A Prospectus for a “New” Constitutional History of Early Modern England

Abstract

The study of English constitutional history has fallen on hard times. Once an intellectually thriving field, constitutional history now conjures up visions of bad tweed and bow ties coupled with dryly-legalistic discussions of statutes, charters, parliamentary debates, Year Books, and legal reports. Indeed, whether Whig, Neo-Whig, Revisionist, or Post-Revisionist in orientation, constitutional history has traditionally concerned itself with the “activity of government”; it has emphasized the formal structures of government, their historical origins, their changing composition, their evolving roles, and functions. These formal structures, the Crown, Parliament, the Council, the established church, and the law courts, together constituted the sinews of government. Constitutional controversy arose when the respective roles and functions of these formal structures came into conflict. Accordingly, constitutional historians became experts on the anatomy and development of the particular organs of government and their changing roles yet they were often unable to see the broader conceptual forest in which they were standing. As a result, some critics have lampooned constitutional history and its leading proponents as lacking theoretical engagement and being overly preoccupied with the minutiae of government at the expense of conceptual sophistication and breadth of vision.