The Society of Antiquaries and the Invention of the History of Parliament

• Published in: The Huntington Library quarterly 2023-09, Vol.86 (3), p.505-532
• Main Author: Gajda, Alexandra
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0018-7895; 1544-399X; 1544-399X
• DOI: 10.1353/hlq.2023.a936379

Soon after the accession of James I to the English throne, the Society of Antiquaries debated the origins of the English Parliament. Records of their debates, notably the tract of Sir John Doddridge, were compiled and circulated widely in manuscript before their print publication during the Interregnum. The tracts asserted that parliaments had ancient origins predating the Norman Conquest and, in Doddridge’s case, even the origins of monarchy in England. Scholars have argued that these tracts articulated an understanding of England’s immutable “ancient constitution,” in which a stance on Parliament’s antiquity defined a position on the scope and limitations of royal power. This article explores the tracts in light of the context in which they were written—the putative Jacobean Union, and the new king’s assumption of the royal supremacy over the Church of England. It argues that the assertion of the antiquity of Parliament was not incompatible with an understanding of the complex development of the assembly’s history over time, especially its mutability at the hands of the Crown. As such, these early attempts to understand the institution’s history, and its transformations under different monarchs, may have fueled the existential fears for Parliament’s future that characterized the turbulent parliaments of the 1620s.