ABSTRACT
The English revolution left a lasting legacy to future generations, a legacy that was religious, political, and intellectual. From the English revolution sprang two ideals that shaped English and Western society: the ideal of individual liberty and the representative government ideal. In the minds of the English liberty meant limited government. The English revolution did not permanently secure the supremacy of Parliament or end all dangers of arbitrary government, but in succeeding centuries the English, building on the past, won limited government and representative government, the two indispensable pillars of a free society. At the dissolution of Parliament in 1629, Charles Stuart announced his intention of ruling henceforth without Parliament and showed he meant it by throwing the firebrands of the last Parliament, men such as Sir John Eliot, into the Tower. The Rump Parliament never passed an agrarian law, but it did pass the Navigation Act of 1651 to protect the property of English merchants engaged in foreign trade.
