Key dates in Parliament: 1215-1900

1215: Signing of the Magna Carta
Magna Carta sealed by King John. This set the founding principles for parliament and constitution. It defined rights, legal practices and 'good lordship' - what subjects could expect from their monarch and superiors.

1295: Model Parliament
Summoned by Edward I and generally regarded as the first representative assembly.

1341: Separation of Commons and Lords
Commons meet separately from the Lords for the first time.

1407: Commons given power over taxation

1414: Full equality of Common and Lords on legislation

1415: First Serjeant at Arms, Nicholas Maudit, appointed

1512: Lords meet in the Parliament chamber

1523: First known request by a Speaker for free speech (Speaker Thomas More)

1536: Wales first represented in the House of Commons

1544: Term 'House of Lords' first used

1605: Gunpowder plot

1642: King Charles I enters the Commons chamber
King Charles I attempts to arrest five leading Members of the Commons for treason. The Speaker voices his allegiance to Parliament rather than the monarch.

1649: House of Lords abolished
During Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth.

1660: Monarchy restored
House of Lords resumes.

1681: Last time Parliament met outside London
Parliament met in Oxford for one week.

1688-89: Glorious Revolution and Bill of Rights
Established the constitutional monarchy and limited the power of the sovereign over Parliament.

1707: Last Royal veto on a Bill
Queen Anne refuses to give Royal Assent to the Scottish Militia Bill

1707: Union of England and Scotland
Scottish Parliament abolished; first meeting of Parliament of Great Britain.

1716: Septennial Act
Extended the length of Parliaments to seven years.

1800: Act of Union (with Ireland)
In 1801, 100 Irish MPs entered the House of Commons and Irish Peers elected representatives from among their number to sit in the Lords.

1803: Newspaper reporters allocated seats in the public gallery for the first time

1812: Assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval
John Bellingham shoots and kills the Prime Minister in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons.

1832: Reform Act
Increased the electorate by almost 50 per cent and to 57 per cent overall. The proportion of adult English males entitled to vote was now 20 per cent.

1834: Fire!
Fire destroys most of Parliament. Rebuilding the Houses of Parliament, in the design we know today, completed by 1870.

1876: Appellate Jurisdiction Act
Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (Law Lords) created as full-time, professional judges.