ever for their good in generall.”131 If need be they were entitled to defend themselves against both king and Parliament. He granted that Parliament was the highest “Court extensive” but found “the People in generall … are the highest, or greatest Power Intensive, in that they are the efficient, and finall cause under God, of the Parliament.”132
The republican experiment also produced an outpouring of new ideas about the ideal arrangements for English government. Among the most notable were those of James Harrington, whose Commonwealth of Oceana appeared in 1656.133 Other supporters of a parliamentary system, both defenders and critics of the Interregnum governments, took to their pens. Isaac Pennington Jr., son of the famous London alderman, considered deeply how government might be restructured to protect popular liberties and produced a highly original tract recommending the separation of powers, the separation of church and state, and other notions that foreshadowed ideas John Locke would later champion.134
Throughout the Interregnum much was done in the name of the people, but popular sovereignty was never permitted. In fact during the Interregnum the sovereignty of Parliament was never tested for the Rump, and protectorate parliaments were not representative and were too unpopular to hold a traditional general election to correct that defect. Nor were the ideas proposed for a more perfect republic put into practice. The Rump and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell did produce governments that were sovereign, but without a solid, theoretical basis for that sovereignty, merely, dare it be said, the rights of a conqueror. Nevertheless notions of sovereignty continued to be debated and old ideas championed despite the contemporary political reality. The disintegration into political confusion and arrival in London of George Monck and his army provoked the frantic publication of pamphlets recommending various courses for the future. Their authors pleaded, argued, and cajoled in a desperate effort to persuade Monck and later the members of the Convention. Among these pamphlets was Sir Roger L’Estrange’s nostalgic “Plea for Limited Monarchy, As It Was Established in This Nation Before the Late War.” On the other side John Milton, in what was probably his most passionate essay, “The Readie & Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth,” pleaded for the preservation of a republic, rather than “the perpetual bowings and cringings of an abject people” under monarchy.135 But all Milton’s eloquence was unavailing. At the last, when the realm seemed about to collapse into anarchy, the appeal of the ancient constitution, fraught with weaknesses, complexity, and no clear sovereign, proved irresistible as the basis for English government.
| 1603 | Accession of James I (King James VI of Scotland). |
| 1604 | Hampton Court Conference. |
| 1605 | Gunpowder Plot. |
| 1618 | Outbreak of Thirty Years War. |
| 1625 | Death of James I; accession of Charles I. |
| 1627 | Five Knights’ Case. |
| 1628 | Parliament meets. Petition of Right. |
| 1629 | England begins eleven-year period without a parliament. |
| 1633 | Appointment of Archbishop Laud. |
| 1634 | First levy of ship money. |
| 1637 | King wins Ship Money Case, 7 judges for, 5 against. |
| 1638 | Scottish National Covenant. |
| 1639 | First Bishops’ War. |
| 1640 | Short Parliament meets in April. Long Parliament meets in November. |
| 1641 | Uprising in Ireland, massacre of Protestants. |
| 1642 | Outbreak of civil war. |
| 1643 | Solemn League and Covenant. Scots enter war in England. |
| 1645 | New Model Army created. |
| 1646 | Charles surrenders. |
| 1647 | Charles captured by army. Army debates at Putney. |
| 1648 | Second civil war. Pride’s Purge. |
| 1649 | Charles tried and executed. Monarchy and House of Lords abolished. England declared a commonwealth. |
| 1650 | Engagement Oath required. Charles II and Scots defeated at Dunbar. |
| 1651 | Charles II and Scots defeated at Worcester. Charles flees to France. |
| 1653 | Cromwell expels the Rump Parliament. Instrument of Government drawn up. Cromwell becomes Lord Protector. |
| 1654 | First Protectorate Parliament. |
| 1655 | Penruddock’s uprising. |
| 1656 | Rule of Major Generals. Second Protectorate Parliament. |
| 1657 | Cromwell refuses crown. |
| 1658 | Cromwell dies. Richard Cromwell becomes Protector. |
| 1659 | Richard Cromwell resigns. Rump Parliament recalled. George Monck marches with army to London. |
| 1660 | Long Parliament recalled. Convention Parliament summoned. Charles II invited back. Monarchy restored. Trial of regicides. |
| 1661 | Cavalier parliament meets. Passage Militia Act, Corporation Act. |
| 1662 | Passage Uniformity Act. Trial of Sir Henry Vane. |
| 1670 | Secret Treaty between Charles II and Louis XIV. |
| 1672 | Charles issues Declaration of Indulgence. |
| 1673 | Test Act. |
| 1678 | Second Test Act. |
| 1680 | Exclusion Bill introduced. |
| 1683 | Rye House Plot. Trial of William Lord Russell, Algernon Sidney. Oxford decrees condemn all resistance. |
| 1685 | Charles II dies. Accession of James II. |
| 1687 | James II issues Declaration of Indulgence. |
| 1688 | Seven Bishops Trial. Arrival of William of Orange. Glorious Revolution. |
| 1689 | Convention Parliament meets. Bill of Rights. Accession of William and Mary. |
The feisty and brilliant Sir Edward Coke was probably the greatest champion of the common law. His extraordinary career spanned three reigns: he served as speaker of the House of Commons and later as attorney-general under Queen Elizabeth; as chief justice of the common pleas and chief justice of the King’s Bench under James I; and was an outspoken member of Parliament under James and Charles I. His role in a series of cases that limited the powers of the king and church courts led to his dismissal from the bench in 1616. Coke remained active in Parliament, leading the effort for passage of the Protestation of 1621 and the Petition of Right in 1628.
Coke’s renowned Reports of cases he heard argued during the reigns of Elizabeth and James began to appear in 1600 and ran to thirteen volumes, the last two published by Parliament after his death. They are the most famous reports ever written on the common law and appeared in numerous editions, abridgments, and translations. The prefaces were in Latin and English, the main texts in Norman French with the pleadings in Latin. In the prefaces Coke laid out his defense of the antiquity and superiority of the common law and the high court of parliament as well as the independence of the judiciary. He exalted claims to individual liberties derived from a constitution more ancient than Magna Carta and laid a basis for both the British and American legal systems. Notwithstanding attacks on the accuracy of his versions of cases, his impact was enormous. The preface to the second volume of Reports, reprinted here, first appeared in 1602 while Coke was attorney-general. The original title page was entirely in Latin.
To the learned Reader.
There are (sayth Euripides) three vertues worthe our meditation; To honour God, our Parents who begat us, καὶ νόμους τε κοινοὺς Ἑλλάδος and these Common Lawes of Greece. The like doe I say to thee (Gentle Reader), next to thy dutie and pietie to God, and his annointed thy gracious Soveraigne, and thy honour to thy Parentes, yeeld due reverence and obedience to the Common Lawes of England: for all Lawes (I speake of human) these are most equall and most certaine, of greatest antiquitie, and least delay, and most beneficiall and easie to be observed; As if the module of a Preface would permit, I could defende against any
