Worksheet

Six Centuries in Westminster Hall: Limiting English Rulers

Grade 7 civics: follow a Westminster Hall tour and a timeline from the Charter of Liberties to habeas corpus to trace how law and Parliament limited English rulers.

Grade 7Social StudiesInteractive · Printable

Aligned toCIV.7.1

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10 questions
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Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 7
Subject: Social Studies
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use a timeline to trace how the Magna Carta, Parliament and common law limited English rulers.
Students identify steps forward and setbacks in limiting a ruler's power.
Students apply English legal protections to new cases.

How to use

Read the tour stops aloud while students mark each date on the timeline, then let them answer on their own and debate the last question.

Curriculum

C3 Framework standard covered

CIV.7.1

Explain how the Magna Carta, Parliament and English common law began to limit the power of rulers.

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Six Centuries in Westminster Hall: Limiting English Rulers

Follow a tour and a timeline from 1100 to 1679 to see how limits on English rulers grew.

The tour

A guide leads visitors through Westminster Hall in London. Read the tour script and the timeline. Then answer the questions.

Tour Script: Westminster Hall

1Welcome to Westminster Hall. King William II, son of William the Conqueror, had this great hall built in the 1090s. For centuries, until 1882, England's chief royal courts met inside it. Many of the steps that slowly limited English rulers were argued over within these walls or close by.

21100: a promise. When Henry I took the throne, he issued a Charter of Liberties. He promised to end some unfair demands his brother William II had made on the barons and the Church. More than a century later, rebel barons used this charter as a model when they drew up the Magna Carta in 1215.

31166: juries of neighbors. Henry II wanted royal justice, not each lord's private court, to deal with serious crimes. Under the Assize of Clarendon, groups of twelve men from each district had to tell the king's traveling judges which local people were suspected of robbery or murder. Over time, the same royal law came to apply across the kingdom.

41297: the charter confirmed. Edward I needed money for wars in France and Scotland. In return for new taxes, he confirmed the Magna Carta and promised that such taxes would be taken only with the common consent of the kingdom.

51376: officials on trial. In the Good Parliament, members of the House of Commons accused several officials of the aging King Edward III of cheating the Crown and the people. The House of Lords tried them and found them guilty. Parliament could not put the king himself on trial, but it could remove men who acted in his name.

61628: a petition. Charles I had forced people to lend him money and had jailed some who refused without naming any law they had broken. Parliament, guided by the former chief judge Sir Edward Coke, pointed to the Magna Carta and passed the Petition of Right: no taxes or forced loans without Parliament's consent, and no jailing without a cause shown. Charles accepted it. The next year he sent Parliament home and ruled without it for eleven years.

71649: a king on trial. After a civil war between the king's supporters and Parliament's army, Charles I was tried in this hall in January 1649. He refused to answer, saying no court had the power to judge a king. The court found him guilty, and he was executed.

81679: show the prisoner. Parliament passed the Habeas Corpus Act. It said that a jailer must bring a prisoner before a judge, who would decide whether the prisoner was being held lawfully.

Limiting the English Crown, 1090s–1679
Date	Event
1090s	Westminster Hall is built
1100	Henry I's Charter of Liberties
1166	Assize of Clarendon
1215	The Magna Carta is sealed
1297	Edward I confirms the charter
1376	The Good Parliament
1628	The Petition of Right
1629–1640	Charles I rules without Parliament
1649	Trial of Charles I
1679	The Habeas Corpus Act

Limits on rulers did not grow in a straight line. Sort each event: was it a step forward for limits on the ruler, or a setback?

Henry I promises to end unfair demands.Charles I jails people who refuse to lend him money.Edward I agrees new taxes need the kingdom's consent.The Lords convict officials the Commons accused.Charles I rules for eleven years without Parliament.A jailer must bring a prisoner before a judge.

Step forward	Setback

Use the timeline.

Sir Edward Coke pointed to a charter that was about years old when Parliament passed the Petition of Right.

What does stop 2 show about how the Magna Carta came about?

A. Henry I wrote the Magna Carta to limit his own brother.
B. It was the first time any English king had made a written promise.
C. The Church wrote it after William II's death in 1100.
D. The barons built on an older royal promise when they wrote it.

Underline the sentence from stop 6 that best shows the Petition of Right did not settle the struggle between king and Parliament.

Charles I had forced people to lend him money and had jailed some who refused without naming any law they had broken.Parliament, guided by the former chief judge Sir Edward Coke, pointed to the Magna Carta and passed the Petition of Right: no taxes or forced loans without Parliament's consent, and no jailing without a cause shown.Charles accepted it.The next year he sent Parliament home and ruled without it for eleven years.

A classmate says that after 1215, English kings always respected the limits on their power. Which pair of timeline rows best challenges this?

A. 1628 and 1629–1640
B. 1090s and 1100
C. 1297 and 1376
D. 1166 and 1215

Apply the limits

Use the tour script and the timeline to answer.

In 1690, a sheriff keeps a man in jail for months without telling him the charge. Which step on the timeline gives the man's family the clearest way to challenge this?

A. The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679
B. The Good Parliament of 1376
C. The Charter of Liberties of 1100
D. The Assize of Clarendon of 1166

In 1300, Edward I wants a new tax to pay for a war in Scotland. Based on stop 4, what had he promised to do first?

A. Ask the pope to approve the tax
B. Let the royal judges set the amount
C. Win the common consent of the kingdom
D. Collect the tax from Church lands first

Before 1166, many serious crimes were judged in a lord's private court. How did the Assize of Clarendon change this?

A. Each lord could now write his own law for his own lands.
B. Juries of local men reported suspects to royal judges.
C. The barons chose the king's judges for each district.
D. The king himself now heard robbery cases in London.

At his trial, Charles I said no court had the power to judge a king. Which idea did the court act on by trying him?

A. A king may make new laws without Parliament.
B. A king may be held to account under the law.
C. A king's power comes from the House of Lords.
D. A king's officials, not the king, break the law.

10.

By 1679, which had done more to limit English rulers: Parliament or the courts and common law? State your claim, give two pieces of evidence from the tour script or the timeline, and explain your reasoning.