Private Legislation as a Mechanism for Stability in the Rage of Party

Abstract

The instability of government in the quarter century following the Revolution has been the subject of considerable scholarship. This essay argues that one of the factors preventing this instability from tipping parliamentary government into full-scale inaction was the development of private legislative business and procedural rules introduced to protect this business. If this business could not get done because of political strife, the members and Lords who made up parliament most directly stood to lose. In short, the principal reason parliament never succumbed to the sharper edges of party rage in the quarter century after 1688 was it would have imposed substantial legislative costs on the members themselves. The need to preserve the private business of parliament kept members from ever descending too far into political vindictiveness.