Constitutional Monarchy and Parliament

The Glorious Revolution changed how Britain was governed. It produced the Bill of Rights, known for confirming the rights of Parliament and the limits of the king's power, and it opened the age of constitutional monarchy, what Britain's system of government after the Glorious Revolution came to be called, a Crown that still reigned but could no longer act alone.

Parliament itself was changing shape. The two main groups in Parliament after the Glorious Revolution were the Whigs and the Tories, and elections did not run forever: the maximum term of a Parliament was set at five years, though it started shorter and grew over time. Not every seat was won fairly. A constituency controlled by a single wealthy family was known as a pocket borough, and other seats had hardly any voters at all: the rotten boroughs.