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For much of Europe the seventeenth century was, as it has been termed, an "Age of Absolutism" in which single rulers held tremendous power. Yet the English in the same century succeeded in limiting the power of their monarchs. The English Civil War in midcentury and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 were the culmination of a protracted struggle between kings eager to consolidate and even extend their power and subjects who were eager to identify and defend individual liberties. The source and nature of sovereignty was of course the central issue. Did sovereignty reside solely with the Crown—as claimed theorists of "the divine right"? Or did sovereignty reside in a combination of Crown and Parliament—or perhaps in only the House of Commons—or perhaps, again, in the common law, or even in "the people"? To advance one or another of these views, scholars, statesmen, lawyers, clergy, and unheralded citizens took to their books—and then to their pens. History, law, and scripture were revisited in a quest to discover the proper relationship between ruler and ruled, between government and the governed. Pamphlets abounded as never before. An entire literature of political discourse resulted from this extraordinary outpouring—and vigorous exchange—of views. The results are of a more than merely antiquarian interest. The political tracts of the English peoples in the seventeenth century established enduring principles of governance and of liberty that benefited not only themselves but the founders of the American republic. These writings, by the renowned (Coke, Sidney, Shaftesbury) and the unremembered ("Anonymous") therefore constitute an enduring contribution to the historical record of the rise of ordered liberty. Volume I of The Struggle for Sovereignty consists of pamphlets written from the reign of James I to the Restoration (1620–1660). Volume II encompasses writings from the Restoration through the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689. All of the major issues and writers are represented. Each volume includes an introduction and chronology.

A Plea for Limited Monarchy, as It Was Established in This Nation Before the Late War.

In an humble Address to his Excellency, General Monck.

SIR,

Finding, by several Letters, published in Your Name, that you professe a more than ordinary zeal to popular Government; and not knowing anything herein, that can so mislead you, but the glorious pretence of a Free State (a notion, which hath, even, intoxicated many; otherwise, great and worthy Persons); I held it my Duty, first, to acquaint you, how necessary it is to distinguish betwixt the Form and Essence of a Common-wealth, the mistake whereof (each for the other) hath proved so fatall in our times. Next to examine, whether those that surfeited of our Kingly Government, and longed for Novelty have not, indeed (like the Dog in the Fable) lost the substance of Liberty and happinesse, in pursuit of the shadow.

Our fierce Champions of a free State will not, I presume, maintain, that it is subject to no violations, least wofull experience confute, and force them to confesse, either that a Common-wealth may degenerate; or, at least, that this never was a Commonwealth. And, as they must renounce their senses, so they must deny the Faith of Story, which proves, that Republicks have been sometimes invaded with Usurpation, sometimes Debauched, and Embased with Oligarchy; mostly (by reason of their weaknesse, and divisions) subdued, or forced to truckle under their neighbouring Princes, alwayes tormented with faction. Neither, indeed do they, themselves offer any argument but such, as, in effect, beg the question, by presupposing great unity in the Coalition, great probity in the Intention, and great purity in the Exercise; which doubtlesse, being admitted, we should so little need to differ about Forms, that perhaps, we should scarce need any Government at all.

Joyce Lee Malcolm (ed.)

Joyce Lee Malcolm is a historian and constitutional scholar specializing in British and Colonial American History.  She focuses on the development of individual rights and on war and society.

Malcolm has written extensively on the evolution of rights. The two-volume collection she edited, “The Struggle for Sovereignty: Seventeenth-Century English Political Tracts”, brings the work of important contemporaries of Milton, Hobbes, and Locke to a wide audience for the first time. She was the first historian to thoroughly investigate the origins of the Second Amendment and the right to self-defense in England and America. Her books on that subject, “To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right” and “Guns and Violence: The English Experience” were published by Harvard University Press. Malcolm was cited in the recent US Supreme Court opinion in District of Columbia versus Heller as well as in numerous other court opinions and articles and briefs.

“Peter’s War: A New England Slave Child and the American Revolution”, published by Yale University Press, is her seventh and most recent book. It is the dramatic biography of Peter, a “negroe servant boy” sold at the age of nineteen months to a childless white couple in Massachusetts. In retelling Peter’s story, this highly praised book illuminates race relations in colonial New England, the coming of the American Revolution, and the experience of soldiers, white and black, who fought on both sides in that struggle.

Joyce Malcolm is Professor of Law at George Mason University School of Law and lives in Alexandria, Virginia. She previously taught at Princeton University, Bentley University, Boston University, Northeastern University and Cambridge University. She is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and bye fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge University. Recipient of many awards and grants, she served as a Senior Advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program and a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies.

Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe and other newspapers.