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How Did a Rebel Warlord's Crisis Create the English Parliament? - The Desperate Origins of Representative Government in England | Sleepy Facts About History
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In the winter of 1265, a French-born rebel warlord holding a captive king summoned local landowners and townsmen to Westminster. This assembly has often been remembered as a founding moment of English democracy, but the reality is far more complicated and far less idealistic. The parliament was not a democratic milestone; it was born from civil war, conceived in desperation, and orchestrated by Simon de Montfort, an aristocratic leader who ruled through coercion and urgently needed taxes…
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