Kingship before Magna Carta

Around 1000, Anglo-Saxon kings were powerful but not all-powerful: they took advice from the Witan, a council of leading nobles and churchmen who helped choose and advise the king.

• The Norman Conquest of 1066 replaced this with a strong, centralised feudal monarchy: William the Conqueror owned all the land and granted it to barons in return for loyalty and knights.
• The king was at the very top — he made law, led the army and judged disputes.
• But kings still needed the barons and the Church to raise armies and taxes, so power was never wholly one-sided.

Big idea: even the strongest medieval king relied on others. When a king pushed too hard, the barons could push back — as one king was about to find out.

Magna Carta: the king and the law

King John lost lands in France, taxed his barons heavily and quarrelled with the Church. In 1215, angry barons forced him to seal Magna Carta (the "Great Charter") at Runnymede.

• It accepted that the king was not above the law — even the king had to obey it.
• The king could not raise certain taxes without consent.
• It promised justice and fair treatment ("no free man imprisoned except by lawful judgement").

Misconception alert: Magna Carta mainly protected the barons, not ordinary people. But over time it became a powerful symbol of liberty and the idea that rulers must obey the law.

What did Magna Carta establish?

The origins of Parliament

Kings met great councils of nobles and bishops to raise money. Slowly these grew into Parliament — and began to include ordinary commoners.

• Simon de Montfort's Parliament (1265) is often called the first to include elected representatives of towns and counties — commoners, not just barons.
• Edward I's "Model Parliament" (1295) set a pattern: lords, clergy and elected commons meeting together.
• Parliament's key power was over money — kings needed it to agree taxes.

Why it mattered: once kings needed Parliament to fund wars and government, Parliament had leverage — the seed of a long shift in power.

Crown versus Parliament

Tudor monarchs were powerful but usually worked with Parliament. The Stuarts clashed with it over money, religion and the Divine Right of Kings — the belief that God gave the king absolute power.

• Charles I ruled without Parliament during his Personal Rule (1629–1640).
• Conflict exploded into the English Civil War (1642–51) between Royalists and Parliamentarians.
• Charles I was executed in 1649. England briefly became a republic (the Commonwealth) under Oliver Cromwell.
• The monarchy was restored in 1660 with Charles II.

Continuity & change: the Civil War showed a king could be defeated and even executed — but the monarchy came back. The decisive shift was still to come.

Name the year

The Glorious Revolution

The biggest constitutional turning point came in 1688. King James II was overthrown and William III and Mary II were invited to rule in his place — the Glorious Revolution.

• The Bill of Rights (1689) confirmed Parliament's power over the monarch.
• The king could not tax or keep an army without Parliament's consent, and Parliaments had to be held regularly.

A constitutional monarchy

After 1689, Britain became a constitutional monarchy: the monarch still reigned, but Parliament held the real power and the king or queen had to rule within the law.

Turning-point argument: the Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights (1688–89) shifted power to Parliament permanently — a bigger, longer-lasting change than the Civil War alone, which had ended with the monarchy simply being restored.

From here on, the story is no longer "king versus Parliament" — it becomes "who gets to sit in, and vote for, Parliament?".

The 1689 turning point

Who could vote?

Parliament now held power — but very few people chose it. Before 1832, only a small number of wealthy men could vote, and unfair "rotten boroughs" (tiny places with an MP) still existed while big new cities had none.

• The Great Reform Act (1832) modestly extended the vote and got rid of some rotten boroughs.
• It was a cautious first step — most men and all women still could not vote.

Key point: 1832 did not create democracy. But it broke the idea that the system could never change — and opened the door to further reform.

The Chartists and the vote

Working men wanted more. The Chartists (1838–1850s) campaigned for the six points of the People's Charter, including votes for all men and a secret ballot.

• The Chartists failed in the short term, but their ideas influenced later reform.
• Further Reform Acts gradually widened the vote: 1867 (many urban working men) and 1884 (many rural men).
• The Secret Ballot Act (1872) meant people could finally vote in private, free from pressure.

Role of protest: just as barons forced Magna Carta, ordinary people now pushed for change — but reform still came slowly, one Act at a time.

The birth of Parliament

What did each one do?

Tap an event on the left, then tap its significance on the right.

Votes for women

Women were still shut out. Two movements campaigned for change:

• The Suffragists (NUWSS), led by Millicent Fawcett, used peaceful methods — petitions, meetings and persuasion.
• The Suffragettes (WSPU), founded by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903, used militant tactics — protests, window-smashing and hunger strikes.

Women won the vote in two stages:

• Representation of the People Act (1918) — the vote for women over 30 (with property qualifications) and all men over 21.
• Equal Franchise Act (1928) — women got the vote on equal terms with men, at age 21.

Misconception alert: women did not all get the vote at once. It came in two steps — 1918 (over 30) then 1928 (equal to men).

Modern democracy and devolution

Democracy kept widening in the 20th century and beyond:

• The voting age was lowered to 18 in 1969.
• Following referendums in 1997, a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh Assembly were established in 1999 — power was devolved away from Westminster.
• The study ends around 2014, the year of the Scottish independence referendum — a striking example of the people directly deciding a huge question of power.

The whole arc: from a king who owned everything (1066), to a king bound by law (1215), to a Parliament supreme over the crown (1689), to a nation where nearly every adult can vote and even nations can vote on their future.

Votes for women — in two stages

Name the year

Timeline: c1000 → 2014

Put the events in order

Tap the events in the correct time order, from earliest to latest.

Factors driving change

OCR wants you to explain why power shifted (or stayed the same) across the whole period. Look for these recurring factors:

• Protest & pressure — the barons (Magna Carta), the Chartists, the Suffragettes.
• War & crisis — the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution both forced change.
• Law & key documents — Magna Carta 1215, Bill of Rights 1689, the Reform Acts.
• Ideas — the belief that rulers must obey the law, and that ordinary people deserve a say.

Turning points to argue for: the Glorious Revolution/Bill of Rights (1688–89) — Parliament becomes supreme — and the 1918 & 1928 votes for women are the two strongest "biggest change" answers.

The decisive shift to Parliament

Using sources on power

You will handle sources — charters, speeches, cartoons, posters — about power and the vote. Two habits win marks:

• Ask who made it and why (provenance). A Suffragette poster is designed to persuade; a government account of the Chartists may play down their support.
• Use your own knowledge to judge it. Support or challenge a source with facts you know about the period.

Interpretations differ: historians disagree about what mattered most — was it Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, or the campaigns of ordinary people that shifted power? Being aware that interpretations vary is exactly what the exam rewards.

Name the campaigners

Name the year

The essentials to remember

You've covered the whole OCR Power: Monarchy and Democracy thematic study. Press Finish to see your score.