The extension of the franchise

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A is the second Chartist petition, which had about 3.3 million signatures and was rejected by Parliament in 1842. B is the Kennington Common meeting of April 1848, when the third petition was taken to Parliament and rejected.

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Source A is useful because it shows how firmly the Tory leadership opposed parliamentary reform in 1830. Wellington claimed that the existing system had the full confidence of the country, that he could not imagine a better one, and that he would resist reform as long as he was in office. This reflects the view of many Tories and landowners that the unreformed system worked: it represented property rather than numbers of people, kept power in the hands of the landed aristocracy and gave stability. They feared that reform would be the first step towards democracy and revolution.

The provenance makes the source especially useful. It is the Prime Minister's own statement in the House of Lords, so it shows the official position of the government. However, the speech was a serious misjudgement, which an historian can see from what happened next. It was made shortly after the July Revolution in France and at a time when demands for reform were growing, and it caused an uproar. Wellington had already lost the support of the Ultra-Tories by passing Catholic Emancipation in 1829, and within two weeks his government was defeated and Earl Grey's Whigs, who were committed to reform, took office. So the source shows not only Tory opposition but also how out of touch it was.

The source has limitations. It shows the opposition at the very start of the crisis and cannot show how it continued, for example when the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill in October 1831, or when Wellington failed to form a government during the Days of May in 1832. Overall, it is very useful for the attitude of the Tory leadership in 1830, and for understanding why opposition helped to bring a reforming government to power, but it needs other evidence to understand opposition across the whole period.

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One way in which the Peasants' Revolt and the Peterloo Massacre were similar is that both were caused by a mixture of economic hardship and political grievances. In 1381 the labour shortage after the Black Death should have raised wages, but the Statute of Labourers tried to hold them down, and the third poll tax of 1380, a shilling a head, was the final straw. The rebels also wanted an end to serfdom, inspired by John Ball's preaching about equality. In 1819 there was severe distress after the Napoleonic Wars: unemployment was high, the Corn Law of 1815 kept bread prices high and handloom weavers' wages had collapsed. The crowd at St Peter's Field had come to demand parliamentary reform, because Manchester had no MP and most people had no vote. In both cases, therefore, ordinary people blamed their economic problems on an unfair political system run by a small elite.

A second similarity is that both were large gatherings of ordinary people which the authorities ended by force and followed with punishment. In 1381 the rebels entered London, but at Smithfield Wat Tyler was killed by the Lord Mayor, William Walworth, and Richard II then revoked the charters of freedom he had promised. John Ball was executed and many rebels were hanged. In 1819 the magistrates sent the yeomanry and hussars into the crowd of about 60,000; about 15 people were killed and hundreds injured. Afterwards Henry Hunt was imprisoned and the Six Acts restricted meetings and the press. In both cases the authorities were determined to show that challenges to their power would not be tolerated, and both protests failed in the short term but were remembered as symbols of resistance.

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Government has been essential to the development of parliamentary democracy, because every major change had to be passed by Parliament and accepted by the monarch. However, governments rarely acted on their own initiative. They usually changed the system because they needed money, wanted party advantage or feared what would happen if they did not, so pressure from outside was usually the main factor.

Government played a direct role in many key developments. Medieval kings called parliaments because they needed taxes, and Edward I's parliaments, such as the Model Parliament of 1295, regularly included knights and burgesses, helping to establish the Commons. Henry VIII used Parliament to pass the laws of the Reformation in the 1530s, which increased its importance. In the 19th century governments passed all the major reforms: Earl Grey's Great Reform Act of 1832, Disraeli's Second Reform Act of 1867, and Gladstone's Ballot Act of 1872 and Third Reform Act of 1884. In the 20th century Asquith's government passed the Parliament Act of 1911, limiting the power of the unelected Lords and introducing pay for MPs, Lloyd George's coalition passed the 1918 Representation of the People Act, and Baldwin's government gave women the vote on equal terms in 1928.

However, governments often acted only because of protest and pressure. Magna Carta in 1215 was forced on King John by rebel barons, and Simon de Montfort called his Parliament of 1265 after defeating Henry III in war. In 1830 Wellington's government refused any reform, and Grey's Act was passed only after the riots of 1831 and the Days of May in 1832, when the political unions threatened a run on the banks. Chartism failed at the time, but five of its six points later became law, showing that its pressure set the agenda. The Reform League's Hyde Park demonstrations in 1866-67 and the long campaign of the suffragists and suffragettes after 1897 also pushed governments to act.

War has been another major factor. The Civil War led to the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the abolition of the monarchy and the Lords, and although the monarchy returned in 1660, the conflict established that kings could not rule without Parliament. The First World War made the 1918 Act possible, because soldiers needed to be given the vote and women's war work had changed attitudes.

The economy and ideas also drove change. Industrialisation created a middle class and an industrial working class who demanded representation, while ideas of democracy and equality, from the Levellers to Paine's Rights of Man and the Charter, gave campaigners clear aims. Governments often responded to these changes for their own reasons: the Whigs wanted to win the loyalty of the middle class to prevent revolution, and Disraeli wanted to 'dish the Whigs'.

Overall, government was the means by which parliamentary democracy developed, because only governments could change the law. But it was not the main factor, because governments usually acted when protest, war, economic change and new ideas made reform necessary or advantageous. Even government's own reasons - the need for money or for votes - were responses to wider pressures. The main driving force was the pressure on government, not government itself.