The Convention Parliament was a parliament in

English history England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BBC News. Retrieved 7 February ...

which, owing to an

abeyance Abeyance (from the Old French ''abeance'' meaning "gaping") is a state of expectancy in respect of property, titles or office, when the right to them is not vested in any one person, but awaits the appearance or determination of the true owner. ...

of the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

, assembled without formal summons by the Sovereign. Sir

William Blackstone Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, judge and Tory politician of the eighteenth century. He is most noted for writing the ''Commentaries on the Laws of England''. Born into a middle-class family in ...

applied the term to only two English Parliaments, those of 1660 and 1689, but some sources have also applied the name to the parliament of 1399.

Features of the convention parliaments

Blackstone points out that the 1689 parliament had to assemble without a royal writ, because the throne was vacant, and no legally summoned parliament could ever be assembled unless a Convention Parliament met to settle the issue of government. Between 1660 and 1689 the meaning of the word Convention underwent a revision. In 1660 the word was seen as pejorative with overtones of irregularity, but after the convening of the 1689 parliament some started to see this as a virtue, "a voice of liberty". The

Succession to the Crown Act 1707 The Succession to the Crown Act 1707 (6 Ann c 41) is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain. It is still partly in force in Great Britain. The Act was passed at a time when Parliament was anxious to ensure the succession of a Pr ...

and the

Meeting of Parliament Act 1797 The Meeting of Parliament Act 1797 (37. Geo. III, c. 127) is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1797. Section 1 originally established that Parliament could be summoned fourteen days after the issuing of a proclam ...

has made it extremely unlikely that there will be need of another Westminster Convention Parliament:

Convention Parliament of 1399

The first example of a convention parliament is the parliament of 1399. In 1399 a convention of estates of the realm assembled to offer the throne to Henry Bolingbroke as King Henry IV of England after the deposition of King

Richard II of England Richard II (6 January 1367 – ), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales, and Joan, Countess of Kent. Richard's father di ...

. The convention had been summoned as a parliament by a writ issued by Richard, but it had not been opened by his commission as he had been deposed and it was held that this had the same effect on the parliament as the death of a monarch. So once Henry was recognised as King he re-summoned the same parliament hence validating its previous recognition of him as king.

Convention Parliament of 1660

:::

G. M. Trevelyan George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was a British historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to the ...

''England under the Stuarts'' 1946 edition p 298 The Convention Parliament (25 April 1660 – 29 December 1660) followed the Long Parliament that had finally voted for its own dissolution on 16 March that year. Elected as a "free parliament",''History of England'', Thomas Babington Macaulay pp 109-110 i.e. with no oath of allegiance to the

Commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...

or to the monarchy, it was predominantly Royalist in its membership. It assembled for the first time on 25 April 1660. After the

Declaration of Breda The Declaration of Breda (dated 4 April 1660) was a proclamation by Charles II of England in which he promised a general pardon for crimes committed during the English Civil War and the Interregnum for all those who recognized Charles as the la ...

had been received, Parliament proclaimed on 8 May that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the death of

Charles I Charles I may refer to: Kings and emperors * Charlemagne (742–814), numbered Charles I in the lists of Holy Roman Emperors and French kings * Charles I of Anjou (1226–1285), also king of Albania, Jerusalem, Naples and Sicily * Charles I of ...

in January 1649. The Convention Parliament then proceeded to conduct the necessary preparation for the Restoration Settlement. These preparations included the necessary provisions to deal with land and funding such that the new régime could operate. Reprisals against the establishment which had developed under Oliver Cromwell were constrained under the terms of the

Indemnity and Oblivion Act The Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660 was an Act of the Parliament of England (12 Cha. II c. 11), the long title of which is "An Act of Free and General Pardon, Indemnity, and Oblivion". This act was a general pardon for everyone who had committe ...

which became law on 29 August 1660. Nonetheless there were prosecutions against those accused of

regicide Regicide is the purposeful killing of a monarch or sovereign of a polity and is often associated with the usurpation of power. A regicide can also be the person responsible for the killing. The word comes from the Latin roots of ''regis'' ...

, the direct participation in the trial and execution of Charles I. The Convention Parliament was dissolved by Charles II on 29 December 1660. The succeeding parliament was elected in May 1661, and was called the

Cavalier Parliament The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24 January 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, and longer than any Great British or UK Parliament to date, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of ...

. It set about both systematically dismantling of all the legislation and institutions which had been introduced during the Interregnum, and the confirming of the Acts of the Convention Parliament. As all the acts of the Commonwealth parliaments were obliterated from the legal record, the Convention Parliament replicated some of the legislation they wanted to keep (e.g. the Navigation Act of 1651) in new acts.

Convention Parliament of 1689

The Convention Parliament (29 December – 22 January 1689) was the first parliament of the ' Glorious Revolution' of 1688. This parliament, which met in 1689 after the departure of King James II of England, was not summoned by the King. It decided that the King had abdicated by fleeing the capital and throwing the

Great Seal of the Realm The Great Seal of the Realm or Great Seal of the United Kingdom (known prior to the Treaty of Union of 1707 as the Great Seal of England; and from then until the Union of 1801 as the Great Seal of Great Britain) is a seal that is used to sym ...

in the River Thames. It also offered the throne jointly to King William III and Queen Mary II, formally recognising Prince William of Orange as King by passing the

Bill of Rights 1689 The Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the Parliament of England, which sets out certain basic civil rights and clarifies who would be next to inherit the Crown, and is seen as a crucial landmark in English constitutional law. It received Roya ...

Notes

References

* * * * * * {{Parliaments of medieval England 1399 in England 1660 in England 1689 in England 14th-century English parliaments 17th-century English parliaments Constitutional conventions (political meeting)