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.

King Charles I's dissolution of the Short Parliament, 5 May 1640, proved politically disastrous. Six months later he was forced to call another Parliament, which immediately launched an attack on his councillor, the early of Strafford. Within two years civil war had broken out. The dissolution of the Short Parliament came only the day after Charles had sent to the Commons a message, apparently offering a compromise in the dispute whether his supply or their grievances should be handled first. The Commons discussed the King's offer all day and finally adjourned, requesting permission to resume their debate the next morning, thus making it possible for negotiations to continue. His Majesty, however, closed the door to further discussion and ended the Parliament. No compromise was concluded.

The idea of compromise, or “the arrangement of a dispute by concessions on both sides,” was not foreign to the Englishmen of the early seventeenth century. The words, compromise, mediate, compound and its substantive composition, all appear in the O.E.D. with sixteenth or early seventeenth-century dates. Nor were they divorced from the context of Parliament. When early seventeenth-century Englishmen thought of Parliament, they thought of an assembly where King, Lords, and Commons met and together served the interests of both King and subject. Although ideally these interests were not supposed to conflict, procedures existed to facilitate agreement within Parliament. The King might communicate with the two Houses through his councillors, while the Commons used their Speaker and the Lords relied upon various of their own number to voice concerns to his Majesty.

The parliament which met in April 1640 was the first to meet in eleven years. Men hoped that this parliament might be more successful than its predecessors. Mingled with hopes for success of the parliament was anxiety about failure. The disorderly dissolution of the last parliament had not been forgotten. Reactions to the levying of ship money and to the active ecclesiastical leadership of Laud and others of the bishops had shown that Englishmen would not be silent if they felt their liberties threatened. Royal requests for aid against the Scots in the spring of 1639 had met with protests. Men feared that attempts to obtain redress of grievances in parliament would lead to disputes with the king and a quick dissolution.