ABSTRACT
The bicameral Parliament of today is the direct descendant of the old assemblies of the King's court which medieval monarchs summoned for purpose of discussing affairs of state. Henry VIII found it useful to ask Parliament to agree to his policies, confident that approval would be forthcoming. When the early Stuarts tried to act without it, there was soon an explosive difference over the interpretation of the constitutional rights of King and Parliament, and the settlement of 1688 was the solution. When the Lords rejected the whole Finance Bill in 1909, the Government reacted by introducing legislation; in 1911 the Parliament Act was passed to provide that money bills should go for the royal assent a month after being passed by the Commons, no matter what the Lords should do. The main rules concerning the relations between the Houses, still in force in 1974, are based on statute, mainly the Parliament Act of 1911, as modified by that of 1949.
