Writing the history of parliament in Tudor and early Stuart England

Description

This volume of essays explores the rise of parliament in the historical imagination of early modern England. The enduring controversy about the nature of parliament informs nearly all debates about the momentous religious, political and governmental changes of the period – most significantly, the character of the Reformation and the causes of the Revolution. Meanwhile, scholars of ideas have emphasised the historicist turn that shaped political culture. Religious and intellectual imperatives from the sixteenth century onwards evoked a new interest in the evolution of parliament, framing the ways that contemporaries interpreted, legitimised and contested Church, state and political hierarchies. Parliamentary ‘history’ is explored through the analysis of chronicles, more overtly ‘literary’ texts, antiquarian scholarship, religious polemic, political pamphlets, and of the intricate processes that forge memory and tradition. Front matter Dedication Contents Notes on contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction Polydore Vergil and the first English parliament ‘The consent of the body of the whole realme’: Edward Hall’s parliamentary history The Elizabethan Church and the antiquity of parliament Parliament and the principle of elective succession in Elizabethan England Elizabethan chroniclers and parliament The significance (and insignificance) of precedent in early Stuart parliaments The politic history of early Stuart parliaments ‘That memorable parliament’: medieval history in parliamentarian polemic, 1641–42 Institutional memory and contemporary history in the House of Commons, 1547–1640 Afterword Index