Resistance in Tyrrell’s Bibliotheca Politica:the People and the Convention

Abstract

The debate of 28 January in the Convention House of Commons concluded with the famous abdication and vacancy resolution. It is clear from this debate and the subsequent literature, however, that other significant currents of thought were present in the Convention debates held that winter. Crucial issues and questions were raised to which abdication and vacancy were not the only answers. This resolution left intact the problematic, and potentially revolutionary, assertions of either parliamentary or popular sovereignty. Although the contention that James II ‘broke’ an ‘original contract’ was eventually denied, the implications of contract theory had to be addressed and rendered acceptable to members of the political nation.