In the process of constitution of European national monarchies, the prerogative of centralization of power political in the hands of a single monarch seems to be a common rule to all the States that were formed in that era. In fact, the strengthening of national monarchies marks the limitation of noble and ecclesiastical powers in favor of the strengthening of royal authority. However, we cannot conclude that this was an experience that developed equally across all regions of Europe.
When we contributed to the formation of the British monarchy, we noticed that the monarchic authority faced difficulties to establish itself. In the 12th century, the rise of the Plantagenet dynasty, whose first king was Henry II (1154 - 1189), was fundamental so that national laws could effectively legitimize the expansion of powers real. Among other actions, this dynasty was responsible for creating the common law, a set of laws valid throughout the British territory.
However, royal supremacy gave its first signs of wear and tear in the reign of Richard Coeur de Leão (1189 - 1199), which was marked by the state involvement in several military conflicts against France and actively participated in the organization of the Third Crusade (1189-1192). The long absences of monarchical authority and the high cost generated in these wars ended up arousing the dissatisfaction of the English nobles in relation to the king.
The upheaval in the relationship between the nobles and royal authority only gained strength during the government of João Sem-Terra (1199 - 1216). Among other reasons, we can point out that King João ended up politically worn out due to his involvement in new military conflicts, the increase in taxes levied on the population and the attempt to impose the taxation of properties ecclesiastical. In this way, the nobles organized an uprising that would put the royal authority at risk.
So that he would not be deposed, King João Sem-Terra agreed to comply with the determinations imposed by the Magna Carta, a document from 1215 that would remodel the role of the king in England. Among other provisions, the new law said that the king could no longer create taxes or change the laws. without first consulting the Grand Council, a body that would be composed of representatives of the clergy and the nobility. Furthermore, no subject could be sentenced to imprisonment without first going through a judicial process.
In this way, we can understand that, throughout its trajectory, the British monarchic state never came to fully fit into the molds of the absolutist regime. It is not by chance, through the provisions created by Magna Carta, that the members of Parliament (successor to the Grand Council) gave rise to the constitutional monarchy that celebrates the development of the English Revolution, a historic event that marks the crisis of the Ancien Régime.
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History