The Development of Parliaments

Abstract

AbstractThe politics of succession also affected power-sharing and the development of representative institutions in Europe. A large literature has studied the development of parliaments and generally portrayed these institutions as a concession to subjects demanding representation for taxation and/or as a way to control the same subjects and raise revenue. While this chapter does not dispute these accounts, it adds that successions, representing moments of weakness in royal authority, also spurred parliamentary activity. Parliamentary meetings were frequently called to legitimize heirs and avoid internal conflicts in the wake of successions. They were also convened more often in the wake of problematic successions, such as when the successor was underage and unable to rule on his own or when the prior king had been deposed. However, the chapter also shows that primogeniture mitigated this need to politically stabilize successions.