"The History of England from the Accession of James the Second The History of England from the Accession of James the Second (1848) is the full title of the five-volume work by Lord Macaulay (1800–1859) more generally known as The History of England. It covers the 17-year period from 1685 to 1702, encompassing the reign of James II, the Glorious Revolution, the coregency of William III and Mary II, and up to William III's death. Macaulay's approach to writing the ""History"" was innovative for his period. He consciously fused the picturesque, dramatic style of classical historians such as Thucydides and"
"Commonwealth of England The Commonwealth was the period from 1649 to 1660 when England and Wales, later along with Ireland and Scotland, were ruled as a republic following the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. The republic's existence was declared through ""An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth"", adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. Power in the early Commonwealth was vested primarily in the Parliament and a Council of State. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, between the parliamentary forces and those opposed"
"joint power. Almost all legislation is passed with the support of the House of Lords. The Statute of Proclamations of 1539 gave the King wide powers to legislate without reference to, or approval from, Parliament. At the same, it recognised the common law, existing statutory provisions, and excluded the breach of royal proclamations from the death penalty. It was repealed in 1547, but Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth both relied on royal proclamations. A review by Chief Justice Edward Coke in 1610, the ""Case of Proclamations"", established that Parliament had the sole right to legislate, but the Crown could enforce"
"Act is a common denominator in the shared succession of all the Commonwealth realms. The Statute of Westminster 1931 acknowledges by established convention that any changes to the rules of succession may be made only with the agreement of all of the states involved, with concurrent amendments to be made by each state's parliament or parliaments. Further, as the current monarch's eldest child and, in turn, his eldest child, are Anglican males, any change to the succession laws would have no immediate implications. Consequently, there was little public concern with the issues and debate had been confined largely to academic"
"that applied to England would automatically apply to Wales (and the Anglo-Scottish border town of Berwick) unless the law explicitly stated otherwise; this Act was repealed with regard to Wales in 1967. English law has been the legal system of England and Wales since 1536, although there is now a growing body of contemporary Welsh law following Welsh devolution. English law is regarded as a common law system, with no major codification of the law and legal precedents are binding as opposed to persuasive.The court system is headed by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom which is the highest"
"Act of Uniformity 1558 The Act of Uniformity 1558 (1 Eliz 1 c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It was actually passed in 1559. It set the order of prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer. All persons had to go to church once a week or be fined 12 pence (equivalent to just over £11 in 2007 ), a considerable sum for the poor. The Act was part of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement in England instituted by Elizabeth I, who wanted to unify the Church. Other Acts concerned with this settlement"
"English law English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures. England's most authoritative law is statutory legislation, which comprises Acts of Parliament, regulations and by-laws. In the absence of any statutory law, the common law with its principle of ""stare decisis"" forms the residual source of law, based on judicial decisions, custom, and usage. Common law is made by sitting judges who apply both statutory law and established principles which are derived from the reasoning from earlier decisions. Equity is the"
"two Acts of Union which were passed by the Parliaments of both nations. The Treaty, along with the subsequent Acts, brought into existence the Kingdom of Great Britain, uniting the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland. Common law legal systems exist in Northern Ireland and in England and Wales, but not in Scotland which has a hybrid system (see Scots law) which includes a great deal of Common Law. Court judgments also commonly form a source of the constitution: generally speaking in English Law, judgments of the higher courts form ""precedents"" or ""case law"" that binds lower courts"
"long unbroken text. The four original 1215 charters were displayed together at the British Library for one day, 3 February 2015, to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta. Magna Carta originated as an unsuccessful attempt to achieve peace between royalist and rebel factions in 1215, as part of the events leading to the outbreak of the First Barons' War. England was ruled by King John, the third of the Angevin kings. Although the kingdom had a robust administrative system, the nature of government under the Angevin monarchs was ill-defined and uncertain. John and his predecessors had ruled using the"
"called the Restoration. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it was constitutionally established that King and Parliament should rule together, though Parliament would have the real power. This was established with the Bill of Rights in 1689. Among the statutes set down were that the law could only be made by Parliament and could not be suspended by the King, also that the King could not impose taxes or raise an army without the prior approval of Parliament. Also since that time, no British monarch has entered the House of Commons when it is sitting, which is annually commemorated at"
"Act of Uniformity 1662 The Act of Uniformity 1662 (14 Car 2 c 4) is an Act of the Parliament of England. (It was formerly cited as 13 & 14 Ch.2 c. 4, by reference to the regnal year when it was passed on 19 May 1662.) It prescribed the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Adherence to this was required in order to hold any office in government or the church, although the 1662 edition of"
"England. This led to the formation of independent churches and schools by what are known as Dissenters. The worship of any faith other than Anglicanism was illegal, and those discovered taking part were arrested and even sentenced to death. Oliver Cromwell imposed a period of religious tolerance, but his death precipitated further persecution of Dissenters, principally through the Act of Uniformity 1549, which required the use of the ""Book of Common Prayer"" as the only legal form of worship in England. The South West of England in general, and Taunton specifically, had a significant Dissenter population. There was a Baptist"
"not conform to the Act of Uniformity (1662) establishing the Church of England as the only legally approved church, though they were in many ways united by their common confessions, built on the Westminster Confession. During the English Civil War (1642–1649), the English Parliament raised armies in an alliance with the Covenanters who by then were the de facto government of Scotland, against the forces of Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. The purpose of the Westminster Assembly, in which 121 Puritan clergymen participated, was to provide official documents for the reformation of the Church of England. The"
"Uniformity 1662 were modified and partly revoked by the Act of Uniformity Amendment Act 1872. <br> Act of Uniformity 1662 The Act of Uniformity 1662 (14 Car 2 c 4) is an Act of the Parliament of England. (It was formerly cited as 13 & 14 Ch.2 c. 4, by reference to the regnal year when it was passed on 19 May 1662.) It prescribed the form of public prayers, administration of sacraments, and other rites of the Established Church of England, according to the rites and ceremonies prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. Adherence to this was required"
"law of England as common law offences in British colonies. From the late 19th century several colonies and countries replaced the common law offences with adopted versions of the draft code called ""the Stephen Code"" written by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen as part of a Royal Commission in England in 1879. The Stephen Code included the offence of blasphemous libel but omitted blasphemy. The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in England and Wales with the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 but the offences remain as part of the common law, criminal"
"Scottish football teams often compete with each other. A spate of anti-English attacks occurred in 2006 during the football World Cup. In one incident a 7-year-old boy wearing an England shirt was punched in the head in an Edinburgh park. The Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542, also known as the ""Acts of Union"", passed by the Parliament of England, annexed Wales to the Kingdom of England, and replaced the Welsh language and Welsh law with the English language and English law. In particular, Section 20 of the 1535 Act made English the only language of the law courts"
"to successfully invade England by force of arms. William summoned a Convention Parliament in England, which met on 22 January 1689, to discuss the appropriate course of action following James's flight. William felt insecure about his position; though his wife preceded him in the line of succession to the throne, he wished to reign as king in his own right, rather than as a mere consort. The only precedent for a joint monarchy in England dated from the 16th century, when Queen Mary I married Philip of Spain. Philip remained king only during his wife's lifetime, and restrictions were placed"
"has led to a steady rise in English nationalism. Some have suggested the creation of a devolved English parliament, while others have proposed simply limiting voting on legislation which only affects England to English MPs. The English law legal system, developed over the centuries, is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States (except Louisiana). Despite now being part of the United Kingdom, the legal system of the Courts of England and Wales continued, under the Treaty of Union, as a separate legal system from the one used in Scotland. The general"
"by Parliament, but only for misconduct. Judges may not sit or vote in either House of Parliament (before the 2005 Act, they had been permitted to sit and vote in the House of Lords). The Church of England is the established church in England (i.e. not in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland). The monarch is ""ex officio"" Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and is required by the Act of Settlement 1701 to ""join in communion with the Church of England"". As part of the coronation ceremony, the monarch swears an oath to ""maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement"
"references to ""England"" and ""Wales"" refer to those political divisions. England and Wales are treated as a single unit for some purposes, because the two form the constitutional successor to the former Kingdom of England. The continuance of Scots law was guaranteed under the 1706 Treaty of Union that led to the Acts of Union 1707, and as a consequence English lawand after 1801, Irish lawcontinued to be separate. Following the two Acts of Union, Parliament can restrict the effect of its laws to part of the realm, and generally the effect of laws, where restricted, was originally applied to"
"single Parliament of Great Britain at Westminster as well as a customs and monetary union. However, England and Scotland remained separate legal jurisdictions. In 1801, the Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, through two similar independent acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland. This created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on a similar basis to how England and Scotland had been united a century earlier. A campaign to repeal the Union in Ireland began immediately. A series of efforts in the late 19th"
"English throne as James I, both the English and Scottish kingdoms were ruled by a single sovereign. From 1649 to 1660, the tradition of monarchy was broken by the republican Commonwealth of England, which followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The Act of Settlement 1701 excluded Roman Catholics, or those who married Catholics, from succession to the English throne. In 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland were merged to create the Kingdom of Great Britain, and in 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland joined to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The British monarch became nominal"
"changes underlines the fact that reformed principles were by no means universally popular – a fact that the Queen recognised: her revived Act of Supremacy, giving her the ambiguous title of Supreme Governor, passed without difficulty but the Act of Uniformity 1559, giving statutory force to the Prayer Book, passed through the House of Lords by only three votes. It made constitutional history in being imposed by the laity alone, as all the bishops, except those imprisoned by the Queen and unable to attend, voted against it . Convocation had made its position clear by affirming the traditional doctrine of"
"have been altered by subsequent legislation. Along with the Bill of Rights 1689, the Act of Settlement remains today one of the main constitutional laws governing the succession not only to the throne of the United Kingdom, but to those of the other Commonwealth realms, whether by assumption or by patriation. The Act of Settlement cannot be altered in any realm except by that realm's own parliament and, by convention, only with the consent of all the other realms, as it touches on the succession to the shared crown. The original documents are deposited in the Lower Saxon State Archives"
"Act of Uniformity 1549 The Act of Uniformity 1548 (2 & 3 Edw 6 c 1), also referred to as the Act of Uniformity 1549, was an Act of the Parliament of England, passed on 21 January 1549. It was the logical successor of the Edwardian Injunctions of 1547 and the Sacrament Act of the same year which had taken piecemeal steps towards the official introduction of Protestant doctrine and practice into England and Wales. It established The Book of Common Prayer (""The Book of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the"
"Kingdom of Great Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain, officially called simply Great Britain, was a sovereign state in western Europe from 1 May 1707 to 31 December 1800. The state came into being following the Treaty of Union in 1706, ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, which united the kingdoms of England (which included Wales) and Scotland to form a single kingdom encompassing the whole island of Great Britain and its outlying islands, with the exception of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. It also did not include Ireland, which remained a separate realm. The unitary"
"legal system as England since 1536, when it was merged with England. Ireland and Scotland were never merged with England, and so always retained some differences in their legal systems. The Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly both have deeper and wider powers. The Assembly inherited the powers and budget of the Secretary of State for Wales and most of the functions of the Welsh Office. It has power to vary laws passed by Westminster using secondary legislation. Alun Cairns, who represents the Vale of Glamorgan constituency in the Westminster Parliament, is currently the Secretary of State for Wales."
"Rule of law in the United Kingdom The rule of law is one of the longest established common law fundamental principles of the governance of the United Kingdom, dating to Magna Carta of 1215, particularly jurisprudence following its late 13th century re-drafting. It as a minimum subjects an otherwise absolute monarch (executive) and all free people within its jurisdictions, primarily those of England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to legal doctrines known as the general principles of law. It has evolved to work only alongside equal application of the law to all free people 'equality before the law' and"
"the common law order. The two courts became locked in a stalemate, and the matter was eventually referred to the Attorney-General, Sir Francis Bacon. Sir Francis, by authority of King James I, upheld the use of the common injunction and concluded that in the event of any conflict between the common law and equity, equity would prevail. Equity's primacy in England was later enshrined in the Judicature Acts of the 1870s, which also served to fuse the courts of equity and the common law (although emphatically not the systems themselves) into one unified court system. Ecclesiastical laws are a branch"
"part of the United Kingdom, the basic political system in England is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary system. There has not been a government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707, putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union, joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Before the union England was ruled by its monarch and the Parliament of England. Today England is governed directly by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, although other countries of the United Kingdom have devolved governments. In the House of Commons which is the lower"
"Clauses in Statutes imposing Penalties for not coming to Church"", but this Act was rendered null and void with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Most of the Act was repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act 1888. Act of Uniformity 1558 The Act of Uniformity 1558 (1 Eliz 1 c 2) was an Act of the Parliament of England. It was actually passed in 1559. It set the order of prayer to be used in the English Book of Common Prayer. All persons had to go to church once a week or be fined 12 pence (equivalent to"
"kingdoms of England and Scotland were merged by the 1707 Act of Union to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. The exchange rate between the pound scots and the English pound sterling had been fixed at 12:1 since the Union of the Crowns in 1603, and in 1707 the pound Scots ceased to be legal tender, with the pound sterling to be used throughout Great Britain. The penny replaced the shilling of the pound scots. The design and specifications of the English penny were unchanged by the Union, and it continued to be minted in silver after 1707. Queen Anne's"
"of Uniformity 1662 made the use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer compulsory; the Conventicle Act 1664 prohibited religious assemblies of more than five people, except under the auspices of the Church of England; and the Five Mile Act 1665 prohibited expelled non-conforming clergymen from coming within five miles (8 km) of a parish from which they had been banished. The Conventicle and Five Mile Acts remained in effect for the remainder of Charles's reign. The Acts became known as the Clarendon Code, after Lord Clarendon, even though he was not directly responsible for them and even spoke against"