ABSTRACT
The parliamentary leaders, while resolved to carry out the programme which Pym had indicated in the previous April, had at first no intention of pushing matters to extremes. The most important event of the first six months of the Long Parliament was undoubtedly the trial of strafford, which led to his execution on May 12, 1641. Pym had declared Parliament to be “the soul of the body politic”; Charles and strafford had deliberately attempted to eliminate it from the Constitution. Hardly less important than the re-establishment of parliamentary government were the changes which released the administration of the Law from arbitrary control. As the demands of the parliamentary party rose, the Commons lost the reputation they had hitherto enjoyed as the champions of law and order against violence and caprice, the restorers of the ancient system in the place of autocracy. The Militia Ordinance was to become law; and the fortresses were to be handed over to parliamentary nominees.
