Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-16T02:45:45.634Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Consensus in the Commons, 1547–1642

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2021

William J. Bulman
Affiliation:
Lehigh University, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

This chapter describes the institutionalized form of consensual decision-making that prevailed in the House of Commons from the advent of consistent record-keeping in the Tudor period to the first two years of the Long Parliament. It highlights the role of status interaction in maintaining the primacy of consensual decisions while also specifying under what conditions these same status interactions occasionally resulted in meaningfully majoritarian decisions. Despite the presence of regular procedures that enabled majoritarian decision-making, the members of the early Stuart House of Commons almost completely avoided making decisions that were meaningfully majoritarian prior to the outbreak of the English Civil War. The House instead forged consensus with recourse to debate, committees, and a variety of other procedural mechanisms. They did so because enumerated votes (divisions) and meaningfully majoritarian voice votes had damaging status implications for Parliament, the Commons, and its members.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×