The Short Parliament of April-May, 1640 in England

 The Short Parliament of April-May, 1640 in England

The Short Parliament held in England between mid-April and early in May, 1640 has an intriguing place in the historiography of the pre-revolutionary period. This is partly because it witnessed an attempt by King Charles I’s regime to secure a vote of supply from his subjects in the House of Commons to facilitate his military efforts to defeat the rebellious Scots Covenanters. That the attempt failed despite the offer of future concessions over the redress of grievances and a later offer to abandon the collection of Ship Money is a familiar story. Some contemporaries and a number of later historians have viewed this failure as a missed opportunity to reach an accommodation between the Crown and the Court on one side and the critics and Country opponents of Charles I on the other. The possibility that the subsequent armed conflicts in the Stuart kingdoms might have been avoided still hangs in the air.

Naturally enough, the appearance of edited publications covering proceedings in the Short Parliament, notably those produced by Willson Coates, Esther Cope and Judith Maltby, has stimulated debate on these topics. There have been works of analysis by historians like John Adamson, Mark Kishklansky, Conrad Russell and Kevin Sharpe, the last three of whom have now passed away. John Adamson’s elegant but all too brief discussion focused on the role of peers and their allies in the House of Commons in thwarting the King’s aims while Mark Kishlansky composed a defence of Charles I’s dealings with the Short Parliament that emphasized the probity of his conduct. By contrast, Conrad Russell’s account combined a precis of proceedings coupled with observations on the implications for the future divisions of late-1641 to mid-1642. His teleology did not, on the other hand, find itself reflected in Kevin Sharpe’s assessment of the grounds for this political failure.

What is slightly surprising is that relatively little attention - not none at all - got paid in one or two of these works to the reports of foreign ambassadors in England. More than a century ago, S.R.Gardiner appreciated their significance and Caroline Hibbard’s more recent work on the Popish plots of the 1630s has supported his judgment. It is possible to gain a greater degree of understanding about divisions in the Privy Council in the months before April, 1640 between hard-liners who favoured the vigorous prosecution of war against the Scots and more moderate figures anxious to reach a settlement on a range of issues with a new Parliament. Similarly, more can be said about the development of the approach adopted by Charles I and his closest advisers before, during and after the Short Parliament’s meeting. But this also needs to be supplemented by a linked discussion of the Caroline regime’s efforts to secure diplomatic support and funding from continental powers at the same time as preparations for a Parliament were under way and when its proceedings had begun. This ‘contingency planning’ undermines Kishlansky’s claims. It is important, too, to note more explicitly than, perhaps, Russell or Sharpe did that Charles I’s domestic critics or rather their leaders were aware of what was going on and able to react in the two Houses as well as in conjunction with the Scots Commissioners then in London.