A Low Road to Extinction? Supply and Redress of Grievances in the Parliaments of the 1620s

Abstract

When his colleagues at the beginning of the 1621 session were puzzling over whether supply should precede redress of grievances or vice versa, Sir George More rose to give them the benefit of his considerable experience. The question could best be resolved, he suggested, if redress and supply were thought of ‘as twins, asJacob and Esau’ which ‘should go hand in hand, for though grievances go first, yet the blessing may be upon subsidies’. The biblical analogy was quite clear. Although grievances like Esau had precedence as the elder of the twins, the two should in fact ‘go hand in hand’ through the House; at the closing, the order would be reversed and the subsidy would first receive the blessing just as the younger of Isaac's twins eventually did.