Читать книгу A Concise History of the Common Law - Theodore F. T. Plucknett - Страница 57

From 1629 to 1640, Charles I contrived to rule without calling a Parliament. Grievances were steadily accumulating. The Church of England (unwisely led by Archbishop Laud) was suffering more and more from the spread of dissent, and it was inevitable that the Church and the Crown should make common cause against those who combined a dislike for the establishment with anti-royalist principles. The laws already existing against nonconformists were enforced with great harshness by those courts which were most amenable to royal influence—the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission. Consequently, the conflict was still more embittered by the introduction of a religious feud. Finally the Church question was to be the ruin of Charles. He rashly undertook to impose Anglicanism in Scotland upon a people whose religious fanaticism even exceeded his own. A war was the immediate result and then came inevitably the summoning first of the short Parliament (1640), and then of the long Parliament (1640-1660). By this time, Parliament was master of the situation. The Earl of Strafford and Archbishop Laud were attained and put to death. Ship-money was abolished; so also were the Courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, and a statute was passed to prevent a dissolution without Parliament’s own consent. The Church and the universities were both attacked, and Charles replied by impeaching before the House of Lords five members of the Commons, a proceeding which the Commons claimed was their sole privilege. The House vigorously defended its members, and when the King in person came to order their arrest, the word “privilege” was uttered loud enough for him to hear. From this date (1642) the Civil War became inevitable. All sense of moderation was lost and in 1649 a revolutionary tribunal condemned and executed the King. From 1649 to 1660 various forms of government were devised which are of great interest as early examples of the erection of readymade constitutions. Most important of all was the Instrument of Government, a document which purported to be a fundamental constitution which was to be unchangeable save by particularly complicated machinery. This document, therefore, may be properly regarded as a prototype of the written fundamental constitution, as it is known to American public law.¹