Committee of Both Kingdoms

The Committee of Both Kingdoms, (known as the Derby House Committee from late 1647), was a committee set up during the English Civil War by the Parliamentarian faction in association with representatives from the Scottish Covenanters, after they made an alliance (the Solemn League and Covenant) in late 1643.

When the Scottish army entered England by invitation of the English Parliament in January 1644 the Parliamentary Committee of Safety was replaced by an ad hoc committee representative of both kingdoms which, by parliamentary ordinance of 16 February, was formally constituted as the Committee of Both Kingdoms. The English contingent consisted of seven peers and 14 commoners. Its object was the management of peace overtures to, or making war on, the King. It was conveniently known as the Derby House Committee from 1647, when the Scots withdrew. Its influence long reduced by the growth of the army's, it was dissolved by Parliament on 7 February 1649 (soon after the execution of Charles I on 30 January) and replaced by the Council of State.[1]

A sub-committee on Irish affairs met from 1646 to 1648. The sub-committee spent, in Ireland, money raised by the Committee of Both Houses.[1]

Creation

On 9 January 1644 the Estates of Scotland sitting in Edinburgh arranged for a special commission to go to London with full powers to represent the Scottish Estates.[2] The special commission had four members:

The four Scottish commissioners presented their commission from Scottish Estates to the English Parliament on 5 February. On the 16th, so that the two kingdoms should be "joined in their counsels as well as in their forces", the English Parliament passed an ordinance (Ordinance concerning the Committee of both Kingdoms[3]) to form a joint "Committee of the Two Kingdoms" to sit with the four Scottish Commissioners. The ordinance named seven members from the House of Lords and fourteen from the House of Commons to sit on the committee and ordained that six were to be a quorum, always in the proportion of one Lord to two Commoners, and of the Scottish Commissioners meeting with them two were to be a quorum.[3]

The seven members appointed from among the House of Lords were:[3]

The fourteen members appointed from the House of Commons were:[3]

David Masson states that the Earl of Essex, the Lord General, was opposed to the formation of the committee as it was constituted because "there can be no doubt that the object was that the management of the war should be less in Essex's hands than it had been".[4]

Administration

The Committee met in Derby House at three o'clock every day of the weekincluding Sundays.[5] Attendance in 1644 was patchy, since before the enactment of the Self-denying Ordinance, many of the members of the Committee had commands in the field. Warwick,for example, was the Lord High Admiral. The more active and influential members on the Committee were Lord Wharton and Henry Vane the Younger, and Lord Warriston for the Scots.[6]

The Committee had to accommodate several factions within its ranks, and jealousies and personal animosities between some of its members, such as Waller and Essex.[7] It was also subject to control by Parliament (though the need to pass legislation or resolutions through both Houses meant that the Committee could control matters day by day without much interference).

Its greatest achievement was the establishment of the New Model Army, and the maintenance of this army and other forces in the field until King Charles was defeated in 1646. The Committee provided a continuity of policy and administration which the King could not match.

Dissolution

The Committee ceased to sit in 1648, when it was said that the Scots broke the alliance and supported King Charles I during the Second Civil War. In truth the Committee had started to break down much earlier due to several factors. Some members of the English Parliament did not like the influence the Committee gave to the Scots in Ireland. The Scots in turn resented the fact that although the Committee held ultimate responsibility for foreign policy, diplomats supposedly representing the confederation of the Solemn League and Covenant began to sign treaties in the name of England rather than in the name of the League. The first of these was with Denmark in 1645.[8]

The notion that the Scots broke the treaty in 1648 denies the factionalism that took place within the English Parliament during the previous year, leading the more entrenched Presbyterians in both Scotland and England to lose power within their respective parliaments within months of each other. Thus when the Independents seized control in England, they found that the Scottish Parliament had been won over to the faction of the Engagers and the Duke of Hamilton from the Kirk Party and the Marquess of Argyll.

In January 1648 shortly after the Engagement between Scotland and King Charles I became known to the English Parliament, Parliamentary members broke off negotiations with King Charles passing the Vote of No Addresses that prohibited any further negotiations between members of Parliament with the King until such time as the vote was repealed. Parliament also dissolved the Committee of Both Kingdoms and conferred its powers on the English members of the committee. The reconstituted committee, with the addition of three Independent members, was at first known as the Committee of Safety but became known as the Derby House Committee (named after the building where the committee met).[9][10]

Notes

  1. 1 2 National Archives 2009.
  2. Dates are in the Julian Calendar with the start of year on the 1 January (see Old Style and New Style dates)
  3. 1 2 3 4 Firth & Rait 1911, p. 381.
  4. Masson 1873, p. 41.
  5. Manganiello 2004, p. 124.
  6. Carlyle 1897, p. 202.
  7. Young, Peter; Holmes, Richard (2000). The English Civil War. Ware: Wordsworth Editions. pp. 181–182. ISBN 1-84022-222-0.
  8. Murdoch 2003, p. .
  9. Arnold-Baker 2001, p. 273.
  10. Kennedy 2000, p. 96.

References

Attribution

Further reading

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