There's a list floating around the Canadian blogs of various political leaders who have suspended their parliaments. From what I can tell, it originated at rabble.ca.
1629 King Charles I in England
1799 Napoleon in France
1913: Victoriano Huerta in Mexico
1933: Adolf Hitler in Germany
1936 Fransisco Franco in Spain
1939: Benito Mussolini in Italy
1973: Augusto Pinochet in Chile
1975 Indira Gandhi in India
1999 Perez Musharaff in Pakistan
2008: Steven Harper in Canada
I thought this was interesting, especially since CBC's Washington correspondent also brought up the Charles I precedent. (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/12/03/f-rfa-macdonald.html) But how similar are these situations really? The comparison at least deserves a closer look. So here it is.
Charles the First and the English Civil War
"The most interesting thing about Charles the First is that he was 5'6" at the start of his reign, but only 4'8" at the end of it. Because of...
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLIVER CROMWELL
Lord Protector of England
(Puritan)
Born in 1599 and died in 1658
September"
Shortly after becoming King, Charles I got himself involved in the Thirty Years' War, which as you can probably tell by the name was not a thrifty choice. He was running on empty, so he called a Parliament and told them to get cracking. In return, they passed a bill codifying a number of traditions and conventions that had developed between the Monarchy, Parliament, and the people over the past centuries. For the most part, it was a reaffirmation of the Magna Carta.
Charles was not thrilled with this development. He signed it anyway, because he was desperate, but with no intention of following it.
The next year, in 1629, tensions were building between the Monarchy and the Parliament. An MP had been arrested for failing to pay a tax that Parliament hadn't imposed. Parliament censured Charles for this, and passed a resolution declaring that anyone who paid the tax had betrayed the liberties of England. As a result, Charles dismissed the Parliament.
What followed was a period affectionately known as the Eleven Year Tyranny. To get around the tax issue, Charles extended a coastal defence ship levy to inland areas, and said that if they didn't want to pay in ships they could pay in cash. This annoyed people enough to start a civil war.
What happened next is long and complicated, and not particularly relevant to the matter at hand, lets get to the comparisonizing. Yes, Charles did away with Parliament because he disagreed with it. And yes, he was a tyrannical megalomaniac. But aside from those things, the similarities are shallow. Sure, the current suspension could be extended to March, but there is no extraparliamentarry naval levy these days, so legally there must be a budget by then. There is no way this 6 weeks of undemocratic powermongering can continue indefinitely.
Incidentally, part of the draconian anti-terror legislation passed by the UK Parliament recently allows the Parliament to be suspended by the queen in a crisis. Seems a bit short sighted.
So what happened to Charles? I'll let John Cleese explain.
"Charles was sentenced to death
Even though he refused
To accept that the court
had... jurisdi-i-iction
Say goodbye to his head.
Poor King Charles
Laid his head
On the block.
Do-o-o-own came the axe.
And in the silence that followed the only sound that could be heard was a solitary giggle, from...
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLIVER CROMWELL
Lord Protector of England
OLE
Born in 1599 and died in 1658
September..."
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