Henry Bennet, earl of Arlington: a Restoration Politician
Our last Parliaments, Politics and People seminar at the IHR was given by Alan Marshall from Bath Spa University, and considered the political role of the important Restoration politician and key...
View ArticleThe Speaker and the same question: a view from the Victorian Commons
In today’s blog Dr Philip Salmon, editor of the 1832-1945 House of Commons project, explores some of the historical background behind recent Parliamentary rulings relating to Brexit. The rules...
View ArticleHansard at Huddersfield: Making democracy more searchable
Today’s post is a guest blog from Lesley Jeffries of the University of Huddersfield. Lesley explains the Hansard at Huddersfield project which aims to provide some interesting search facilities and...
View ArticleThe will of the people? The Middlesex elections of 1769
250 years ago, in April 1769, the electors of Middlesex went to the polls: the third by-election they had experienced that year since one of their two MPs, John Wilkes, had been expelled from...
View ArticleRemembering Peterloo: protest, satire and reform
On 11 July 2019 the History of Parliament Trust, the Parliamentary Archives and the Citizens Project hosted Professor Robert Poole, Professor Ian Haywood and Dr Katrina Navickas at an event in the...
View ArticleManchester and the Lancashire peerage: the background to Peterloo
In the latest blog from the Georgian Lords, Dr Charles Littleton considers the influence of some of the local grandees in parts of Lancashire, their potential impact on the drive for reform in the...
View ArticleRogue Prorogations? Suspending Parliament in the Later Middle Ages
In addition to Dr Vivienne Larminie’s blog about averting the prorogation of Parliament in May 1641, here’s Dr Hannes Kleineke of our House of Commons 1422-1504 project on the origins of the practice...
View ArticleDancing into the Houses of Parliament: the role of balls in Georgian...
The latest blog from the Georgian Lords investigates the importance of dance in the eighteenth-century political process. Our guest author, Hillary Burlock, is a PhD student at Queen Mary, University...
View ArticleTobacco Fraud and the Prorogation of April 1707
In the latest blog for the Georgian Lords, Dr Stuart Handley, senior research fellow in the Lords 1715-90 section, considers how an unexpected prorogation around the time of the Union was employed to...
View ArticleThe ‘Interruption’ of Parliament and the quest for political settlement,...
In the first of a new blog series charting the collapse of the British Republic, Dr Vivienne Larminie of the Commons 1640-1660 section discusses the military coup which temporarily suspended the Rump...
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‘Duely sensible of their obligation’: the role of women in Georgian election...
With general elections back in the news, the Georgian Lords welcomes back Hillary Burlock for the second part of her series on the importance of dance and the participation of women in 18th-century...
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“Windy music & heat in the House” The failure to reform the House of Lords in...
In the spring of 1719 the government introduced a measure for reforming the House of Lords. By its provisions the size of the peerage of Great Britain was to be frozen, while the Scots were to be...
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Sitting at Christmas: getting business done, 1643
In a previous blog our director, Dr Stephen Roberts, explored legislation by which parliamentarians of the 1640s tried to promote what they saw as more appropriate ways of celebrating Christmas;...
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A Trojan horse in the House of Lords? The South Sea Company and the peerage
2020 marks the 300th anniversary of one of the most spectacular stock market crashes in British history when the South Sea Bubble burst. Dr Charles Littleton re-examines the way in which the scheme...
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Exiting the English Republic, part 1: political flux in early 1660
Continuing the series on the turmoil of 1659-1660, which saw a retreat from radicalism and political experiment, Dr Vivienne Larminie, assistant editor of the Commons 1640-1660 section, looks at the...
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Maureen Colquhoun: "an open lesbian-feminist woman" in the House of Commons
In our second blog for LGBTQ+ History Month our Public Engagement Manager, Sammy Sturgess, explores the parliamentary career of Maureen Colquhoun who was the first openly lesbian MP, as well as the...
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‘Where the disease is desperate, the remedy must be so too’: debating the...
The latest blog for the Georgian Lords considers the topical issue of quarantine. In the 1720s the government was forced to update its quarantine legislation, but as Dr Charles Littleton of our Lords...
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Towards the Restoration of the Monarchy, 1-8 May 1660
Today’s blog from Dr Andrew Barclay, senior research fellow for our Commons 1640-1660 project, is the second in a three-part series about the parliament that would restore the monarchy in 1660 (part...
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A Queen in Isolation: Mary Beatrice of Modena
On 7 May 1718, James II’s widow, Mary of Modena, died in exile at the palace of St Germain-en-Laye. Displaced as a result of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ Mary had been an important figure for Jacobites...
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Pride of place: chief ministers and their houses in early modern England
Following Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent convalescence at Chequers, his official rural retreat, Dr Paul Hunneyball of the Lords 1558-1603 project considers a time when senior government figures...
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