ABSTRACT
Parliament in the seventeenth century did not reflect the desires, fears and condition of the mass of the people. The Lords and Commons expressed the views of their own class, and they only came into contact with the ‘vulgar’ when an issue accidentally affected both sections of society simultaneously. Trade and employment or the power of the common law courts could produce a combined reaction, whilst the fear of Roman Catholicism brought hysteria to both the gentry and their constituents. A similar common hatred was the army.
