While most the world’s eyes have been on the U.S. Presidential election this past week, our small island in the Atlantic marked an historic political milestone – the 400th anniversary of the first sitting of Parliament in Bermuda.
And 400 years after the General Assembly first met in St George’s in 1620, the Convening of Parliament and Throne Speech returned to the east end of the island to mark the 400th anniversary.
The event included the traditional format of the Governor arriving via horse drawn carriage and the Royal Bermuda Regiment on parade, with the mask wearing attendees a sign of the modern pandemic times.
Her Majesty the Queen sent congratulations to the people of Bermuda on the 400th anniversary of the Bermuda Parliament.
A statement from Queen Elizabeth II said, “On the occasion of celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of the Bermuda Parliament, I have pleasure in sending my warm congratulations to the people of Bermuda.
“I have fond memories of my visits to the islands, including in 1953 when I opened Parliament on the first stop on my Commonwealth Tour and most recently in 2009. I send best wishes on this auspicious occasion and for the future.”
The historic nature was noted in the Throne Speech, which said, “The Legislature convenes today within earshot of the venue where, 400 years ago, an Assembly, composed only of white men, was summoned to meet by the then Governor Nathaniel Butler.
“In these four centuries, the walls of those chambers in which the Legislature has met could speak of debates on slavery, universal adult suffrage, the end of capital punishment, human rights and all manner of laws meant to ‘serve and regard the public.’
“Today, black and white, women and men represent a people whose vote is of equal value across an Island that has surpassed the likely dreams of those who met in that first Assembly, only 11 years after the Sea Venture happened upon this uninhabited North Atlantic paradise.
“More than ever, the yoke of representative service weighs heavily on those who have taken it up. Four hundred years later, the Commonwealth’s oldest representative body outside the United Kingdom’s Parliament will be summoned again to deliberate and act in unprecedented ways in these unprecedented times to meet equally unprecedented challenges.”
