English Civil War

On 20 April 1653, Oliver Cromwell walked into the Commons with a file of musketeers, pointed at the Speaker's mace, called it 'a bauble,' and dissolved the Rump Parliament. He had no constitution to replace it with. Seven years later, the same Rump voted to bring back the king.

On 2 February 1626, Charles I was crowned at Westminster Abbey. His reign ended on a scaffold — and began the slow, violent invention of parliamentary democracy.