Context and question: The power of parliament to pass bills was often thwarted by monarchs. Charles I dissolved parliament in 1629, after it passed motions critical of and bills seeking to restrict his arbitrary exercise of power. During the eleven years of personal rule that followed, Charles performed legally dubious actions, such as raising taxes without parliament's approval. After the English Civil War, it was accepted that parliament should be summoned to meet regularly, but it was still commonplace for monarchs to refuse royal assent to bills. In 1678, Charles II withheld his assent from a bill "for preserving the Peace of the Kingdom by raising the Militia, and continuing them in Duty for Two and Forty Days," suggesting that he, not parliament, should control the militia. The last Stuart monarch, Anne, similarly withheld on 11 March 1708, on the advice of her ministers, her assent from a bill for the settling of Militia in Scotland. No monarch has since withheld royal assent on a bill passed by the British parliament.
The first Stuart monarch, Anne, did not withhold on what date?
Answer: unanswerable
Context and question: No provision within the constitution grants the monarch an ability to veto legislation directly; however, no provision prohibits the sovereign from withholding royal assent, which effectively constitutes a veto. When the Spanish media asked King Juan Carlos if he would endorse the bill legalising same-sex marriages, he answered "Soy el Rey de España y no el de Bélgica" ("I am the King of Spain and not that of Belgium")—a reference to King Baudouin I of Belgium, who had refused to sign the Belgian law legalising abortion. The King gave royal assent to Law 13/2005 on 1 July 2005; the law was gazetted in the Boletín Oficial del Estado on 2 July and came into effect on 3 July 2005. Likewise, in 2010, King Juan Carlos gave royal assent to a law permitting abortion on demand.
What other controversial bill did the king give his assent to in 2010?
Answer: a law permitting abortion on demand
Context and question: Old Persian is the Old Iranian dialect as it was spoken in south-western Iran by the inhabitants of Parsa, who also gave their name to their region and language. Genuine Old Persian is best attested in one of the three languages of the Behistun inscription, composed circa 520 BC, and which is the last inscription (and only inscription of significant length) in which Old Persian is still grammatically correct. Later inscriptions are comparatively brief, and typically simply copies of words and phrases from earlier ones, often with grammatical errors, which suggests that by the 4th century BC the transition from Old Persian to Middle Persian was already far advanced, but efforts were still being made to retain an "old" quality for official proclamations.
During what century was the change from old to middle Persian just beginning?
Answer:
unanswerable