People and Parliament

GEORGE YERBY has worked as an historical researcher since taking his degree at Birkbeck, London, UK, in 1986. He has contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography. People and Parliament is his first book, and draws on twenty years' research into the local and political background of the Civil War Period.

• Introduction: Pasts and Presents Legislative Beginnings: 1603-1610 The Constitutional Dimension The Foreign Policy Dimension Legislative Ambitions Frustrated The Vacuum Filled: the Triennial Act of 1641 Politics and Religion: the Balance of Motivation Statute Law and Civil War: 'a right that induced men to fight' The Sovereignty of Parliament Epilogue: 'a Parliamentary Man' Appendix I: Thomas Hobbes and the idea of the representative Appendix II: Dartmouth's parliamentary diary

'This re-interpretation of the Triennial Act of 1641 is important. It dispels some persistently repeated misunderstandings, and should lead to a reassessment of the initial aims of the Long Parliament' - Norah Carlin, author of The Causes of the English Civil War