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The Inconveniences of Long Intermissions of Parliament and a Remedy for Them
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
The first statute to become law during the Long Parliament of the 1640s was the Triennial Act, the act “for preventing Inconveniences happening by the long intermission of parliaments.” The statue was enacted in extraordinary circumstances. Ambiguously phrased, substantially amended, and ultimately supported as a means to other ends, the act provided no real solution to the problems which had given it birth. Had it done so, it most assurredly would have failed to pass. The strange tale of the genesis and passage of this act is the subject of this article.
The Triennial Act developed from a bill for annual parliaments introduced by William Strode, MP for Beeralston, Devonshire, on 24 December 1640. Strode's was the first bill for that purpose actually to be introduced since James Stuart had acceded to the throne in 1603. The idea that there should be annual parliaments was not, however, new. Twice during the reign of Edward III statutes providing for yearly meetings of parliament had been enacted. Although these measures were not observed, they had not been forgotten. They had coexisted over the centuries with the belief that the summoning and dissolving of Parliaments was an indisputable prerogative of the Crown and were cited from time to time when men became anxious about subjects' liberties. Sir Francis Bacon reports that during the debate in the Privy Council in 1615, the earl of Exeter “insisted upon a speech of the Lo. Cooke's that there was a law inforce to require a Parliament to be holden every year for redress of the people's grievances.” There is, however, little evidence that Englishmen prior to 1640 believed that the confirmation of these statutes, or enactment of other measures to that effect, was of prime importance.
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- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1981
References
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