy in 17th Century England
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Abstract
This article aims to trace the origin of the idea of parliamentary supremacy in England back to the context of the English Civil Wars in the Seventeenth Century from which it has emerged, and argues that Henry Parker has prominently pioneered the idea in order to replace the old notion of the balance and equal Estates of the Realm by supporting the House of Commons to have a final say in all political decisions, which paved the way for the later Levellers and the Commonwelthsmen movement to insist on the sovereignty of the English parliament at the end of the Civil Wars and during the interregnum. The article also contends that Parker’s idea is not only one that made the subsequent Glorious revolution possible, but also one that was a cornerstone for what might be termed as a constitutional monarchy with democratic parliamentary supremacy to flourish in the next Century.
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