Thwarted Victors

Civil and Criminal Prosecution against Parliament's Officials during the English Civil War and Commonwealth

Bibliographic Data

ID10064671
AuthorsJohn A Shedd (corresponding author)
Year2002
Volume41
Issue2
Pages139-169
Publication date2002-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of British Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-9371 • E-ISSN: 1545-6986
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1086/386258
OpenAlexW2098800683
LanguageEN
References cited19

Whereas both Houses of the Parliament of England have been necessitated to undertake a war in their just and lawful defense ... all oaths, declarations, and proclamations against both or either of the Houses of Parliament ... or their ordinances and proceedings, or any for adhering unto them, or for doing or executing any office, place or charge, by any authority derived from them; and all judgments, indictments, outlawries, attainders and inquisitions in any the said causes ... be declared null, suppressed, and forbidden. (From the first of nineteen Newcastle Propositions , July 1646; expanded from the first of twenty-seven Propositions of Uxbridge , November 1644; repeated in the second of The Four Bills , December 1647) Indemnity Committee cases from the 1647–55 manuscripts indicate a widespread volume of suits pressed against parliament's Civil War and Commonwealth officeholders. Invariably, the officials petitioning the Indemnity Committee were under prosecution. Often they had been fined and even jailed. Also revealed in these papers is a public knowledgeable in the law and ready to wield its power in punishing an array of officials in London and the shires. Four broad conclusions are asserted here. First, the Indemnity Committee records reflect a massive legal assault on state officials from the beginning of the Civil War to the mid-1650s, a factor in the political, administrative, and social history of the period that has heretofore been ignored. Second, suits were lodged mainly as the result of actions stemming from fiscal innovations put into place by a parliament that pushed toward victory and then struggled to pay its war debts

Commonwealth · Indemnity · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Spanish Civil War · Victory · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Law · Scottish History and National Identity

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub