Cavalier Parliament

parliamentary robes, as he would have dressed at the opening of the sessions

The Cavalier Parliament of England lasted from 8 May 1661 until 24 January 1679. It was the longest English Parliament, and longer than any Great British or UK Parliament to date, enduring for nearly 18 years of the quarter-century reign of Charles II of England. Like its predecessor, the Convention Parliament, it was overwhelmingly Royalist and is also known as the Pensioner Parliament for the many pensions it granted to adherents of the King.^[1]

History

Clarendon ministry

The first session of the Cavalier Parliament opened on May 8, 1661. Among the first orders of business was the confirmation of the acts of the previous year's irregular

Bishops Exclusion Act, thereby allowing Church of England bishops to resume their temporal positions, including their seats in the House of Lords. Other notable pieces of first session legislation include the Militia Act placing the armed forces unambiguously under the king's authority, and the Sedition Act. It also continued proceedings against the regicides of Charles I

.

Later that same year (1661), Parliament passed the

Clarendon Code

, to cement the episcopal Anglican church as the official church of England. The Clarendon code is normally given as the following four acts:

The

Jesus Christ to claim the throne, led a succession of revolts under the command of Vavasor Powell and Thomas Venner. To silence radical agitators and pamphleteers, Parliament passed the Licensing of the Press Act 1662

, instituting government censorship of the press.

On the economic legislation, the Cavalier parliament had a notable

seignorage, and introduced free minting at the Royal Mint

.

The prior

paupers, which had catapulted with the demobilization of the army. It was feared they would migrate en masse to the better-off parishes and swamp their social assistance programs. So, in another controversial piece of legislation, parliament changed the Elizabethan Poor Laws with the Act of Settlement and Removal

(1662), legally restricting the poor to seeking assistance in their own home parish.

Other significant and curious pieces of early legislation include the first licensing of hackney carriages (1662), an act against "excessive gaming" (1663) and a famous 1663 act authorizing the erection of toll gates on the Great North Road, the prelude to a series of acts to help finance road-building for highways.

In 1664, the Cavalier parliament amended the old

Triennial Act so that it was now only suggested (rather than required) that the king summon a parliamentary session at least once every three years. In 1665, parliament met in Oxford to escape the Great Plague of London. The next year, in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London which ravaged the city in September 1666, parliament set up a court to settle disputes between landlords and tenants of burned buildings (Fire of London Disputes Act 1666), and passed a series of acts setting down regulations for rebuilding of the city (Rebuilding of London Act 1666

).

Mercantilist agitation had prompted parliament to support the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665. But when the war turned out poorly in 1667, parliament decided to lay the blame on Charles II's chief minister Edward Hyde (Earl of Clarendon) and the king's brother and lord admiral, James, Duke of York. Parliament, echoing public belief, accused that the money voted for the war had been embezzled by court officers. Under pressure, Charles consented to setting up an independent commission for inquiry, but the verdict was inconclusive. Nonetheless, parliament decided to launch impeachment proceedings against Clarendon. Before these bore fruit, Clarendon went into exile.

Cabal ministry

Clarendon's departure opened the way for the rise of a new crop of young ministers, known as "the

Ashley, Lauderdale. The beginnings of what is now called a cabinet system began to emerge within the government. Sir George Downing

, who had long stressed parliamentary prerogative in tying expenditures to specific sources (rather than just voting for supply and letting the crown allocate as it saw fit), became secretary to the Treasury, and helped overhaul crown finances, finally putting them on a steady course.

Nonetheless, parliament was shocked when, in 1668, the Cabal announced the "

Treaty of Dover in May 1670, allying England and Louis XIV

's France, in a plan to dismember the Netherlands.

Despite their comparative energy and efficiency, the Cabal were a fractious and unpopular lot and their infighting spilled over publicly into parliament, particularly the

Whigs) and the "Court Party" (supporters of the king's council, ancestral to the Tories

).

The new self-assurance of Commons was felt in a quarrel that erupted during the 9th Session in 1670 between Lords and Commons, where Commons assailed the Lords' assumption that they had the right to amend their revenue bills. Finding their handlers could no longer control Commons, and that the goodwill that had attended Charles II at the Restoration was wearing thin, the Cabal recommended doing without them, and persuaded Charles II to keep parliament out of session with repeated prorogations.

The

Test Act in May 1673, requiring all office-holders to deny Catholic transubstantiation and take Anglican communion

.

Following the Test Act, the members of the Cabal gradually resigned or were dismissed. Rather than submit to the Test, Clifford and, more significantly the king's own brother and heir apparent, James Duke of York, resigned their offices. James's refusal caught the public by surprise - and signalled the prospect that Charles II might be succeeded by a Catholic king. Through the late Summer of 1673, apprehension about James's Catholicism was the talk of the day. When the next session opened in October 1673, Ashley (now Earl of Shaftesbury), sensing the new mood, turned up at the House of Lords to loudly denounce the proposed marriage of James of York to the Catholic princess Mary of Modena. The king angrily prorogued the session and dismissed Shaftesbury. Around that same time, Arlington and Buckingham fell into a quarrel, in the process of which the details of the secret Treaty of Dover were leaked to parliament, provoking an alarmed parliamentary inquiry. Arlington and Buckingham sheepishly appeared before the inquiry in January 1674, accusing each other of crafting the French alliance. His foreign policy in shambles, Charles II decided to pull England out of the controversial war. In February, Charles II took the unprecedented step of communicating the terms of the Treaty to Westminster to parliament before it was signed.

Danby ministry

With the fall of the Cabal (only Lauderdale lingered on in Scotland), Charles II turned to

John Birch and coordinated their actions in Commons closely with Shaftesbury's Lords.^[3]

Through the brief 12th session of early 1674, Shaftesbury and his friends, flexing their new muscles, steered a slew of provocative bills in the House of Lords, e.g. expelling Catholics from London, forcing an oath that renounced the Pope, requiring royal family members to get parliamentary consent on marriage and how to raise their children. Finally when Shaftesbury's clique begin considering bringing James of York on charges of high treason, Charles II quickly prorogued the session, preventing the session's act from being passed. The next year's sessions of 1675 went little better: Shaftesbury led an attempt to impeach Danby, following the defeat of Danby's proposed legislation to reinforce the Test Act with a new oath forswearing any attempt to "modify" the Church and State. The impeachment effort came to naught, but Danby responded to the opposition's new muscle with a strenuous effort to construct a "Court Party" in the House of Commons to counter the Country Party (Danby's generous bribes to MPs caused the Cavalier Parliament to also be known as the "Pensionary Parliament").

After these calamitous sessions, Charles II prorogued parliament in November 1675 and kept it out of session for the next fifteen months (the "Long Prorogation"). When parliament resumed in February 1677, it opened with a bang. Shaftesbury (joined by Buckingham, Salisbury and Wharton), proclaimed the session illegitimate, claiming that the "Long Prorogation" implied that parliament was effectively dissolved and that the king must call for new elections. This prospect alarmed the House of Commons, whose members (unlike Lords) risked losing their seats. The leaders of the Country Party in Commons believed their party would be strengthened by new elections, but were unable to persuade other members to follow suit. While the combative lords were sent to the Tower of London for their challenge, Commons were only willing to agree that the long prorogation was probably unconstitutional, but that the session itself was not.

The session of 1677 had been called by Charles II to finance England's re-entry into the

Mary to the Dutch Stadtholder William III of Orange in November 1677. But parliament was unwilling to provide enough funds to raise an army. The memoirs of the French ambassador Paul Barillon d'Amoncourt reveal extensive French communication (and bribery) of the MPs to delay supply - even Country Party leaders like Henry Powle, William Harbord and Thomas Littleton were paid. This has led some historians to speculate that parliament's war-call was a bluff from the start, that they were more interested in denying the king a foreign policy victory and embarrassing Danby. Nonetheless, Charles II hurried things along in late 1677 by precipitously signing a treaty with William III to re-enter the war, and presenting it to parliament as a fait accompli. The reluctant parliament was forced to cough up enough funds to dispatch an expeditionary force of around 15,000 troops under the Duke of Monmouth to Flanders in May, 1678. But it was too late - the French and Dutch quickly wound up their negotiations (without England), and went on to sign the Treaties of Nijmegen

ending the war. In June, parliament quickly voted a sum to finance the disbanding of the expeditionary force, but Charles II decided to use the money to maintain it instead for a few months longer, in the hope he might still affect the final treaty.

This humiliating conclusion to the king's war policy dragged the political reputation of the King and Danby to a low point, making them vulnerable when the Popish Plot erupted in August and September 1678. When the 17th session opened that October, parliament was in a tremendously combative mood. Worked up by the Popish plot, they strengthened the Test Act with the Papists' Disabling Act excluding Catholics from both houses of parliament and the king's court (James exempted). Parliament also demanded to know why the king had misapplied the June funds and was still maintaining the expeditionary force in Flanders. The session was finally wrecked when details emerged that, on Charles II's instructions, Danby had entered into secret negotiations with Louis XIV in early 1676, promising England would not re-enter the war on the Dutch side, negotiations which had not been revealed during the 1677 debate. Parliament immediately impeached Danby, forcing Charles II to prorogue the session in December, 1678.

In the recess, Charles II entered into negotiations with Shaftesbury and other parliamentary leaders. In return for saving Danby from trial in the House of Lords, Charles II reluctantly agreed to their demands to finally dissolve parliament and call for new elections. The dissolution was announced on 24 January 1679, bringing the seemingly interminable Cavalier Parliament to its end.

After the elections, the new parliament - known as the Habeas Corpus Parliament (or "First Exclusion Parliament") - was assembled in March, 1679.

Officers

In the first decade, the

Speaker of the House of Commons was Sir Edward Turnour (MP for Hertford), who was elected by the first session in 1661. Turnour become Solicitor-General in 1670 and held the speakership until 1671 (end of 9th Session), after which he was appointed the new Chief Baron of the Exchequer. At the opening of the 10th Session (February 1673), Job Charlton (MP Ludlow) was elected as the new speaker, but resigned after a month on account of ill-health. Sir Edward Seymour (MP for Totnes and Treasurer of the Navy) replaced him, and served as Speaker until the 1678 session, when the speakership went to the Sir Robert Sawyer

(MP for High Wycombe). But Sawyer resigned within weeks, also on account of health, and Seymour stepped in again as speaker until the end of the Cavalier parliament.

Sessions

At the 1660

regnal years

officially begin on January 30, 1649 (the death date of Charles I). The Cavalier parliament thus officially begins on the thirteenth year of Charles II's reign.

The Cavalier parliament went through seventeen sessions,[4] although some sessions were broken up by adjournments and recesses (an "adjournment" only interrupts a session; a "prorogation" ends a session, a "dissolution" ends a parliament).

By English tradition, a parliamentary session passes only one public "

regnal year

in which that session sat. So the citation "15 Charles II c.4" means "the fourth chapter of the act passed by the parliamentary session that sat in the 15th year of the reign of Charles II". Charles II's regnal year begins January 30, so if a single parliamentary session overlaps that date, it will usually be given a double label, e.g. "19 & 20 Charles II" (the session that sat from the 19th to the 20th year of Charles II's reign). If there are two sessions within the same regnal year, they are differentiated by a "Statute" suffix (e.g. 13 Charles II Stat.1 is a different session than 13 Charles II Stat. 2). Finally, some sessions were prorogued without passing an act, and thus have no legal statute label at all.

The legal titles of parliamentary sessions of the Cavalier parliament are as given in the two most prominent compilations of statutes - the popular

Statutes at Large (ed. Owen Ruffhead, 1762–65 or Danby Pickering 1762–66)^[5] and the official The Statutes of the Realm (ed. John Raithby, 1819).^[6] We note where the title differs between the two compilations.^[7]

The session dates are sometimes incorrect in the rolls. This table largely follows the dating in Cobbett's Parliamentary History.[4] (N.B. - In the 17th century, the English "legal year" began on March 25, so an act which is passed, say, on February 10, 1663, will be officially dated February 10, 1662. This can be a cause of confusion. Cobbett notes the double date by a hyphen 1662–63, with the latter number as the historical calendar year. The table below follows the regular calendar dates.)

For the acts of parliament passed in each session, see:

List of acts of the 1st session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 2nd session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 3rd session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 4th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 5th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 6th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 7th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 9th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 10th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 13th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 14th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 15th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 16th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II
List of acts of the 17th session of the 2nd Parliament of King Charles II

Session	Label	Start	End	Note
1st session	13 Charles II, Stat.1	May 8, 1661	Jun 30, 1661	adjourned
1st session (cont'd)	13 Cha. II Stat. 2	Nov 20, 1661	Dec 20, 1661	adjourned
1st session (cont'd)	13 & 14 Cha. II (S at Large) 14 Cha. II (S of Realm)^[7]	Jan 7, 1662	May 19, 1662	prorogued
2nd session	15 Cha. II	Feb 18, 1663	Jul 27, 1663
3rd session	16 Cha. II	Mar 16, 1664	May 17, 1664
4th session	16 & 17 Cha. II	Nov 24, 1664	Mar 2, 1665
5th session	17 Cha. II	Oct 9, 1665	Oct 31, 1665	Held at Oxford
6th session	18 Cha. II (S at Large) 18 & 19 Cha. II (S of Realm)^[7]	Sep 21, 1666	Feb 8, 1667
7th session	19 Cha. II (S at Large) 18 & 19/19 & 20 Cha. II (S of Realm)^[7]	Oct 10, 1667	Dec 19, 1667	adjourned
7th session (cont'd)	20 Cha. II (S at Large) 19 & 20 Cha. II (S of Realm)^[7]	Feb 10, 1668	May 9, 1668	adjourned May 9, adjourned in recess, Aug 11 adjourned in recess, Nov 10 prorogued in recess, Mar 1, 1669
8th session	N/A	Oct 19, 1669	Dec 11, 1669	No act passed, no label.
9th session	22 Cha. II	Feb 14, 1670	Apr 11, 1670	adjourned
9th session (cont'd)	22 & 23 Cha. II	Oct 24, 1670	Apr 22, 1671	prorogued Apr 22, 1671 next session prorogued in recess, Apr 16, 1672 next session prorogued in recess, October, 1672
10th session	25 Cha. II	Feb 4, 1673	Mar 29, 1673	adjourned, Mar 29 prorogued in recess, Oct 20
11th session	N/A	Oct 27, 1673	Nov 4, 1673	No act passed, no label
12th session	N/A	Jan 7, 1674	Feb 24, 1674	No act passed, no label prorogued, Feb 24 next session prorogued in recess, Nov 10
13th session	N/A	Apr 13, 1675	Jun 5, 1675	No act passed, no label
14th session	27 Cha. II	Oct 13, 1675	Nov 16, 1675	"Long Prorogation" (15 months)
15th session	29 Cha. II	Feb 15, 1677	Apr 25, 1677	adjourned
15th session (cont'd)	29 & 30 Cha. II	Jan 28, 1678	May 13, 1678
16th session	30 Cha. II St. 1	May 23, 1678	Jun 20, 1678
17th session	30 Cha. II St. 2	Oct 21, 1678	Dec 30, 1678	prorogued, Dec 30 Parliament dissolved Jan 24, 1679.

Notes and references

^ The London Magazine, May–August 1827, Hunt and Clarke, 1827. pp. 115–124 "Flagellum Parliamentarium" attributed to Andrew Marvell. A list of members of Parliament who were receiving a state salary or pension in the early 1670s.
^ Cobbett, Parliamentary History, Vol. 4 208-09
^ H. Smith Williams 1908, England, 1642–1791, p.281
^ ^a ^b The number of sessions are as given in Thomas Cobbett's 1809 Parliamentary History of England, vol. IV
^ Owen Ruffhead, editor, 1762–65, Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-Fifth Year of George III. Ruffhead died before completion, and the collection was continued by Charles Runnington up to 1786. A comparable and arguably better collection with the same title as Ruffhead, which came out at the same time, was by Danby Pickering (1762–66) Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761. Cambridge. The labels and numbering in Ruffhead and Pickering are identical, and so interchangeable. The Cavalier Parliament is covered in Pickering's volume 8 (see also his table of acts).
^ The Cavalier parliament is covered in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e
Chronological Table and Index of the Statutes, 2nd. ed. 1873: table of variances between Statutes of Realm and Ruffhead-Pickering Statutes at Large. Briefly summarized:
- 14 Cha. II (S of Realm) = 13 & 14 Cha. II (S at Large) = First session, third sitting (1662)
- 18 & 19 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = 18 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = Sixth Session (1666)
- 18 & 19 Cha. II (cc.6–13) = 19 Cha. II (cc.1–8) = Seventh Session, first sitting (1667)
- 19 & 20 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = 19 Cha. II (cc. 9–13) = Seventh Session, first sitting (1667)
- 19 & 20 Cha. II (cc.6–13) = 20 Cha. II (cc.1–8) = Seventh Session, second sitting (1668)

[1] The London Magazine, May–August 1827, Hunt and Clarke, 1827. pp. 115–124 "Flagellum Parliamentarium" attributed to Andrew Marvell. A list of members of Parliament who were receiving a state salary or pension in the early 1670s.

[2] Cobbett, Parliamentary History, Vol. 4 208-09

[3] H. Smith Williams 1908, England, 1642–1791, p.281

[Cobbett-4] The number of sessions are as given in Thomas Cobbett's 1809 Parliamentary History of England, vol. IV

[5] Owen Ruffhead, editor, 1762–65, Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the Twenty-Fifth Year of George III. Ruffhead died before completion, and the collection was continued by Charles Runnington up to 1786. A comparable and arguably better collection with the same title as Ruffhead, which came out at the same time, was by Danby Pickering (1762–66) Statutes at Large, from Magna Charta to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761. Cambridge. The labels and numbering in Ruffhead and Pickering are identical, and so interchangeable. The Cavalier Parliament is covered in Pickering's volume 8 (see also his table of acts).

[6] The Cavalier parliament is covered in Statutes of the Realm, vol. 5.

[variances-7] Chronological Table and Index of the Statutes, 2nd. ed. 1873: table of variances between Statutes of Realm and Ruffhead-Pickering Statutes at Large. Briefly summarized:
14 Cha. II (S of Realm) = 13 & 14 Cha. II (S at Large) = First session, third sitting (1662)

18 & 19 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = 18 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = Sixth Session (1666)

18 & 19 Cha. II (cc.6–13) = 19 Cha. II (cc.1–8) = Seventh Session, first sitting (1667)

19 & 20 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = 19 Cha. II (cc. 9–13) = Seventh Session, first sitting (1667)

19 & 20 Cha. II (cc.6–13) = 20 Cha. II (cc.1–8) = Seventh Session, second sitting (1668)

[8] 14 Cha. II (S of Realm) = 13 & 14 Cha. II (S at Large) = First session, third sitting (1662)

[9] 18 & 19 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = 18 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = Sixth Session (1666)

[10] 18 & 19 Cha. II (cc.6–13) = 19 Cha. II (cc.1–8) = Seventh Session, first sitting (1667)

[11] 19 & 20 Cha. II (cc.1–5) = 19 Cha. II (cc. 9–13) = Seventh Session, first sitting (1667)

[12] 19 & 20 Cha. II (cc.6–13) = 20 Cha. II (cc.1–8) = Seventh Session, second sitting (1668)

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