Parliament and politics in revolutionary Britain Ireland, 164060

This is an exciting new collection of historical essays focussed on the institution of Parliament between 1640–60. It has a wide thematic, geographic and temporal scope and offers valuable insights about the future study of the period’s political history. This collection of essays examines Parliament during the tumultuous decades of the mid-seventeenth century. In that time, the politicians at Westminster experienced a fast-moving stream of unthinkable events and new powers: riots, purges, wars, ecclesiastical experiments, constitutional innovations, the abolition of the monarchy, the removal of the House of Lords and the eventual return of the Stuarts. How did they and those they governed react to the destruction of old certainties and how did the institution of Parliament change?Parliament and politics in revolutionary Britain and Ireland, 1640–60 provides cutting-edge answers to these questions. The authors include both emerging and established scholars who together provide contributions with a great thematic, geographic and temporal sweep. The dynamic place of Parliament in the political consciousness of the 1640s and 1650s is thoroughly analysed from viewpoints which range from John Milton to ordinary petitioners. Equally carefully addressed is the question of how Parliament operated during the revolutionary era and the ways in which its functioning and the practice of politics were transformed. The relationship between those outside and inside Parliament is addressed and particular attention is paid to interactions between Westminster and the subjects of Britain and Ireland, helping to elucidate the ways in which Parliament was understood to be a central node in the transnational governance of these societies. Building on recent scholarship while also paving the way for new approaches to parliamentary history and the mid-seventeenth century, this collection offers fresh insights into how Parliament was reforged within the furnace of revolution. Parliament and politics in revolutionary Britain and Ireland, 1640–60 considerably advances our understanding of Parliament’s place in seventeenth-century political culture and of the political practices which informed British and Irish political life between 1640 and 1660. Ten scholars offer a range of innovative perspectives on Parliament in the revolutionary era. Each chapter provides important historiographical interventions which cumulatively construct a new perspective on Parliament during the most tumultuous period of its history. Read together, the contributions to this volume demonstrate the benefits of returning to the study of parliamentary history with the lessons of recent scholarship in mind while also showing the value of reincorporating a focus on the institution of Parliament into discussions of the mid-seventeenth century.