During her time as the queen of England, Elizabeth Tudor had to make many decisions on matters both political and personal, such as new religious policies, whether she would marry, whom she would name her heir and also how much power and privilege to delegate to her parliament. The House of Commons and the House of Lords made up Elizabeth’s parliament; the Commons consisted of citizens elected by their constituency, and in the Lords there were around 100 hereditary peers and bishops. At the time, the reigning monarch got a lot more input as to what laws could be passed, and so when decisions had to be made Elizabeth was often very involved in the process. However, this occasionally led to disputes between her and her parliament, as they did not always agree on every matter. Overall, most of the disputes between the queen and her parliament were easily solved – mostly, when such an issue occurred, the queen exercised her prerogative powers to overrule the parliament, and through various methods such as banning topics of discussion, arresting any opposition and occasionally using her power of veto, she prevented any major parliamentary disagreements throughout her reign. In reality, she exercised her power of veto only a few times, and this shows that for the most part she managed to get her parliament to cooperate with her during her reign.
When Elizabeth first came to the throne in 1558 she was faced with the difficult task of establishing a new common religion in a country fraught with religious tensions. The first parliament called under Elizabeth convened on 25th January 1559, and its chief business was forming the new religious settlement. The general hatred of the burning of heretics under Mary, the rapid return of exiled Protestants to England, and Elizabeth’s known Protestant sympathies were all factors that led to a distinctly Protestant House of Commons. The