“Domestic or Personal Liberty” 1642–1645war: tyranny, the rights of citizens and parliaments, limitations on the monarch’s
power by conditions or parliaments or elections, and legitimate resistance to mon-
archs by arms or deposition.^35 From Gildas he determines that British kings were
anointed “as kings, but not by God.... Contrary to what the people now think,
namely, that all kings are the anointed of God” (CPW I, 474). He also collected
extracts on toleration and the censorship of books, citing Sarpi on the Roman Index
and de Thou on the benefits of reading books by opponents (451–2).
Intense negotiations with the king continued between February and April, 1643,^36
and many complained that the parliamentary generals were fighting less than vigor-
ously, expecting a negotiated settlement. In May and June the king’s efforts to
bring over an Irish army to provoke uprisings in London and Scotland became
known, provoking general outrage. Prompted by threats of plots and conspiracies,
parliament on June 14, 1643 enacted a strict Licensing Order to control the prolif-
eration of presses and pamphlets that had been largely unregulated since the aboli-
tion of Star Chamber on July 5, 1641.^37 The Stationers Company – wealthy
booksellers who were the legal owners of copyright in printed matter and who held
monopoly control over printing – were also complaining of the threat to their
rights and purses from the deluge of pirated and unlicensed works from illegal
presses. Substantially replicating Charles I’s repressive Star Chamber Decree of 1637,^38
the new ordinance required licensing and registration of all publications, signatures
of author and printer, copyright guarantees, control of imported publications, search
and seizure of unlicensed presses and printed matter, and the arrest and imprison-
ment of offenders. The Stationers Company was charged with enforcing these
measures.
On July 1 the long-awaited Westminster Assembly convened, with a charge to
advise parliament on religious matters. Its overwhelmingly Presbyterian and clerical
membership continually pressured parliament to establish a national Presbyterian
church and to suppress heresy, sects, and schisms.^39 During its five-year tenure, the
Westminster Assembly revised the Thirty-nine Articles along Calvinistic lines, abol-
ished the Book of Common Prayer and recommended a new Directory of Worship,
ejected many Laudian, Arminian, and “malignant” (royalist) clergy, and supervised
the appointment of Puritan ministers in their places. Their most difficult challenge
was church government. Commissioners from Scotland insisted on the Scots Pres-
byterian model, Erastians in parliament sought to secure parliament’s powers against
clerical domination, and the five Congregationalist divines in the assembly tried to
obtain some accommodation for those who, like themselves, differed from the
Presbyterians only on some matters of church government.^40 The Independents
and the more radical sectaries vigorously opposed any national or synodal organiza-
tion, recognizing only independent “gathered” congregations of the elect; they
agitated for a broad-based toleration of most or all Protestant sects and very occa-
sionally for universal toleration.
As the summer of 1643 wore on parliament’s forces lost several battles, and a