Annual Parliaments and Aristocratic Whiggism

• Published in: Anthony Ashley Cooper, First Earl of Shaftesbury 1621-1683 pp. 77 - 100
• Main Author: Goldie, Mark
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: United Kingdom Routledge 2011; Taylor & Francis Group
• Edition: 1
• Subjects: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700; Superb; Charles II's Request; Edwardian Statutes; Young Man; Automatic Elections; TNA; Denzil Holles; Talk Of The Town; Heneage Finch; Secretaries Of State; Edward III; Frequent Parliaments; Osborn Shelves; MS 63057B; Grand Question; Triennial Act; William III; Annual Parliaments; Ancient Constitutionalist; Annual Elections; Automatic Dissolution; Lord Holles; Triennial Bill
• DOI: 10.4324/9781315567273-4
• ISBN: 9780754661719; 0754661717

Annual parliament's stands alone in seeming utopian and impractical, since so hectic a regime of electioneering would prove intolerable to the citizenry and fatal to coherent government. Accordingly, as well as trumpeting the people's right to fair representation, the opposition leadership hailed the virtues of aristocratic government. Among the proto-Whig peerage, Lord Holles's stance is as striking as Shaftesbury's, for his Restoration career was distinguished by his staunch upholding of aristocratic authority. A reinforcement of the aristocratic ideal dates from the period Holles and his colleagues moved into opposition in 1675, and is expressed in tracts which Holles wrote defending the House of Lords as the supreme court of judicature' and as having a necessary role in fiscal legislation. The Hollesians extended their case by recollecting parallel principles taken to be as fundamental as that of annual parliaments and which similarly curtailed the Crown's prerogative.