The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24 January 1679. It is the second longest-lasting English Parliament, behind the Long Parliament, and sat longer than any Great British or UK Parliament to date, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of Charles II of England. Like its predecessor, the Convention Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist, composed mostly of Cavaliers (as opposed to the Roundheads), and is also known as the Pensioner Parliament for the many pensions it granted to adherents of the King.The London Magazine, May–August 1827, Hunt and Clarke, 1827. pp. 115–124 "Flagellum Parliamentarium" attributed to Andrew Marvell. A list of members of Parliament who were receiving a state salary or pension in the early 1670s.
History Clarendon ministry The first session of the Cavalier Parliament opened on 8 May 1661. Among the first orders of business was the confirmation of the acts of the previous year's irregular Convention of 1660 as legitimate (notably, the Indemnity and Oblivion Act). Parliament immediately ordered the public burning of the Solemn League and Covenant by a common hangman.Cobbett, Parliamentary History, Vol. 4 208-09 It also passed the Clergy Act 1661 which repealed the Clergy Act 1640 (16 Cha. 1. c. 27) of 1642, thereby allowing Church of England bishops to resume their temporal positions, including their seats in the House of Lords. Other notable pieces of first session legislation include the Militia Act placing the armed forces unambiguously under the king's authority, and the Sedition Act 1661. It also continued proceedings against the regicides of Charles I.
Later the same year, Parliament passed the Corporation Act 1661, the first of a series of acts known as the Clarendon Code, to cement the episcopal Anglican church as the official church of England. The Clarendon code is normally given as the following four acts: the Corporation Act 1661 the Act of Uniformity 1662 the Conventicle Act 1664 the Five Mile Act 1665.
The Quaker Act 1662, specifically targeting Quakers, can also be cited as part of the new religious 'code'. In January 1661, the Fifth Monarchists, anticipating the arrival of Jesus Christ to claim the throne, led a succession of revolts under the command of Vavasor Powell and Thomas Venner. To silence radical agitators and pamphleteers, Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act 1662, instituting government censorship of the press.
On the economic legislation, the Cavalier parliament had a notable Mercantilist bent. To promote the English cloth industry, it outlawed the exportation of raw materials, such as wool, raw hides and fuller's clay (1662) and forbade the importation of finished materials like lace and embroidery (1662). It repealed old domestic restrictions on linen manufacturing (1663). To encourage the development of the American colonies as raw-material producers and consumers of English manufactured goods, the Cavalier parliament confirmed and reinforced the Navigation Act 1660 (12 Cha. 2. c. 18) passed by the prior parliament in 1660, with the new Encouragement of Trade Act 1663 (15 Cha. 2. c. 7), requiring foreigners trading with the American colonies to transship their goods through English ports. Old corn laws were adjusted to the advantage of English farmers: the old restrictions on the exportation of wheat was gradually relaxed, exportation becoming fully free in 1670 and even subsidized with bounties after 1673. Conversely, the importation of wheat was restricted, with the first prohibitive tariffs on the importation of grains introduced in 1663 in a two-tier system, adjusted (1670) into a three-tier system based on current price. The importation of Irish cattle into Britain was forbidden in 1666 by the Importation Act 1667 (19 & 20 Cha. 2. c. 12), giving English beef producers a protected home market (in trade, Scotland was already excluded altogether, treated as a foreign country on par with France). To facilitate the overseas operations of the charter companies, Parliament inserted a clause into the Encouragement of Trade Act 1663 (15 Cha. 2. c. 7) allowing the free exportation of coin and bullion – over the vigorous opposition of Arthur Annesley (Earl Anglesey), the leading mercantilist in Parliament. To encourage the inflow of gold and silver from abroad and into circulation, the Coinage Act 1666 abolished seignorage, and introduced free minting at the Royal Mint.
The prior Convention of 1660 had promised King Charles II a generous annual revenue of £1.2 million, secured on customs duties and excise taxes. It was up to Cavalier parliament to ensure that the promise was kept. But in the first few years, the revenue fell short of the promised amount, and Parliament had to look for new ways to make up for it. Parliament was responsible for the introduction of the controversial hearth tax (1662), with its unpopular and intrusive method of assessment (tax collectors had to go inside everyone's private homes to count hearths). Another problem also emerged at this time: the sudden rise in the number of paupers, which had catapulted with the demobilization of the army. It was feared they would migrate en masse to the better-off parishes and swamp their social assistance programs. So, in another controversial piece of legislation, Parliament changed the Elizabethan Poor Laws with the Poor Relief Act 1662, legally restricting the poor to seeking assistance in their own home parish.
Other significant and curious pieces of early legislation include the first licensing of hackney carriages (1662), an act against "excessive gaming" (1663) and a famous 1663 act authorizing the erection of toll gates on the Great North Road, the prelude to a series of acts to help finance road-building for highways.
In 1664, the Cavalier parliament amended the old Triennial Act 1660 (16 Cha. 1. c. 1) so that it was now only suggested (rather than required) that the king summon a parliamentary session at least once every three years. In 1665, Parliament met in Oxford to escape the Great Plague of London. The next year, in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London which ravaged the city in September 1666, Parliament set up a court to settle disputes between landlords and tenants of burned buildings (Fire of London Disputes Act 1666), and passed a series of acts setting down regulations for rebuilding of the city (Rebuilding of London Act 1666).
Mercantilist agitation had prompted Parliament to support the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665. But when the war turned out poorly in 1667, Parliament decided to lay the blame on Charles II's chief minister Edward Hyde (Earl of Clarendon) and the king's brother and lord admiral, James, Duke of York. Parliament, echoing public belief, accused that the money voted for the war had been embezzled by court officers. Under pressure, Charles consented to setting up an independent commission for inquiry, but the verdict was inconclusive. Nonetheless, Parliament decided to launch impeachment proceedings against Clarendon. Before these bore fruit, Clarendon went into exile.
Cabal ministry Clarendon's departure opened the way for the rise of a new crop of young ministers, known as "the Cabal", a loose ministerial coalition consisting of Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, Lauderdale. The beginnings of what is now called a cabinet system began to emerge within the government. Sir George Downing, who had long stressed parliamentary prerogative in tying expenditures to specific sources (rather than just voting for supply and letting the crown allocate as it saw fit), became secretary to the Treasury, and helped overhaul crown finances, finally putting them on a steady course.
Nonetheless, parliament was shocked when, in 1668, the Cabal announced the "Triple Alliance", which brought England into alliance with her recent enemy, the Dutch Republic. Although a league of northern Protestant powers had some appeal, mercantilist sentiment in parliament was still very strong, and the Netherlands was still seen as the main threat to England. Disillusioned by the lukewarm reception, Charles II re-oriented his foreign policy and struck up the notorious secret Treaty of Dover in May 1670, allying England and Louis XIV's France, in a plan to dismember the Netherlands.
Despite their comparative energy and efficiency, the Cabal were a fractious and unpopular lot and their infighting spilled over publicly into parliament, particularly the House of Lords. At this stage, the House of Commons was de facto subservient to Lords, "managed from above" by the Lords' handlers, following their lead and echoing their quarrels. But Commons soon began to find its own voice. Finding the Cabal insufferable, Sir William Coventry resigned as Secretary to the Admiralty and went back to the House of Commons, where he emerged in 1669 as the formidable leader of a group of parliamentarians known as the "Country Party" – a group of MPs held together by their suspicion of corruption in high places, suspicious of the king's dubious foreign policy and, increasingly, suspicious of his loyalty to Protestantism. The factions of a "party political" system thus gradually emerged in parliament, polarised between the Coventry-led "Country Party" (ancestral to the Whigs) and the "Court Party" (supporters of the king's council, ancestral to the Tories).
The new self-assurance of Commons was felt in a quarrel that erupted during the 9th Session in 1670 between Lords and Commons, where Commons assailed the Lords' assumption that they had the right to amend their revenue bills. Finding their handlers could no longer control Commons, and that the goodwill that had attended Charles II at the Restoration was wearing thin, the Cabal recommended doing without them, and persuaded Charles II to keep parliament out of session with repeated prorogations.