Parliamentary Life
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Plots, petitions, prelates and popery: Parliament and the tumults of December 1641
December 1641 was a month of high tension in Parliament, as Dr Vivienne Larminie from our Commons 1640-1660 project explores……
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The good, the bad and the visually memorable: characterising the Commons 1640-1660
With Westminster once more ringing with allegations of corruption, it is as well to recall that MPs have rarely been…
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‘Housewives in the House’: Labour Women MPs in Parliament, 1945-1951
Ahead of next Tuesday’s Virtual IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar, we hear from Dr Lyndsey Jenkins of Queen Mary, University of London. On…
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‘Make good your ways and your habits’: Edward IV’s first Parliament of 1461-2
During the winter of 1461, Edward IV’s first Parliament began. Dr Hannes Kleineke, editor of our Commons 1461-1504 project explores…
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Prorogation Tide: Elizabeth I and the Parliament of 1572-81
In the sixteenth century, parliaments were not only summoned but also prorogued at the behest of the monarch. In this…
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What price a peerage? John Roper and the Jacobean trade in titles and offices
Accusations of political sleaze are on the rise again, but the concept of government insiders profiting from the system is…
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‘Restless, turbulent, and bold’: Radical MPs and the opening of the reformed Commons in 1833
MPs and peers returned to Westminster earlier this month after over a year of upheaval, disruption, and online chambers. In…
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What did the Elizabethan House of Lords look like?
This might seem like a simple question but, as Dr Paul Hunneyball of our Lords 1558-1603 project explains, the answer…
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‘It was the dissimulation of this one man that stirred up that whole plague of evils which followed’: William Catesby, Speaker in the Parliament of 1484, and the accession of Richard III
On 25 August 1485 William Catesby, Speaker of the House of Commons, was executed. But what brought about the downfall…
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Victorian MPs and holidays
With the summer holiday season well under way, our blog today looks at how nineteenth-century MPs spent their vacations, and…
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The ‘Glorious Twelfth’
Did you know that the twelfth of August was an important date in the Victorian and Edwardian political – and…
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The Graphic Parliament: Picturing the House of Commons 1880-1920
At the end of June, History of Parliament Director Dr Paul Seaward joined House of Commons photographer Jess Taylor to…