“The House of Lords is useless and dangerous to the people of England.” Not words uttered in the endless debates to reform the upper chamber over the last two decades, but a line from an Act of Parliament to get rid of the House of Lords altogether in 1649.
At the start of that year, King Charles I was beheaded. He had fallen out with the Commons in spectacular fashion over tax revenues in the preceding decades and lost the First and Second English Civil Wars that followed. On 17 March, the monarchy was abolished.
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