Long Parliament

The Long Parliament was a central institution in the English conflict over royal authority and economic power. Its abolition of domestic monopolies and its alignment with merchants and other opponents of Stuart absolutism helped make the struggle about more than a change of rulers: it opened a wider contest over who could set policy and whose interests the state would serve.

Monopolies and Parliamentary Authority

Domestic monopolies had been a contentious feature of English economic life. The Long Parliament abolished them, challenging privileges that had restricted people’s activities and concentrated economic advantage. Although Charles II and James II could not restore domestic monopolies, they retained the ability to grant monopolies in overseas trade, including the Royal African Company’s charter for the slave trade. The company was led and backed by James, who had protected it against independent traders.

The struggle over monopoly thus continued beyond the Long Parliament’s action. In 1689, after James II’s removal, Chief Justice Holt ruled that the Royal African Company’s seizure of an independent trader’s cargo was unlawful: monopoly rights created by royal prerogative required parliamentary authorization. The ruling shifted the question of future monopolies to Parliament, where petitioners opposing the company argued for free access to Atlantic trade. The earlier abolition of domestic monopolies had established a precedent for contesting concentrated privilege, even as overseas monopolies remained a live political issue.

Trade and the Civil War Coalition

The expanding Atlantic trade created a growing body of merchants and related workers with interests distinct from those of the Crown. In 1686, London had 702 merchants exporting to the Caribbean and 1,283 importing; North America accounted for 691 exporting and 626 importing merchants. Warehousemen, sailors, captains, dockworkers, and clerks shared in the commercial world these traders sustained. Ports including Bristol, Liverpool, and Portsmouth also contained active merchant communities.

When the Long Parliament sat and the Civil War began in 1642, these merchants primarily sided with the parliamentary cause. Their opposition was not isolated: commercial farmers, manufacturers, and Atlantic traders formed part of a wider group resistant to Stuart absolutism. In the 1670s, many merchants also participated in forming the Whig Party, which organized opposition to royal absolutism. Their growing wealth and political weight helped shift the balance between the monarchy and its opponents; in 1688, they were pivotal in deposing James II.

Institutional Change and Its Limits

The Long Parliament’s actions belonged to a larger change in the distribution of political authority. After 1688, Parliament gained control over state policy, and its members had stronger incentives than the Stuart kings to uphold property rights, raise taxes, and spend on priorities such as a navy that protected overseas commerce. This shift did not make England democratic: in the eighteenth century, fewer than 2 percent of the population could vote, and major industrial cities lacked independent representation.

Yet political influence reached beyond the electorate. Petitioning gave people without parliamentary seats—and often without the vote—a way to press their interests, and Parliament listened. The broad coalition that had opposed Stuart absolutism helped sustain this pluralism: because it encompassed groups with different interests, no single faction could easily claim power without regard for the others. The Long Parliament’s abolition of domestic monopolies was an early, concrete part of that institutional struggle, whose effects extended into later disputes over royal privilege, trade, and access to political decision-making.