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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2009

Extract

Early modern English Parliaments were institutional events: institutional because they occupied a significant role in the governance of the realm, and after the Reformation Parliament statute law became omnicompetent. Furthermore, they established and followed (more or less) fixed procedures and had a permanent clerical staff. However, they were also events, summoned and dissolved at irregular intervals by the monarch, at least until the passage of the Triennial Act in February 1641. The very nature of the assembly and its power, influence and role in English society and politics has been hotly debated by historians for many years and continues today to fill the pages of scholarly journals and the catalogues of publishers. No less controversial than the nature and role of the assembly is the impact and validity of its sources, official and unofficial. It is the aim of this introduction and the ensuing editorials and documents to discuss and deconstruct the nature of parliamentary sources and how they can be utilised in the study of parliamentary history.

Type
Introduction
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2001

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References

1 Elton, G. R., The Parliament of England, 1559–1581 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 32–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Smith, David L., The Stuart Parliaments, 1603–1689 (London, 1999), p. 205 n. 99.Google Scholar

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8 The volume Parliament at Work Parliamentary Committees, Access and Lobbying under the Tudors and Stuarts (Boydell and Brewer, forthcoming) edited by myself and Jason Peacey, adds further to our knowledge of how Parliament operated on a day-to-day basis.

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25 Kyle, Chris R. and Peacey, Jason, ‘“Under cover of so much coming and going’: Public Access to Parliament and the Political Process in Early Modern England’Google Scholar in idem. eds, Parliament at Work (forthcoming).

26 See for example the Guildhall collection noted below, p. 7. Scribal petitions can be found in vast quantities in HLRO, Main Papers.

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28 PRO, STAC 8/128/11, pt. 2; GL, Broadside 23.105. I am grateful to Andrew Thrush for the PRO reference.

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34 Jackson, William A., ed., Records of the Court of the Stationers' Company, 1602–1640 (London, 1957), p. 166.Google Scholar

35 I am currently engaged in research on these petitions. My preliminary findings were given in a paper entitled ‘Parliament, Print and Petitions in Early Seventeenth Century England’ at the North American Conference on British Studies (Cambridge MA, 1999).

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38 Herford, C. H., Percy, and Simpson, Evelyn, eds, Ben Jonson (ii vols, Oxford, 19251952)Google Scholar, viii in Epigrammes (1612)Google Scholar, no. 24. See also jonson's description of the King's procession to Parliament in 1604, ft Jon[son]; His Part of King James his Royall and Magnificent Entertainement… (London, 1604).Google Scholar

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41 See for example BL, Harl. 7608, fols 382v–87; GL, Broadside 23.120. Alford took notes on the dorse of his copy of this petition whilst sitting in the House that morning. For other examples see GL, Broadside 24.31; Society of Antiquaries, Broadside no. 216; Hampshire Record Office, Jervoise Papers, Scrapbook TD/54O; BL, Harl. 7607, fols 393–404; The Queen's College, Oxford, Sel.b.229, no. 2; GL, Broadsides 23.122, 123.

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