Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: historiography and sources
- 2 Parliament and the paper constitutions
- 3 Elections
- 4 Exclusions
- 5 Factional politics and parliamentary management
- 6 Oliver Cromwell and Parliaments
- 7 Richard Cromwell and Parliaments
- 8 Law reform, judicature, and the Other House
- 9 Religious reform
- 10 Representation and taxation in England and Wales
- 11 Parliament and foreign policy
- 12 Irish and Scottish affairs
- 13 Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Members excluded from the Second Protectorate Parliament
- Appendix 2 The Remonstrance of 23 February 1657
- Bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
12 - Irish and Scottish affairs
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction: historiography and sources
- 2 Parliament and the paper constitutions
- 3 Elections
- 4 Exclusions
- 5 Factional politics and parliamentary management
- 6 Oliver Cromwell and Parliaments
- 7 Richard Cromwell and Parliaments
- 8 Law reform, judicature, and the Other House
- 9 Religious reform
- 10 Representation and taxation in England and Wales
- 11 Parliament and foreign policy
- 12 Irish and Scottish affairs
- 13 Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Members excluded from the Second Protectorate Parliament
- Appendix 2 The Remonstrance of 23 February 1657
- Bibliography
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
When considering Ireland and Scotland during the Protectorate Parliaments, historians have tended to concentrate on two areas. First, they have emphasised the role of Irish and Scottish members of Parliament as supporters of the Protectorate in the kingship debates of 1657 and the union debates of 1659. While there is much truth in this approach, it is also problematic, as it tends to emphasise their importance as a ‘bloc’ of votes, to be manipulated by English interests, when it is by no means clear that Irish and Scottish members formed a single body. Secondly, historians have examined the three sets of elections, which are seen as a test of how representative the members were, and thus how successfully ‘union’ had been imposed – or embraced – in the localities. This approach can also be misleading, as it encourages an analysis of returns purely on an ethnic basis, in other words, whether members were ‘English’ or ‘Irish/Scottish’ in their backgrounds. This obsession with ethnicity ignores any divisions within Irish or Scottish society, which may undermine a sense of an agreed ‘national interest’ to which local members would subscribe; it also glosses over the possibility that Englishmen may have been as effective at representing constituents' concerns as natives, and, because of their greater influence in England, they might even have been more attractive as representatives.
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- Parliaments and Politics during the Cromwellian Protectorate , pp. 267 - 293Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007