7 - Domestic politics 1678–9

Summary

it has long been the practise of the Popish and Arbitrary Party, that the King should call frequent, short, and useless Parliaments.

INTRODUCTION

In 1678, as in 1640, the struggle against popery and arbitrary government was the struggle for protestantism, and for parliaments. On this the whole nation was agreed: both ‘conservatives’ and ‘radicals’; both the architects and the victims of the Restoration settlement. It was the breadth of this political consensus which gave the crises of both of these years such force.

Now again however, as from 1640–2, the unfolding of the crisis itself was to test the limits of this consensus, and to end it. It did so because, as in 1660, the consensus was negative: agreement that the nation was in danger did not equal agreement about how it should be saved. For Sidney, the struggle for protestantism involved, indeed hinged on, the struggle for liberty of conscience. For others it was the King's attempts to introduce liberty of conscience that had provided the first evidence that protestantism was in danger. For Sidney the struggle for parliaments involved, indeed hinged on, the struggle for parliamentary sovereignty. For others it was parliamentary sovereignty which had given England its harshest experience of arbitrary government itself. In the end Sidney would die a sacrifice, not so much to the arbitrary power of Charles II, as to the nation's memory of his own.