The Great Repair period of work of the Long Parliament . It is considered one of the most important documents of the first stage of the English Revolution, preceding the outbreak of the Civil War.
The document consisted of 204 articles that calculated abuses of royal power. Signatories included prominent politicians such as John Pym , George Digby, John Hampden, and Oliver Cromwell, who was gaining strength. Expressing the economic interests of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility, the "Great Repair" demanded that private property be protected from the claims of the crown, freedom of trade and business, and the cessation of financial arbitrariness (§§ 17-18). It also demanded that the king henceforth appoint only those officials whom the parliament had reason to trust.
Further, the signatories put forward points on the cessation of religious persecution (§2) - and they themselves demanded that all bishops be expelled from parliament. And also - they urgently rushed Charles I to start selling land confiscated from Irish rebels (Catholics). The text of the document did not contain direct accusations against the king, however, one of the points demanded that parliament be given the right to veto decisions of the monarch. The great overhaul was adopted by a majority of only 11 votes.
King's Answer
After receiving the document, Charles I paused. Members of parliament began to distribute the text of the “Great Restoration,” without waiting for the official reaction of the king. On December 23, the king gave an answer, emphasizing in particular:
- that he cannot expel bishops from parliament because he sees no fault for any of them ,
- and that he was not going to start selling Irish lands before the end of the war with the rebellious subjects and their signing of surrender.
As a result, the reconciliation of the parliament and the king did not come, which led to further confrontation. In 1642, the English parliament several times approved the “Police Ordinance”, which was not signed by the king, according to which the commanders of the people's militia were appointed only with the consent of the parliament and were fully accountable to the parliament. In response, the King issued a Proclamation prohibiting a people's militia from acting by the will of parliament without the king’s consent.
Links
- The Great Repair // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [30 t.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
- Purkiss, Diane. The English Civil War. New York: Basic Books, 2006.
- Full text of the document
- David Plant. The Grand Remonstrance 1641, British Civil Wars and Commonwealth