Parliamentary Undertaking of 1641

Treface DURING THE PAST FIFTY YEARS, in reaction to the Whig interpretation of history, historians of English politics have focused upon the story of "influence. " They have written of the power of patronage, of "the King's friends, " of "management, " of pensions, bribes, and place. As the monarch lost his power to govern outside Parliament, he is seen to have won a power to govern through Parliament. By means of a Court party, he could support ministers of his own choice. Much of this history concerns mid-eighteenth-century politics, but the same point of view has colored the writings of historians of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century politics. Mena Prest wich has found the earliest beginnings of a system of influence in the reigns of James I and Charles I. Hugh Trevor-Roper has taken Oliver Cromwell to task for overlooking the importance of manage ment. J. R. Jones has written of Clarendon's court dependents, and Andrew Browning has written a magisterial account of the rise o