2nd Parliament of Queen Anne 2nd Parliament of Queen Anne The 2nd Parliament of Queen Anne was summoned by Queen Anne of England on 2 May 1705 and assembled on 14 July 1705. Its composition was 260 Tories, 233 Whigs and 20 others but in practice the House was evenly divided. John Smith, the member for Andover, was elected Speaker of the House of Commons. By the second session (December 1706 to April 1707) the Union with Scotland Act 1706 was ready for Royal Assent, which was duly received on 6 March 1707 during the third session. On 29 April 1707, after the session had
Monarchy of the United Kingdom the Queen granted his request as Heath had already failed to form a coalition. The resulting general election gave Wilson a small majority. The monarch could in theory unilaterally dismiss the prime minister, but in practice the prime minister's term nowadays comes to an end only by electoral defeat, death, or resignation. The last monarch to remove the prime minister was William IV, who dismissed Lord Melbourne in 1834. The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 removed the monarch's authority to dissolve Parliament; however the Act specifically retained the monarch's power of "prorogation", which is a regular feature of the parliamentary calendar.