The Debate on Annual Parliaments in the Early Seventeenth Century

SUMMARY

In this article Pauline Croft examines the change in English feelings about the survival of their parliaments on the accession of the Stuarts. In the last parliament of Elizabeth, confidence was expressed in the vitality and usefulness of the institution. From the first parliament of James VI and I in 1604 there was a collapse of confidence. The future of Parliaments was seen as being at risk in the changed political atmosphere in England and against the background of the observed decline of representative assemblies on the Continent. The article traces the development of references to the statutes of Edward III which prescribed annual sessions of parliament. These are referred to in the House of Commons in 1610, and this was the beginning of a continuing campaign for a statutory assurance of regular parliamentary sessions. This reached its climax in the Short Parliament of 1640, where there was a petitioning campaign calling for guarantees, probably encouraged by developments in the Scots' parliament after 1638. The campaign came to a succesful conclusion in the passing of the Triennial Act of 1641, the first major legislative achievement of the Long Parliament.