Abstract
How might we summarize the changing patterns of political discourse in early Stuart England? Like most complex societies, England in the early-seventeenth century was characterized by complicated and subtle structures of discourse. It is only at our peril that we attempt to read particular uses of the political languages of the period without first uncovering the structures that helped to give them meaning. Part II of this book has attempted to sketch a model of these structures. Like all models it simplifies and abstracts from reality. It also tends, by the very nature of being reduced to writing, to convert unspoken, internalized conventions into written rules, and to make the whole look too schematic. But the real test of a model must be whether it goes with, or cuts against, the grain of the reality it attempts to model. If it does the former then it will prove enlightening, whatever its simplicities.
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Notes
M. Judson, The Crisis of the Constitution: An Essay in Constitutional and Political Thought in England 1603–1645 (New York, 1976), pp. 127, & ff.
C. Russell, Parliaments and English Politics 1621–1629 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 352 n. 4, & 353.
Bramston, The Autobiography of Sir John Bramston (London, Camden Society, 1st series, xxxii, 1845), p. 77. Their future allegiances can most conveniently be checked in the listing of D. Brunton & D. H. Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London, 1954), pp. 225–45.
Proceedings of the Short Parliament (ed. Cope & Coates), p. 209. There is some interesting material on St John’s position in the years 1640–41 in William Palmer, ‘Oliver St John and the Legal Language of Revolution in England, 1640–1642’, The Historian vol. 51 (1989), pp. 263–82.
W. Notestein (ed.), The Journal of Sir Simonds D’Ewes from the Beginning of the Long Parliament to the Opening of the Trial of the Earl of Strafford (New Haven, 1923), p. 117.
On the proportion note the remarks of W. J. Jones, Politics and the Bench: The Judges and the Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1971), p. 139: excluding Croke, all the judges involved in Hampden’s case were either dead or impeached in 1641. Finch, it should be remembered, was only appointed Lord Keeper in January 1640 and had been Chief Justice of Common Pleas in 1637.
Notestein (ed.), Diary of D’Ewes p. 117. See also the printed version of the speech, Falkland, The Lord Falkland His Learned Speech in Parliament, in the House of Commons, Touching the Judges and the late Lord Keeper (London, 1641), pp. 7–8. The speech was delivered on 7 December, 1640.
S. R. Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution 1625–1660 (Oxford, 3rd ed., 1906), p. 191.
On the printed parliamentary speeches of this period a most useful guide is A. D. T. Cromartie, ‘The Printing of Parliamentary Speeches November 1640–July 1642’, Historical Journal vol. 33 (1990), pp. 23–44.
William Prynne, An Humble Remonstrance against the Tax of Shipmoney (London, 1643), p. 7. This tract was written (according to its title page) in 1636, which may well mean early 1637, and published in an unauthorised edition in 1641.
Oliver St John, The Speech or Declaration of Mr. St-John … Concerning Ship-Money (London, 1641), pp. 26, 12. Also Notestein (ed.), Diary of D’Ewes pp. 253–5.
Falkland, The Speech or Declaration of the Lord Falkland … against the Lord Finch (London, 1641), pp. 4, 6.
Edward Hyde, Mr. Edward Hydes Speech … At the Transmission of the severall Impeachments against the Lord Chiefe Barron Damport, Mr. Barron Trevor, and Mr. Barron Weston (London, 1641), pp. 11–12, & passim.
Edmund Waller, Mr. Wallers Speech in Parliament, At a Conference of both Houses in the painted Chamber, 6 July 1641 (London, 1641), pp. 4–5, 9.
William Pierrepont, A Speech delivered by the Honourable William Pierrepont … against Sir Robert Berkley (London, 1641), reprinted in Somers’ Tracts vol. IV, p. 305.
Willson H. Coates, Anne Steele Young & Vernon F. Snow (eds.), The Private Journals of the Long Parliament 3 January to 5 March 1642 (New Haven, 1982), p. 322.
S. R. Gardiner, History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War (London, 12 vols, 4th ed., 1895), vol. X, pp. 192–3. Anthony Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War (London, 1981), pp. 232–8, 312–16, 389–91 usefully puts the events of Hull into the context of Yorkshire politics and local politics generally. But, though it was perhaps only one of a series of events that contributed to the untidy and piecemeal division of the country in 1642, one should not forget the importance of the conflict over Hull as a spur to the development of political ideas.
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England …. Also His Life Written by Himself (Oxford, 1843), p. 29.
J. G. A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law (Cambridge, 1957, new ed. 1987), chpt. VI, esp. pp. 125–7.
Gerrard Winstanley, To the Lord Fairfax, Generall of the English Forces, and his Councell of War (June 9, 1649), in George H. Sabine (ed.), The Works of Gerrard Winstanley (Ithaca NY, 1941), p. 292.
See, for all of this, Winstanley, A Watch-word to the City of London, and the Army (August 26, 1649), in ibid., pp. 321–2.
Winstanley, A New-years Gift for the Parliament and Armie (January 1, 1650), in ibid., p. 358.
Cf. R. B. Seaberg, ‘The Norman Conquest and the Common Law: The Levellers and the Argument from, Continuity’, Historical Journal vol. 24 (1981), pp. 791–806
Diane Parkin-Speer, ‘John Lilburne: a Revolutionary Interprets Statutes and Common Law Due Process’, Law and History Review vol. 1 (1983), pp. 276–96
Andrew Sharp, ‘John Lilburne and the Long Parliament’s Book of Declarations A Radical’s Exploitation of the Words of Authorities’, History of Political Thought vol. 9 (1988), pp. 19–44.
Richard Overton, A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens (London, 1646), pp. 4–5.
William Walwyn, Englands Lamentable Slaverie (London, 1645), p. 5 & passim.
John Lilburne, Londons Liberty in Chains discovered (London, 1646), p. 41.
John Lilburne, Strength out of Weaknesse (London, 1649), p. 14.
John Milton, Complete Prose Works vol. I (ed. Don M. Wolfe) (New Haven, 1953), p. 605.
Cf. David Wootton, ‘From Rebellion to Revolution: The Crisis of the Winter of 1642/3 and the Origins of Civil War Radicalism’, English Historical Review vol. 105 (1990), pp. 654–69.
Most illuminating on Parker’s thought at this time is Michael Mendle, ‘The Ship Money Case, The Case of Ship Mony and the Development of Henry Parker’s Parliamentary Absolutism’, Historical Journal vol. 32 (1989), pp. 513–36. The standard account, Wilbur K. Jordan, Men of Substance: A Study of the Thought of Two English Revolutionaries, Henry Parker and Henry Robinson (Chicago, 1942), is unsatisfactory. I am indebted to Mr. Howard Moss for many discussions of Henry Parker.
Henry Parker, The Case of Shipmony (London, 1640), p. 2.
Henry Parker, Observations upon Some of His Majesties Late Answers and Expresses (London, 2nd ed., 1642), pp. 5, 16 & passim.
Henry Parker, The Contra-Replicant, His Complaint to His Majestie (London, 1643), p. 6.
See Parker’s statement to this effect in his debate with Judge David Jenkins (1647) quoted in F.D. Wormuth, The Royal Prerogative 1603–1649 (Ithaca NY, 1939), p. 113.
John Marsh, An Argument or, Debate in Law: Of the Great Question concerning the Militia (London, 1642), p. 7: ‘by reason of the necessity, it is warranted by the Law for them to do it at this time’.
There is no satisfactory study of Jenkins’ thought: some useful material is in Robert Ashton, ‘From Cavalier to Roundhead Tyranny, 1642–9’ in J. S. Morrill (ed.), Reactions to the English Civil War 1642–1649 (London, 1982), chpt. 8.
On whom see Pocock, Ancient Constitution pp. 170–81; 337–41; Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theories: Their Origin and Development (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 113–8; 132–9
Sir Matthew Hale, The History of the Common Law of England (ed. Charles M. Gray) (Chicago, 1971), esp. editor’s introduction.
Well surveyed in Mark Goldie, ‘The Revolution of 1689 and the Structure of Political Argument’, Bulletin of Research in the Humanities vol. 83 (1980), pp. 473–564.
See J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Republican Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, 1975), chpt. XII
Caroline Robbins (ed.), Two English Republican Tracts (Cambridge, 1969)
James Conniff, ‘Reason and History in Early Whig Thought: The Case of Algernon Sidney’, Journal of the History of Ideas vol. 43 (1982), pp. 397–416, which demonstrates the introduction of original contract into views of the past, a view sharply different from pre-Civil War ideas, though arguably an alternative way of fusing reason and history; and Jonathan Scott, Algernon Sidney and the English Republic 1623–1677 (Cambridge, 1988), esp. chpt. 2.
Martyn P. Thompson, ‘A Note on “Reason” and “History” in Late Seventeenth Century Thought’, Political Theory vol. 4 (1976), pp. 491–504. See also Thompson, ‘The History of Fundamental Law in Political Thought from the French Wars of Religion to the American Revolution’, American Historical Review vol. 91 (1986), pp. 1103–1128
Harro Höpfl & Martyn P. Thompson, ‘The History of Contract as a Motif in Political Thought’, American Historical Review vol. 84 (1979), pp. 919–44.
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© 1992 Glenn Burgess
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Burgess, G. (1992). Epilogue: The Crisis of the Common Law. In: The Politics of the Ancient Constitution. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22263-6_8
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