The rise of Parliament

King Charles I (1600 – 1649) believed that the monarch was appointed by God to rule and had absolute power. The elected English Parliament disagreed. The result was the Civil War, leading to the execution of the king in 1649. For the next 11 years, England was a republic, though Oliver Cromwell, the parliamentary leader and most important man in England, took more and more power until he himself became a dictator.

After his death, Parliament asked the executed king´s son to return to England. In spite of this, there was no return to the absolute rule of kings and no future monarch would ever seriously challenge the power of Parliament.

Michael Vaughan-Rees, Geraldine Sweeney, Picot Cassidy: In Britain. 21st Century Edition, Cornelsen Verlag, 2000, page 11