ABSTRACT
First published in 1938. A study of the political doctrines and events which led to a hardening of lines between the Royalists and the Parliamentarians. "From the March of 1604, when James I met his first Parliament to the assembly of the Long Parliament in November 1640, there was going on a conflict between irreconcilable views concerning the constitution of government in England. It was concerned with what had been and with what was and, necessarily, with what should be." By 1640 the question soon would be "how stable government could ever again be established . . . But the confusion, if it produced little else of value, produced a ferment of thought." And this ferment has had an incalculable effect on the centuries which have followed.
Among the many topics discussed, on the basis of firm knowledge and with reasonableness, are the King and the nature of his claim, the parliamentary opposition and its conceptions and the possibility of compromise, the approach to Toleration, Puritanism and the Laudian Church, and the final collapse of government.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part 1|1 pages
The Constitutional Conflict to 1629
section 1|1 pages
The King
chapter 1|10 pages
The Nature of the King’s Claim
chapter 2|13 pages
The Basis of the King’s Claim
section 2|1 pages
The Opposition
chapter 1|8 pages
Parliamentary Claims and Conceptions
chapter 2|5 pages
The Views of Sir Edward Coke
chapter 3|4 pages
The Nature of the Conflict
chapter 4|4 pages
The Possibility of Compromise
section 3|1 pages
Political Thinking 1603–1640
chapter 1|1 pages
Prefatory
chapter 2|13 pages
Francis Bacon
chapter 3|4 pages
Raleigh
chapter 4|6 pages
Fulke Greville
chapter 5|12 pages
James Cowell and the Interpreter
chapter 6|9 pages
Edward Forset
chapter 7|3 pages
Thomas Fitzherbert
chapter 8|9 pages
Robert Burton
chapter 9|19 pages
The Divines
part 2|2 pages
Church and State
chapter 1|4 pages
The Position in 1603
chapter 2|6 pages
The Reconstruction: Substance and Method
chapter 3|7 pages
The View of the Jacobean Divines
chapter 4|7 pages
The Opposition Under James I
chapter 5|10 pages
‘Puritan’ Protest and Writings
chapter 6|5 pages
The Catholics
chapter 7|3 pages
Later Development Under James I
chapter 8|15 pages
The Montague Affair
chapter 9|5 pages
Manwaring and Sibthorpe
chapter 10|16 pages
Archbishop Laud
part 3|2 pages
Approaches to Toleration
chapter 1|5 pages
Toleration and Tolerance
chapter 2|5 pages
Obstacles
chapter 3|5 pages
Catholic Pleas
chapter 4|14 pages
The Congregationalists
chapter 5|6 pages
Indirect Approaches
chapter 6|7 pages
The Wisdom of John Hales
chapter 7|4 pages
William Chillingworth
chapter 8|4 pages
Great Tew
chapter 9|4 pages
Lord Herbert of Cherbury
part 4|2 pages
Puritanism
chapter 1|5 pages
The Word ‘Puritan’
chapter 2|3 pages
The Contemporary Use of ‘Puritan’
chapter 3|6 pages
The Evidence of Baxter
chapter 4|8 pages
Sabbatarianism
chapter 5|8 pages
William Prynne and the Histriomastix
chapter 6|4 pages
Samuel Rutherford
chapter 7|7 pages
Richard Baxter
chapter 8|6 pages
Puritanism
chapter 9|4 pages
Outstanding Questions
part 5|3 pages
The Attack on the Laudian Church
chapter 1|3 pages
Preliminaries
chapter 2|4 pages
Anti-Catholic Sentiment
chapter 3|7 pages
Controversy in 1641–1642
chapter 4|16 pages
Milton’s Writings of 1641–1642
chapter 5|7 pages
The Erastian Point of View
chapter 6|11 pages
The House of Commons
part 6|2 pages
The Collapse of Government
chapter 1|4 pages
Preliminaries
chapter 2|9 pages
The First Session of the Long Parliament
chapter 3|14 pages
The Drift to War
chapter 4|27 pages
The War of Manifestoes
part 7|1 pages
The Controversy, 1642–1644
section 1|1 pages
Prefatory
chapter 1|8 pages
The Subjects of Debate
chapter 2|5 pages
Pleas for Moderation and Compromise
section 2|1 pages
The Parliamentarians
chapter 1|1 pages
Preliminary
chapter 2|10 pages
The Theory of Henry Parker
chapter 3|13 pages
The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes
chapter 4|7 pages
A Treatise of Monarchy
chapter 5|26 pages
Parliamentarian Writings in General
section 3|1 pages
The Royalists