In 1688, King James II of England, a Catholic, was deposed by Mary II, an Anglican, and William III of Orange, a Protestant. The invasion, the battles and the deposition have become known as the Glorious Revolution. In December 1688, James fled to France. The Convention Parliament declared that James’s action was an abdication of the Crown and therefore the Crown was vacant. In January 1689, Mary and William were declared joint monarchs of England and Ireland. In 1694, the same year that Mary died, Parliament passed An Act for the frequent Meeting and calling of Parliaments. It read that according to:
the ancient Laws and Statutes of this Kingdome and frequent Parliaments ought to bee held And whereas frequent and new Parliaments tend very much to the happy union and good agreement of the King and People . . . it is hereby declared and enacted by the King and Queen . . . by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Com[m]ons in this present Parliament That from henceforth a Parliament shall bee holden once in Three years att the least.[1]
Soon the Act would be known as the Triennial Act of 1694. In 1701 Parliament also passed An Act for further Limitations of the Crown. It read:
it was hereby further enacted that all and every Person and Persons that then were or afterwards should be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or should professe the popish Religion . . . should be excluded and are by the Act made forever incapable to inherit, possess or enjoy the Crown and Government of this Realm.[2]
Upon William’s death in 1702, Mary’s sister, Anne, an Anglican, became Queen. In 1707 Parliament passed An Act for a Union of the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland.[3] It read, in part:
That the Succession to the Monarchy on the United Kingdom of Great Britain . . . thereunto belonging after Her Most Sacred Majesty . . . remain and continue to the Most Excellent Princess Sophia Electoress and Dutchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Heirs of her Body, being Protestant[4]
In 1714, Anne died; George, the Elector of Hanover, was the next in line. He became King Goerge I, the great grandfather of King George III.
King George arrived in London in September 1714 and was crowned in October. At the time England was faced with a Jacobite uprising in Scotland. The Jacobites refused to accept the Acts of 1701 and 1707 and were attempting to return the Crown to James II and the Catholic House of Stuart. Many Tories who believed in the hereditary Right of Kings were also supporters of Jacobites, believing that the Crown should be awarded in accordance with the 1701 and 1707 Acts of Parliament.
Shortly after his accession, King George dismissed all of the Tories in his inherited Cabinet; he replaced them with Whigs. In January 1715, one year before the next election, he dissolved Parliament. He then asked his subjects to choose new Members of Parliament who “showed a firmness to the Parliament succession, when it was in danger.”
In 1715, Parliament passed the Septennial Act. It read,
Be it enacted . . . that this present Parliament, and all Parliaments that shall at any time hereafter be called, assembled, or held, shall and may respectively have continuance for seven years, and no longer[5]
The Act no only increased the maximum tenure of Parliament but also the length of the time between general elections. On the surface the reason for the extension to seven years was that it reduced the frequency of elections, thus, it was a cost savings measure for the government as well as the candidates. As true as that was, there were other reasons: first, the government needed once and for all to defeat the Jacobites and remove their Tory supporters from all mid-level public offices;[6] second, to secure foreign alliances, the government needed to convince other countries of its stability;[7] third, to maintain a sense of calm with the people, the government needed to assure them that they could prevent a French invasion during this time of change; and fourth, the Whig Party needed more time to strengthen their hold on the government.
The election of 1715 would be the fourth Parliament since the Act of 1707 went into effect. The first election was won by the Whig party by a slight margin; the second and third were won by the Tory party, but in 1715, the Whig party won overwhelmingly. At each of the next six elections, beginning in 1722, the Whigs would continue to dominate the Tories. They would control Parliament until 1768 when neither party was able to secure a majority number of seats.
Between 1766 and 1774, every effort at reconciliation between Great Britain and her North American colonies failed; the points of disagreement were taxation and trade: The Navigation Acts, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Vice-Admiralty Court, the governor’s power to dissolve a colony’s legislative assembly, the Board of Trade’s power to override a law that a legislative assembly passed and the Coercive Acts, name a few. The colonies sent petitions, remonstrances and redresses to the King and Parliament but received no satisfaction.[8] The colonists’ only remaining hope for reconciliation rested on the Septennial elections for the Parliament that would sit in 1775.
The 1768 election had a low turnout. No party achieved enough votes to become the majority party, making it difficult to pass any legislation.[9]
In the spring of 1774, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, discussed with the King the possibility of dissolving Parliament. He believed that Parliament had crossed the Rubicon in their handling of the American colonies. Later Lord Gower, Lord President of the Council, had a similar conversation with Lord Suffolk, Secretary-of-State for the Northern Department who in turn also spoke with the King.[10] Gower and Suffolk were members of Lord North’s Cabinet that asserted the government should never recede from its resolution; the colonists must acknowledge the Supremacy of Parliament.[11] Lord Dartmouth, Secretary-of-State for the Colonies, believed that the Massachusetts Bay colony was in a state of rebellion and unless they submitted to the Supremacy of Parliament, there was no way to avoid a conflict.[12]
On June 22, the Lord Chancellor, Bearer of the Great Seal, read the following to both houses of Parliament: “It is His Majesty’s Royal will and pleasure, that this Parliament be prorogued to Thursday, the 4th Day of August next, to be then holden.”[13] No public explanation was given.
On July 6, Lord North in a letter to the King mentioned the dissolution of Parliament.[14] On August 4, the day Parliament was scheduled to resume, the Lord Chancellor again read the following to both Houses of Parliament
By virtue of His Majesty’s Commission under the Great Seal, to us and other Lords Directed, and now read, we do, in His Majesty’s Name, and in Obedience to His commands, prorogue this Parliament to Thursday, the 15th Day of September next, to be then here holden.[15]
Three weeks later, on August 24, King George III wrote to Lord North
As soon as you can fix on a proper date for the dissolution, I desire you will write to the Chancellor and the Lord President, but not above a week before the measure is to be [put] into execution.[16]
It is unclear when between July 6 and August 4 the King determined to dissolve Parliament.
On the 31st, Lord Dartmouth informed former Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson, “that nothing [further] was to be done until the result of the Congress was known,” referring to the Continental Congress.[17]
On September 14, one day before Parliament was to resume, the Lord Chancellor for a third time addressed both Houses of Parliament:
By virtue of His Majesty’s Commission under the Great Seal, to us and other Lords directed, and now read, we do, in His Majesty’s Name, and in Obedience to His Commands, prorogue this Parliament to Tuesday, the 15th Day of November next, to be then here holden.[18]
On the 27th, Lord North wanted at the last minute to reassure the King that what he was about to do would have “some casualties” but would overall be on their behalf:
As a premature dissolution of Parliament renders the necessary preparation almost impossible, Government cannot expect to be so strong in the next House of Commons as if we were at the natural end of the Parliament. Lord North hopes that his Majesty will not think him to blame if some important elections succeed contrary to his wishes. Many good consequences will result from a sudden dissolution, but some seats in the House of Commons will probably be lost by it.[19]
On the 29, Lord North and his Cabinet discussed The Proclamation for Dissolution the final time; it would be announced the next day.[20] Lord North was fully aware that the Coercive Acts had been met “with sharp disfavor” in the colonies and their representatives were meeting in a congress to discuss their disfavor and decide upon a course of action. North realized that he had two options: increase the coercion or lift the Acts as had been done with the Stamp Act. He decided to increase the coercion.
In a conversation with the Duke of Richmond on the floor of the House of Lords a couple of months later, Lord North said “I advised the dissolution lest popular dissatisfaction arising from untoward events, should break the chain of those public measures necessary to reduce the colonies to obedience.”[21]
King George made his position equally clear: “the dye is cast, the colonies must either submit or triumph. I do not wish to come to severer measures, but we must not retreat.”[22] He went so far as to sanction any action that would force the colonies to return to “their proper relationship.”
On September 30, King George in the presence of the Lord Chancellor, Lord North, Lord Dartmouth and Lord Barrington,[23] signed the following proclamation
Whereas we have thought fit, by and with the advice of our Privy Council, to dissolve this present Parliament, which now stands prorogued . . . we do . . . publish this our Royal Proclamation, and do hereby dissolve the said Parliament accordingly . . . we . . . do hereby make known . . . our royal will and pleasure to call a new Parliament. And hereby further declare, that with the advice of our Privy Council, we have this day given order to our Chancellor . . . [to] issue out writs in due form for calling a new Parliament, which writs are to bear test on Saturday the first of October next, and to be returnable on Tuesday the 29th of November.[24]
The Marquess Rockingham, leader of the anti-ministry party, after hearing the Proclamation, wrote to Lord Portland:
This maneuver of the ministry has taken me very much unaware and I am not a little perplexed with it . . . I think that all politics are now in so low a state and so little likely to revive, that I should feel a hesitation in giving encouragement to an expectation that we can continue long to drudge on in such unsatisfactory and so unthanked a laborious occupation.[25]
Parliament was dissolved for the next six weeks. In effect, it had not been in session for almost three and a half months.
Lord North made it clear that he wanted a new Parliament that could be in existence for seven years, instead of a Parliament whose term would end in six months followed by a prorogation for new elections. He also brought the Proclamation forward in such a sudden fashion so that the Whig party would not have enough time to find good candidates to put forth. This would allow the pro-ministry (Tory) party to hold onto most of their seats and gain some new ones—giving the party a majority that it had not had in sixty years.
The final count on November 29 was 343 seats for the pro-ministry and 215 seats for the anti-ministry. The policies created by the pro-ministry party would not only remain in place but likely increase, as would the likelihood of a conflict.
When the King opened the new Parliament on November 30, he condemned the colonies’ “unwarrantable attempts . . . made to obstruct the commerce of this country,” spoke of the “resistance and disobedience to the law” in the colony of Massachusetts and declared his “firm and steadfast resolution to withstand every attempt to weaken or impair the supreme authority of this Legislature over all of the dominions of my Crown.”[26]
Two months after the new Parliament took their seats, Lord Dartmouth sent a letter to Gen. Thomas Gage in Boston directing him to seize American arms and leaders of the rebellion. This letter of January 27, 1775, was the impetus for the British march to Concord, Massachusetts, that saw the outbreak of hostilities on April 19. The Septennial Act ensured that the same Parliament would sit for seven years, effectively guaranteeing that the war in America would continue into the early 1780s.
[1] “William and Mary, 1694: An Act for the frequent Metting and calling of Parliaments (Chapter II. Rot. Parl. Pt. 1. nu.2),” in Alexander Luders, et. al., Statutes of the Realm: Volume 6, 1685-94 (London: 1819), 510.
[2] “William III, 1700-1701: An Act for the further Limitations of the Crown (Chapter II, Rot. Parl. 12 & 13 Gul. III. P. 1. n.2),” in Alexander Luders, et. al., Statutes of the Realm; Volume 7, 1695-1701) (London: 1820), 636-38.
[3] This union ushered in the term Great Britain.
[4] Danby Pickering, The Statutes at Large from the Magna Carta to the end of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain (Cambridge: J. Bentham, 1764), 197 Anne 5. c.8. Article 2.
[5] 1 Geo. 1. ST. 2. c. 38.
[6] There were fears that the Jacobites might use the occasion to rebel again.
[7] Owen C. Lease, “The Septennial Act of 1715,” Journal of Modern History, Vol. 22 No.1 (March 1950), 42-7.
[8] The Stamp Act was repealed but it was immediately followed by the Declaratory Act.
[9] The ministerialists held 221 seats, the Rockingham Whigs 57, the Grenvillites 31 and the Bedfordites 20. There had been only one Parliament dissolved between 1715 and 1768, in 1727 when King George I died. His son, George II, called for a new Parliament shortly after his crowning.
[10] A. Francis Steuart, ed., The Last Journals of Horace Walpole During the Reign of George III from 1771-1783 (London: John Lane, 1910), 1:376.
[11] Peter Orlando Hutchinson, ed., The Diary and Letters of his Excellency Thomas Hutchinson (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1886), 1:191.
[12] Lord Chancellor, the Head of the Judiciary and Speaker of the House of Lords, was in agreement with the other three. This meant, including Lord North, five of the seven members of the Cabinet were in support of dissolution. Chief Justice of the King’s Bench was not a member of the Cabinet.
[13] Prorogued, that is, suspended. House of Lords Journal, Volume 34: June 1774 (London: 1767-1783), 21-30.
[14] The first step in the dissolution process is that the Prime Minister makes the request to the King.
[15] House of Lords Journal, Volume 34: August 1774 (London: 17-67-1783), 261-2.
[16] George III to Lord North, August 24, 1774, The Correspondence of George the Third to Lord North, ed. William B. Donne (London: 1867), 1:201.
[17] The Diary and Letters of his Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, 1:232.
[18] House of Lords Journal, Volume 34: September 1774 (London,1767-1783), 263-65.
[19] L. Namier and J Brooke, eds., The History of Parliament, The House of Commons: Research, Surveys, 1754-1790, the Election of 1774 (London: 1964).
[20] Lord Historical Manuscripts Commission, Lord Dartmouth’s Manuscripts, Volume 2, American Papers, 14th Report, App., Part X (London:1895), 227.
[21] George III to Lord North, September 1774,” The Correspondence of George the Third to Lord North, 1:219n.
[22] Ibid., 202; same on November 18, 1774, 214-15.
[23] Barrington was the Secretary-at-War.
[24] Peter Force, ed., American Archives, Fourth Series (Washington DC: Matthes St. Clair Clarke and Peter Force, 1837), 1:810-11.
[25] The History of Parliament, The House of Commons: Research, Surveys, 1754-1790.
One thought on “The Septennial Act: An Unknown Act that Changed the World”
Thank you for these helpful article which provides the connection between two at-odds factions.