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Parties and Party Organization in the Reign of Charles II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Andrew Browning
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Extract

THE rise of political parties in the reign of Charles II was an inevitable consequence of the increase in the power and prestige of Parliament during the Civil Wars and the Commonwealth. By 1660 Parliament had advanced far beyond the stage at which it could be content with merely criticizing the Government, or presenting its more substantial grievances for the royal consideration. It was now prepared to express decided opinions on all matters of national concern, and even, though rather hesitatingly, to assume the direction of policy both at home and abroad. Within a few years Charles in a memorable speech was to give the Commons the severest rebuke of which he was Capable for invading his most fundamental prerogative, that of making peace and war, and not merely desiring him ‘to enter into such leagues as might be for the safety of the kingdom’, but telling him ‘what sort of leagues they must be, and with whom’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 30 , December 1948 , pp. 21 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1948

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References

Page 21 note 1 King's, speech of 28 May 1677 in Journals of the House of Commons, ix. 426Google Scholar.

Page 22 note 1 Life of Clarendon (ed. 1759), ii. 344–5Google Scholar.

Page 22 note 2 Ibid., p. 344. For instances see Cal. S.P. Dom., 1665–6, pp. 121, 313; 1670, p. 680.

Page 23 note 1 Life of Clarendon, ii. 344, 351.

Page 23 note 2 ‘Cheife commissioner for the mannageing the bribe-money wherewith to buy votes in the Parliament Howse’ (Harleian MSS. 7020, fo. 42). See also the paper headed ‘The Alarum’ in Cal. S.P. Dom., 1668–9, PP. 541–2.

Page 23 note 3 Brit. Mus., Add. MSS. 36916, fos. 166, 167.

Page 25 note 1 It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the majority of the ‘indigents’ in Parliament were not, as their opponents were ever ready to insinuate, supporters of the Crown because they were indigent, but were indigent because they or their ancestors had been supporters of the Crown. To them it seemed a monstrous injustice that having lost all in the service of Charles I they should be debarred by that very fact from entering the service of Charles II, and they looked to the king to provide them with the means that would enable them to do so, in Parliament as elsewhere. Typical cases are those of Clerke, Henry and Price, Thomas, the essential facts of which are given in Cal. S.P. Dom., 1671–1672, p. 53Google Scholar;1677–8, pp. 544–5. Sir Solomon Swale strikes a more modern note by claiming assistance on the ground that his attendance in Parliament has compelled him to give up his practice as a lawyer and so has deprived him of his livelihood (ibid., 1665–6, p. 163; 1667–8, p. 445).

Page 25 note 2 Ogg, David, England in the Reign of Charles II, ii. 484Google Scholar.

Page 25 note 3 Abbott, Wilbur C., ‘The Long Parliament of Charles II’, Eng. Hist. Rev., xxi. 54, 275, 281Google Scholar.

Page 26 note 1 During the seventeen years of the Cavalier Parliament's existence the House of Commons divided on 536 occasions. The average number of members taking part in the divisions was 195, and the largest number 371. Only on three occasions did the number exceed 350, and only on forty-seven occasions did it exceed 300. Politicians at the time seem to have considered, and to have been justified in considering, that a voting strength of approximately 200 was as much as they could possibly require. The very highest figure at which Danby ever aimed appears to have been 250.

Page 27 note 3 History of My Own Time, ed. Airy, Osmund, ii. 80–1Google Scholar.

Page 27 note 1 Cal. S.P. Dom., 1667–8, pp. 199–200; 1670, p. 530.

Page 27 note 2 Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, ed. Browning, A., pp. 139–41Google Scholar.

Page 27 note 3 Cal. Treas. Books, iv. 5, 24.

Page 27 note 4 ‘The Court thought me a man of that consequence that they sent first a bishop and then a secretary of state to prevail with him to dismisse me, but he was not to be moved in the matter’ (Burnet's, Autobiography in A Supplement to Burnet's History of My Own Time, ed. Foxcroft, H. C., p. 484)Google Scholar.

Page 27 note 5 Cal. Treas. Books, iv. 83.

Page 27 note 6 Cal. S.P. Dom., 1677–8, pp. 368, 448.

Page 28 note 1 Cal. S.P. Dom., 1660–1, p. 275.

Page 30 note 1 Life of Clarendon, ii. 351, 354.

Page 31 note 1 Cal. S.P. Dom., 1660–1, p. 435

Page 31 note 2 Grey, Anchitell, Debates of the House of Commons, vi. 437Google Scholar.

Page 32 note 1 Browning, A., Thomas Osborne Earl of Danby, iii. 102Google Scholar.

Page 33 note 1 Danby's rather distant relationship to Pembroke was more important than might at first sight appear, but his real connexion with him was based on the fact that Pembroke had married a sister of the Duchess of Portsmouth, Danby's chief supporter among the ladies of the Court.

Page 33 note 2 Brit. Mus., Add. MSS. 28088, fo. 3.

Page 34 note 1 The means used are fully illustrated in the letters of Williamson's local correspondents preserved among the State Papers.

Page 34 note 2 The statement, frequently made at the time, that each guest at the Court dinners found a guinea beneath his plate is without foundation.

Page 34 note 3 Browning, , Danby, iii. 56–61Google Scholar.

Page 35 note 1 Of the nineteen original pensioners fourteen were members of Parliament, and these were drawn from ten different shires, only three of which, Essex, Huntingdon and Hampshire, were within even moderate distance of London (ibid., iii. 44–5).