With a very few exceptions, Historians of the mid-seventeenth century Parliaments have neglected the business of the House in favour of politics, political thought and religion. A case in point is Austin Woolrych’s masterly study of the Nominated Assembly of 1653, which focuses only on ‘genuinely reforming legislation’ and does not discuss petitioning, even though (as discussed below), the latter was an important, and distinctive, feature of that body. This chapter discusses the effects of the sudden expansion of the activities of the Commons on its daily work, which was also subject to the stresses and strains of unprecedented political partisanship manifested along party lines. The chapter focuses on the passing of legislation, responding to petitions, liaising with other bodies from the crown and the Lords to the Westminster Assembly and the Scots, and the way in which the membership of the Commons was regulated and disciplined.

Legislation

Passing laws was the main function of Parliament, but what constituted a ‘law’, and who had the authority to pass one, was not always clear. As the status and power of Parliament fluctuated between 1640 and 1660, so the legislative enactments of the period also underwent dramatic changes. In the pre-civil war period, the traditional act of Parliament was the normal form of legislation, and the rules in the Short Parliament and the opening months of the Long Parliaments were identical to those current before 1629. Bills, designated public or private according to their subject matter, were introduced in either House, although by convention money bills were the preserve of the Commons. They were read twice and then committed before receiving a third, final reading, and being engrossed on parchment ready for the royal assent. There are 37 public acts recorded in Statutes of the Realm as belonging to the 16th, 17th and 18th years of Charles I, all being passed in the first 20 months of the Long Parliament. They include the Triennial Act (21 Feb. 1641); acts for the abolition of the courts of star chamber and high commission and declaring ship money illegal; acts for tunnage and poundage and subsidies; and those relating to the Irish rebellion, which culminated in the act for the reduction of the rebels in Ireland, which received the royal assent on 22 June 1642.