The Development of English Parliamentary Judicature, 1604-1626

Abstract

This thesis studies the development of the power of judicature which was exercised jointly by the two Houses of Parliament in the early seventeenth century. It examines this against the background of the medieval procedural inheritance from the century after 1350 when a somewhat similar power was being exercised by Parliament; and it also sets the seventeenth-century development alongside the growth in the jurisdiction of each House separately in the early Stuart period. This study is concerned primarily with procedural developments, but the political circumstances from which these are derived are not completely ignored. It is argued that there was, in the early seventeenth century, a general but cautious expansion in the judicial activities of both Houses, together and separately. In this expansion, the revival of joint judicature is probably the most important theme, but it cannot be isolated from the remainder, upon which, as upon the medieval inheritance, it is, to some extent, dependent. It is suggested that joint judicature developed in a flexible and varied manner, responding more to the needs of the moment than to ary long-term objectives, evidence for the existence of which is lacking. This thesis also questions the view that joint judicature was revived in ary very mature form in 1621. It is argued that this opinion conceals the very important procedural developments which occurred during the trials of the 1620s, developments which may point to a change in the type of procedure used as the trials of the period became more openly political in character.