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Compromise in Early Stuart Parliaments: The Case of the Short Parliament of 1640*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
King Charles I's dissolution of the Short Parliament, 5 May 1640, proved politically disastrous. Six months later he was forced to call another Parliament, which immediately launched an attack on his councillor, the early of Strafford. Within two years civil war had broken out. The dissolution of the Short Parliament came only the day after Charles had sent to the Commons a message, apparently offering a compromise in the dispute whether his supply or their grievances should be handled first. The Commons discussed the King's offer all day and finally adjourned, requesting permission to resume their debate the next morning, thus making it possible for negotiations to continue. His Majesty, however, closed the door to further discussion and ended the Parliament. No compromise was concluded.
The idea of compromise, or “the arrangement of a dispute by concessions on both sides,” was not foreign to the Englishmen of the early seventeenth century. The words, compromise, mediate, compound and its substantive composition, all appear in the O.E.D. with sixteenth or early seventeenth-century dates. Nor were they divorced from the context of Parliament. When early seventeenth-century Englishmen thought of Parliament, they thought of an assembly where King, Lords, and Commons met and together served the interests of both King and subject. Although ideally these interests were not supposed to conflict, procedures existed to facilitate agreement within Parliament. The King might communicate with the two Houses through his councillors, while the Commons used their Speaker and the Lords relied upon various of their own number to voice concerns to his Majesty.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1977
Footnotes
*
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Rocky Mountain Conference on British Studies in October 1976. The volume of diaries from this Parliament, which I have edited in collaboration with the late Professor Willson H. Coates, will be published by the Royal Historical Society in its Camden Series. The sources for a study of the Short Parliament are discussed in the introduction to this volume.
References
1 Oxford English Dictionary, p. 1516.
2 I plan to examine compromise in other Parliaments in connection with a study of the importance of Parliament in the early Stuart period.
3 Northamptonshire Record Office, Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, pp. 1-2.
4 Houghton Library, Harvard University, Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 26.
5 Ibid., fol. 24 Rudyerd, who sat for Wilton, suggested that the Parliament should be a “bed of reconciliation” (ibid., fol. 25).
6 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, pp. 1-12.
7 Ibid., p. 43.
8 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 75.
9 Huntingdon Record Office, Manuscripts of the Duke of Manchester (Diary of Robert Bernard), M36/1, p. 22; see also Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 80v; Public Record Office, S.P. 16/450/94. The King's message does not appear in the Commons' Journals, II:19.Google Scholar
10 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, p. 70; Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fols. 72v, 80v.
11 Huntington Library, San Marino, California, HM 1554, p. 165; see also House of Lords Record Office, Braye Ms. 16, fol. 20 v.
12 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, p. 57.
13 Ibid., p. 58.
14 Ibid., p. 81.
15 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 77.
16 The accounts of Vane's remarks then vary. Bernard reports that he said, “there was no cleere resolution to take away shipmoney with equivalent considerations” (H.R.O., M36/1, p. 21), while the Finch-Hatton/Harvard diary reports that Vane said he “knew nothing of the relinquishing” of shipmoney “for … if /there was/ a rupture” the House must not expect the King would quitt shippmoney” (Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 80).
17 Russell, Conrad, Crisis of Parliaments (Oxford, 1971), p. 322.Google Scholar
18 These calculations are based on Conrad Russell's figures that a subsidy was worth £55,000 in 1628 and that the annual yield of shipmoney was £200,000 (Russell, , Origins of the English Civil War (London, 1973), pp. 96, 103CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also S.P. 16/451/29). Cf. Gardiner, S.R., History of England from the Accession of James I (London, 1883), IX: 113.Google Scholar
19 Public Record Office, P.R.O. 31/3/72, fol. 141; see also Russell, , Origins, pp. 21–22.Google Scholar
20 Cobbett's Complete Collection of State Trials (London, 1809), III:1409.Google Scholar
21 Clarendon, , History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, ed. Macray, W. D. (Oxford, 1888), II: 75–76Google Scholar; see also Gardiner, IX: 113.
22 C.J., II:11.
23 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 34v; Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, p. 46.
24 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fols. 79v, 80, 81.
25 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50 p. 58.
26 H.R.O., M36/1,pp. 19-20.
27 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 78; there is a brief sketch of Godbolt in the D.N.B.
28 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 82.
29 H.R.O., M36/1, pp. 23-24.
30 Ibid., p. 22.
31 Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 81v. This was a question which had been raised in connection with the Great Contract of 1610.
32 Ibid., fol. 80 v.
33 S. P. 16/453/24; Gardiner, IX: 115-16.
34 S. P. 16/452/31; also House of Lords Record Office, Main Papers, 5 May 1640.
35 State Trials, III: 1409Google Scholar; Laud, , Works (Oxford, 1847), III: 78–79.Google Scholar
36 E.g., State Trials, III: 1440–1444.Google Scholar
37 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, p. 82.
38 Ibid., p. 82; also pp. 50, 60-61; Braye Ms. 16, fols. 20v-21.
39 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, p. 58.
40 E.g., Seymour (Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fols. 76-76v); Pym (Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fols. 77-77v).
41 E.g., North, Strowd (Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fol. 76v).
42 Rossingham to Conway (S.P. 16/453/24).
43 See Russell, , ”Parliamentary History in Perspective, 1604-1629,” History 61 (January 1976): 11-12, 25–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar: S.P. 16/453/24.
44 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, p. 2.
45 S.P. 16/450/88; S.P. 16/450/94; P.R.O. 31/3/72, fol. 134.
46 E.g., Finch-Hatton Ms 50, pp. 45-46.
47 See above; also P.R.O. 31/3/72, fol. 140.
48 Braye Ms. 16, fols. 23-23v.
49 E.g., Pym (Harvard Ms. Eng. 982, fols. 77-77v); see also H.R.O., M36/1, pp. 20-21.
50 BrayeMs. 16, fol. 31.
51 Finch-Hatton Ms. 50, pp. 64-65, 67.
52 See above; also Clarendon, II: 76; Gardiner, IX: 115.