¹ All counts of acts in this article are taken from Ruffhead, O. (ed.), Statutes at large…, 18 vols. (1769–1800)Google Scholar. Firth, C. H. & Rait, R. S. (eds.), Acts and ordinances of the interregnum, 1642–1660, 3 vols. (1911)Google Scholar is a selection, numbering over 1, 300.

² This is discussed in Lieberman, D., The province of legislation determined: legal theory in eighteenth-century Britain (Cambridge, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Introduction. P., Langford's excellent Public life and the propertied Englishman, 1689–1798 (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar is perhaps the best available discussion of parliament's legislative activities. See also Holdsworth, W., A history of English law, 17 vols. (1922–1972)Google Scholar, esp. vol. XI.

³ Done by checking the date acts received their royal assent. Session dates are in Fryde, E. B., Greenway, D. E., Porter, S. & Roy, I. (eds.), Handbook of British chronology, 3rd edn (1986), pp. 576–80Google Scholar, with two corrections: the session beginning on 19 May 1685 ended on 20 November 1685, not 2 July (when parliament was adjourned but not prorogued); the session of 14–24 April 1707 must be added. Because compilations of statutes and the Journals sometimes use different regnal years (and none follows precisely Cheney, C. R., Handbook of dates for students of English history (1970), pp. 26–8)Google Scholar, I refer to sessions by their dates.

⁴ For a discussion of which see Greene, J. P., Peripheries and center: constitutional development in the extended polities of the British empire and the United States 1607–1788 (Athens, Georgia, 1986)Google Scholar; idem, The quest for power: the lower houses of assembly in the southern royal colonies 1689–1776 (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1963).Google Scholar

⁵ A major part of this work was undertaken by Sheila Lambert and she has kindly made her research notes available. For a fuller discussion and details see Hoppit, J. (ed.), Failed legislation, 1660–1800: extracted from the Commons and Lords journalsGoogle Scholar (forthcoming).

⁶ A bill is taken to have had a physical existence. It is obviously demonstrated by those failures which obtained at least a first reading (52·8 per cent for the period as a whole). Some failed bills, however, fell short of even that hurdle.

⁷ As in the short session of April 1707 when there were five failures and no acts, giving a success rate of zero.

⁸ Numerically the role of the royal veto was insignificant; only 12 bills were vetoed in this peirod, the last being by Anne. See also Fryer, C. E., ‘The royal veto under Charles II’, English Historical Review, XXXII (1917), 103–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Through the eighteenth century direct royal influence could still occasionally halt bills in their tracks, witness Fox's India bill.

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¹⁰ Length of sessions is taken from the Journals of the house of commons, noting when the Commons actually met and conducted business (excluding days solely concerned with the consideration of election disputes). Because of holidays and adjournments the dates of sessions imprecisely indicate length. The average length of sessions in days was: 1660–1688, 70·5; 1689–1714, 108·7; 1714–1760, 99·1; 1760–1800, 97·4.

¹¹ The institutionalization of this in the 1690s was partly related to the absence of William and other major figures during the campaigning season – he was out of Britain for 40 per cent of his reign – requiring organizational forethought from both king and parliament. Absences calculated from the dates given in Cook, C. & Stevenson, J., British historical facts, 1688–1760 (Basingstoke, 1988), p. 3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Many important points are made in Horwitz, H., Parliament, policy and politics in the reign of William III (Manchester, 1977).Google Scholar

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¹⁸ The average number of failed initiatives per session was: 1660–1688, 65·3; 1689–1714, 60·1; 1714–1760, 26· 2; 1760–1800, 597.

¹⁹ See Lambert, , Bills and acts, pp. 172–80Google Scholar. The numbers of public and private acts were:

²⁰ It is not always easy to tell from the Journals whether a failed initiative had a local or a general significance. If there is a bias it is likely that too many have been counted as general. With acts, where both a full title and text survives, ascription should be more accurate.

²¹ Maitland, F. W., The constitutional history of England (Cambridge, 1908), p. 382.Google Scholar

²² Hoppit, J., Innes, J. & Styles, J., ‘Towards a history of parliamentary legislation, 1660–1800’, Parliamentary History, XX (1994), 318.Google Scholar

²³ I am grateful for the assistance given here by David Hayton and his team at the History of Parliament.

²⁴ Those acts and failed initiatives which addressed more than two subjects have been classed under ‘Miscellaneous’.

²⁵ A number of the developments in the 1690s and 1700s had their origins earlier, in some cases in the Interregnum. See Chandaman, C. D., The English public revenue 1660–1688 (Oxford, 1975)Google Scholar; Roseveare, H., The financial revolution 1660–1760 (1991).Google Scholar

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²⁸ Pawson, E., Transport and economy: the turnpike roads of eighteenth century Britain (1977), esp. chs. 3–5Google Scholar raises many important issues concerning turnpike legislation.

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³⁰ This is calculated from the slightly larger sub-category of ‘The land’, a category that was overwhelmingly dominated by enclosure legislation. In 1762/3 the rate was 57·6 per cent.

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⁴⁷ This appears to have operated in a number of areas, especially estates, turnpikes and enclosure legislation. But it was not restricted there. See, for example, Shaw, J. M., ‘The development of the poor law local acts 1696–1833 with particular reference to the incorporated hundreds of East Anglia’ (University of East Anglia, Ph. D. thesis, 1989), p. 115Google Scholar; Hitchcock, T. V., ‘The English workhouse: a study in institutional poor relief in selected counties, 1696–1750’ (University of Oxford, D. Phil. thesis, 1985).Google Scholar

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⁶⁶ Two treatises of government, p. 364.

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