The Grand Remonstrance

American Association for Public Opinion Research

The Grand RemonstranceAuthor(s): Oliver KnightSource: The Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Spring, 1960), pp. 77-84Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public OpinionResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2746667 .

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THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE BY OLIVER KNIGHT

In these days of debate about the true nature of democracy and the emergence of new nations, the history of parliamentary government has new mean- ing. The following article seeks to explore a bit of that history with the help of the lamp of content analysis.

Dr. Oliver Knight is Assistant Professor of Journalism at Indiana University. He took his training in history at the University of Wisconsin.

-T HE USE of content analysis in historical research brings out some interesting dimensions of the Grand Remonstrance. The Remonstrance passed the House of Commons in England in November 1641 as one of the matneuvers of John Pym, the

implacable Puritan who hammered Charles I into the Civil War.1 For a year the Long Parliament had been successfully hacking away

the oppressive measures that had grown up during eleven years of Charles's personal rule, but the situation had changed by the fall of 1641. Public opinion had begun to drift away from the triumphant Parliament and toward an underdog king. Two factors involved in the shift of sentiment were Charles's passing up of an opportunity to turn military force against Parliament, as had been predicted, and the fact that Parliament had, during the year past, imposed the heaviest burden of taxes England had ever known. Within Parliament the question became one of stabilizing forces on the old order or con- tinuing with the alteration of English institutions. On this question Parliament split.2

Out of the split grew political parties. On one side were the parliamentarians led by Pym, mostly Puritans and constitutionalists who opposed both the great personal power of the King and the power of

1 The text of the Grand Remonstrance used for content analysis is from Old South Leaflets, Boston, Directors of the Old South Work, 1887-1922, Vol. 1, No. 24. It is virtually identical to the text given in Samuel Rawson Gardiner, Consti- tutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, New York, Oxford, 1906, pp. 233- 236. Both differ from John Rushworth, Historical Collections, London, 1691, Vol. 4, in that the latter shows 2o6 clauses, which is a mistake in numbering. Gardiner and Old South Leaflets, on the one hand, and Rushworth and Sir Charles Petrie's edition of Letters, Speeches and Proclamations of King Charles I (London, Cassell, 1935), on the other hand, differ in a few verbal respects but in none that affect content analysis.

2 Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of England from the Accession of James I to the Outbreak of the Civil War, I603-I642, London, Longmans, 1884, Vol. 10, p. 9; Leopold von Ranke, A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, New York, Oxford, 1875, Vol. 2, pp. 293-294; John Forster, Debates on the Grand Remonstrance, London, Murray, i86o, pp. 154-155.



78 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY bishops and clergymen, who were accused of corrupting the English Church with popish innovations. On the other side were men who had voted with the parliamentarians earlier in the Long Parliament, but who decided that reform had gone far enough.

Recognition of the appearance of parties at this time is not entirely retrospective, for Sir Simonds D'Ewes, whose journal is one of the few sources describing proceedings in the Long Parliament, frequently referred to the "Episcopal party." The Grand Remonstrance signalized the conversion of the episcopal into a royalist party. Coates, one of the editors of the D'Ewes journal, concludes that late 1641 represents a "distinct period in the emergence and development of the first political parties in English history."3 Other historians generally support this view.4

Thus the situation invited propaganda, and the Grand Remonstrance was an acknowledged instrument of propaganda. For sheer survival, if not ultimate political success, Pym's party had to take positive, con- vincing action to sway public opinion to their support. Pym jammed it through Commons on the night of November 22, i64i, as a propagandistic declaration of dead grievances and a proposal of three reforms touching Church and State. The final debate revolved mostly about the propriety of the document, for it sought to clothe partisan ends with the dignity and unanimity of Commons. Commons had never before issued such a direct statement to the people, and members debated it from noon to midnight. The final vote showed the Remonstrance had passed with a skeleton majority of only i1 votes, out of 307 cast. An im- mediate effort to protest the vote brought some members to sword- point.5

Both sides acknowledged the propagandistic nature and purpose of the document. Pym said, "This declaration will bind the people's hearts to us, when they see how we have been used." One of his col- leagues, Denzil Hollis, said, "The kingdom consists of three sorts of men, the bad, the good, and the indifferent, and these wee hope to satisfie. They can turne the scales." He spoke the language of a modern politician whose target is the independent voter. Similar evaluations

3 Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Journal, edited by Willson H. Coates, New Haven, Yale Uni- versity Press, 1942, pp. xxiv, 149-152.

4 Gardiner, History of England, Vol. 10, p. 59; S. Reed Brett, John Pym, 1583-1643: The Statesman of the Puritan Revolution, London, Murray, 1940, pp. 156-157; Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James II, London, Everyman's Library, 1927, Vol. I, p. 88; George Macaulay Trevelyan, England under the Stuarts, London, Methuen, 1906, pp. 219-220.

5 House of Commons, Journal, Vol. 2, 1640-1642, p. 322; D'Ewes, op.cit., pp. i85- 187, 320-323; Sir Philip Warwick, Memoirs of the Reign of King Charles I, London, Chitwell, 1701, pp. 201-202; Edward, Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, edited by W. Dunn Macray, New York, Oxford, i888, Vol. 1, p. 420.



THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE 79

came from others, including the royalist Earl of Clarendon and the Venetian ambassador.6

Moreover, Pym well knew the arts of propaganda, timing, and mass psychology. His biographers say Pym-who was floor manager but not sole author of the Remonstrance-possessed the "very genius of or- ganization," with the ability to mold public opinion into a striking power and with a gift for generating "the maximum political energy out of the most unpromising raw materials and of applying that energy at the time and in the place where it would be most effective."7

The Grand Remonstrance began with a preamble that ostensibly directed the entire document against the "malignant party." It identified the party as one composed of three elements: "Jesuited Papists," bishops and corrupt clergy, and counsellors and courtiers in the pay of foreign governments. It credited an amorphous, unidentified group representing "Jesuited counsels" as the dominant body within the party.

After the preamble came 204 numbered clauses indicting Charles's entire reign. The document covered seventeen years, with 136 clauses devoted to the past, 48 to the present, and 20 to the future. It enumer- ated the malpractices existing when the Long Parliament first met, the restorative measures enacted to protect liberty and justice, punishments inflicted upon the chief offenders, the work remaining to be done to make England secure from tyranny, and the political obstructions in the way of reform. The principal reforms awaiting action were Parlia- mentary approval of ministers, a synod to establish uniform and com- pulsory church discipline, and a commission to control Catholics. Only dead grievances-those existing in 1640 and since rectified-were listed; no new grievances were stated.

Content analysis, coupled with an examination of external evidence, demonstrates that the Remonstrance was purely an instrument of propaganda, rather than a constitutionally important document, as it has been presented by some historians. Each clause was classified according to its predominant subject matter content rather than inci- dental relationships, no matter how strong. This obviously is a matter of interpretation over which historians might argue. Some economic clauses had, for instance, constitutional overtones, and vice versa.

6 Sir Ralph Verney, Notes of Proceedings in the Long Parliament, edited by John Bruce, London, Camden Society, 1845, Vol. 31, pp. 122-123, 124-125; D'Ewes, op.cit., pp. 121, 184n; Clarendon, op.cit., Vol. '. p. 417; Calendar of State Papers, i640-1642, Venetian, London, His Majesty's Stationery Office, Vol. 25, p. 254.

7 House of Commons, Journal, Vol. 2, p. 25; Forster, op.cit., pp. 158-161; Rush- worth, op.cit., Vol. 4, p. 32; Coates, op.cit., Vol. 4; Henry Lawrence Schoolcraft, The Genesis of the Grand Remonstrance, Urbana, University of Illinois, University Studies, 1902, Vol. i, No. 4, pp. 15-i6; C. E. Wade, John Pym, London, Pitman, 1912, pp. v, 66; J. H. Hexter, The Reign of King Pym, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Uni- versity Press, 1941, pp. 14-15.



80 PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY

Table 1, which gives the results of this classification, shows that 56 out of 204 clauses are predominantly economic in nature. They deal with taxation, charges laid upon the subject, monopoly, commerce, shipping, use of land, population movements, protections, forced loans, wardship, distraint of knighthood, forests, money, and supply. To find that one-fourth of the clauses pertain to economic matters is all the more striking in that none of the authorities has even mentioned the economic implications, concentrating instead on the ecclesiastical and constitutional aspects. Furthermore, few economic matters occupied Commons during late 1641, and those few did not produce party divisions.8

TABLE 1 NUMBER OF CLAUSES APPEARING IN EACH CATEGORY OF SUBJECT MATTER*

Category Number of Clauses

Economic 56 Religion 34 Administration of justice 23 Constitutional 19 Administration of government 19 Malignant Party 13 Offenses against Parliament and members 12 Parliamentary support of King 6 Conduct of Crown 5 Scotch Rebellion 4 Conduct of ministers of state 2 Justification of Parliament 2 Education 2 Neutral statements (narrative transitions) 7

204

* Unit of content: numbered clause classified according to predominant subject matter.

The preponderance of economic clauses would indicate that the Grand Remonstrance was an appeal to the pocketbook, an elementary propaganda device. Circumstantial evidence also helps to explain the economic emphasis. The Puritans represented solid commercial interests. For instance, the connection between the Grand Remonstrance and the adventurers of the Providence Island Company is provocative. Pym had supplied executive direction as treasurer of the Providence Island Company, which operated on Old Providence Island in the western Caribbean from 1630 to 1641. In May 1641-just seven months before the Remonstrance-the Spaniards liquidated the colony, caus-

8 D'Ewes, op.cit., pp. xxvii-xxviii.



THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE 81 iing the adventurers to lose heavily; Pym owned thirty estates in 1635 but died penniless in 1643. With him in political leadership were allies from the company; of twenty-six adventurers, fifteen sat in the Long Parliament. They were part of a much larger group of Puritan specu- lators who spun a tight web of economic, religious, and family interests out of which they synchronized political action. Of the eight members of the committee that drafted the Remonstrance, three were adventurers.9

Too, one must keep in mind the merchant-landowner complexion of Commons, the economic argument for publication of the Remon- strance, and inclusion in it of propositions identical to those advanced by London merchants when Commons tried to borrow money to suppress the Irish rebellion.

During the debates on the Grand Remonstrance, a committee went into London to borrow 5o,ooo pounds to finance operations in Ireland. The committee reported November 13 that the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and Common Council agreed to the loan but asked that Commons repeal protections which safeguarded members and their servants from creditors, that papists of rank be subjected to controls so that they could not endanger England, and that bishops be disfranchised in the Lords, where they had obstructed measures passed by Commons.10 The Remonstrance covered those same points, but the one pertaining to bishops had long been agitated in Commons. Unfortunately, the ab- sence of a committee draft makes it impossible to determine whether the other two were amendments after November 13. At any rate, the economic influence there is too strong to be overlooked.

Numerous historians have dealt with the religious and constitutional aspects of the Remonstrance,:" making it unnecessary to go into detail here except to say that constitutional emphasis would seem to be mis- placed, not because constitutional clauses rank fourth, but because the principal recommendation-that Parliament approve or disapprove the King's ministers-was not unique in the Remonstrance. The Grand Remonstrance was only one of several instances when Parliament had pressed that demand, and Charles had already conceded the point to the Scottish Parliament.12

Table 2 tabulates sentences in categories which illustrate the in- tention of dissolving one set of values and unifying another. The strong contrasts in identification in Table 2 demonstrate that the Grand

9 Brett, op.cit., pp. xxvi-xxvii, 122, 129-130, 249-250; Hexter, op.cit., pp. 78, 84; Wade, op.cit., pp. 1g, 186; House of Commons, Journal, Vol. 2, p. 234; Clarendon, op.cit., Vol. 1, pp. 439-440.

lo D'Ewes, op.cit., p. 133. 11 Gardiner, von Ranke, and Forster, for instance. 12 D'Ewes, op.cit., pp. xxix-xxx; Petrie, op.cit., pp. 304-307; Gardiner, History of

England, Vol. lo, pp. 56-57.




TABLE 2 DISSOLVENT-UNIFYING DIMENSION*

NIumber of Sentences in Each Category Category

12 Parliament identified with public interest. O Parliament identified against public interest.

14 Commons identified with public interest. o Commons identified against public interest. O Lords identified with public interest. 2 Lords identified against public interest. 1 Crown and/or counsellors identified with public interest.

15 Crown and/or counsellors identified against public interest. o Malignant party identified with public interest.

80 Malignant party identified against public interest. 11 Crown identified with malignant party. 2 Crown identified with better counsels.

15 Commons supporting just power of Crown. 0 Commons not supporting just power of Crown. 2 Commons observing Parliamentary tradition. O Commons violating Parliamentary tradition. 0 Crown and/or counsellors observing Parliamentary tradition. 7 Crown and/or counsellors violating Parliamentary tradition. 8 Commons identified with established religion. 0 Commons identified with innovations in religion. 0 Crown and/or counsellors identified with established religion. 1 Crown and/or counsellors identified with innovations in religion. 0 Bishops identified with established religion. 7 Bishops identified with innovations in religion. 1 Clergy identified with established religion. 1 Clergy identified with innovations in religion.

16 Crown and/or counsellors identified with unjust exactions. 2 Crown and/or counsellors identified with just levies. 0 Commons identified with unjust exactions.

13 Commons identified with just levies. 0 Crown and/or counsellors identified with justice.

25 Crown and/or counsellors identified with injustice. 0 Bishops identified with justice. 3 Bishops identified with injustice.

13 Commons identified with justice. 0 Commons identified with injustice.

27 Unclassified.

Jnit of content: sentence, complete or incomplete.



THE GRAND REMONSTRANCE 83

Remonstrance, as an appeal to the people, was not intended as a party creed or manifesto, as has been said.13 There was too much of the historical in its presentation for it to be considered as a full statement of principles or of belief. Rather, it was intended to drive a wedge between Crown and people while binding the people closer to Com- mons. The division is almost black and white. The ostensible purport of the entire document was to counteract the designs of the malignant party, but the King is clearly related to that party, although he is not directly accused of personal responsibility for misgovernment. In gen- eral, this statistical measurement substantiates long-standing impres- sionistic analyses.

Table 3 provides a frequency count of key symbols, identifying the major concepts used and the stimuli produced by repetition. The frequency of key symbols in Table 3 shows that the argument was almost entirely personal rather than on principle. Even references to Commons were in a personal rather than institutional context. The

TABLE 3 KEY SYMBOL FREQUENCY COUNT

Symbol Total Positive Negative

Crown 126 97 29 Malignant party 83 0 83 Parliament 77 76 1 Commons 72 72 0 Kingdom 67 67 0 Subjects 44 44 0 Laws 43 41 2 Taxes 34 14 20 Papists 32 0 32 Bishops 32 0 32 Power 29 15 14 The people 26 26 0 Clergy 22 8 14 God 20 20 0 Religion 19 15 4

division of positive and negative symbols for the Crown disputes the contention that the Remonstrance contained "not a word of disrespect to the person or just privileges of royalty....'4 True, the King was not attacked openly, but an unfavorable impression was created through insinuation, innuendo, and association.

The symbols also made a scare document of the Grand Remon- strance. The malignant party was a presumably huge, insidious, sinister group able to draw upon vast secret resources. The papists were a

13 Von Ranke, op.cit., Vol. 2, p. 295, as one of several. 14 Forster, op.cit., pp. 115-11 6.




secret, satanic clan boring from within, a sure-fire device to inflame Englishmen. The bishops were inscrutable, powerful, corrupting the revered Church. Each was a glittering generality tapping the fear of the unknown.

Although the manifest content of the Grand Remonstrance can be statistically measured, there is no way of measuring its impact. The historian must rely upon qualitative judgments that parliamentary leaders succeeded in consolidating support by such means as the Grand Remonstrance.15 Nevertheless, the use of content analysis in this case leads to a tentative conclusion that this research technique can be a valuable augmentation of the historian's internal criticism.

15 D'Ewes, op.cit., p. xxx.

