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By Root 1083 0

became a prominent loyalist. In November 1640, however, he shared many of these grievances about Laudianism and other policies of the 1630s but he could not distinguish between this obviously peaceful demonstration celebrating the return of Burton and Prynne and an ‘insurrection (for it was no better) and frenzy of the people’. Nothing provided clearer illustration than these scenes of ‘the unruly and mutinous spirit of the city of London, which was the sink of all the ill humour of the kingdom’.18 These tensions were plain over the next two years – sympathy with the pressure for further reformation was in tension with its implications for authority, and the threat that it might proceed in an unlicensed way, on the streets.

Moreover, these demonstrations combined opposition to Laud, anti-popery and hostility to bishops. These were different issues, of course, and not everyone who was happy to see the Puritan martyrs returned had the same view of what their return signified, and some were not happy at all that they had been returned. For example, Nehemiah Wallington, the pious London wood turner, rejoiced at the liberation of ‘those worthy and dear servants of God’. Robert Woodford, steward of the Earl of Northampton and another godly man, was also there, and his zeal also rings down the years: ‘oh, blessed be the Lord for this day! This day those holy living martyrs Mr Burton and Mr Prynne came to town… My heart rejoiceth in the Lord for this day; it’s even like the return of the captivity from Babylon’. But Peter Heylyn thought their release reflected the machinations of the Puritan faction in London and Southwark. Behind this suggestion lay the view that being anti-Laudian was something rather less radical than was intended by the men mobilizing these crowds: one observer noted that cries against the bishops had mingled with the acclamations of the crowds. Others saw these demonstrations primarily as an affront to the courts that had condemned these men, rather than as a religious deliverance. It was in the words of Thomas May the ‘greatest affront that was ever given to the Courts of Justice in England’, and contributed to the eventual abolition of the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission.19 All the signs are that in November 1640 England was in the grip of a powerful anti-Laudian reaction, but this was a rather disparate coalition. A profound hostility to aspects of Laudian ceremonial was shared for example by Colepeper, the future royalist, and Pym, the future champion of Parliament’s cause.

Despite these divisions all this was, for Charles, unpromising. He had called a parliament to meet the costs of an army of occupation, but faced calls for the redress of the grievances of his English subjects while also seeking to negotiate terms for the withdrawal of the Covenanters” army. He could not dissolve Parliament, because of the costs of the Treaty of Ripon, and in order to get the money he was clearly going to have to listen to a lot of rather inchoate bellyaching, including pressure for a significant change in his ecclesiastical policies. Concessions were inevitable, but painful for a monarch for whom his public front was a crucial political matter. Charles set about minimizing the impact on his regality, and on the frame of well-ordered monarchy and religion. Here he had two pre-eminent advantages: the very general commitment to the principles of monarchy (even among those with concerns about this particular king) and the lack of unity among his critics about what positive measures should be taken beyond the redress of particular grievances.

A remarkable feature of the first six months of the Long Parliament was that it produced very little by way of legislation. In part this was due to the double fact that grievances were at once so loudly expressed and so very miscellaneous. Much business was passed on to committees: five Grand Committees were established to consider matters relating to general areas of concern and select committees proliferated to discuss particular issues. The first of a number of attempts