 Although under the "Statuto Albertino" Italian governments were formally answerable only to the monarch, it had been a strong constitutional convention since at least the 1860s that they were actually answerable to Parliament.In January 1926, the "squardristi" used violence to prevent opposition MPs from entering Parliament and in November 1926, Mussolini arbitrarily declared that all of the opposition MPs had forfeited their seats, which he handed out to Fascists.Despite this blatant violation of the "Statuto Albertino", the king remained passive and silent as usual.