John Rous did more than record the news that reached his isolated parish in Suffolk; he also recorded the local discussions of these reports. The latter practice was potentially dangerous. Two recent royal proclamations had expressly prohibited discussions of “affairs of state,” and, as Rous's diary reveals, these private talks could easily become extended critiques of royal policy. Perhaps for that reason Rous, the local parson, consistently sought to be a moderating influence: “I would alwaies speake the best of that our King and state did, and thinke the best too, till I had good groundes” to do otherwise. Unfortunately for Rous, he found it increasingly difficult to “speake the best” in the mid-1620s as Charles I dissolved parliament after parliament, collected taxes of dubious legality, and experimented with the established church; “our Kings proceedings have caused men's mindes to be incensed, to rove, and projecte.” Popular projections, moreover, led to the edge of “an insurrection”; in such an increasingly tense atmosphere, Rous was fearful that one misplaced word would fuel reports that “the whole state were revolting.”

His most severe trial came in 1627 when Charles I interrupted an otherwise disastrous war against Spain to invade France. The motive for the Ré expedition quite simply baffled Rous's parishioners. When the parson refuted the criticism of Mr. Paine, one of his parishioners, Paine simply “would not heare it by any meanes: but fell in generall to speake distastfully of the voyage and then of our warre with France.”

Sir Geoffrey Elton has breathed new life into the putrefying corpse of Elizabethan parliamentary history. In conjunction with others, notably Michael Graves, Norman Jones, and David Dean, he has succeeded in demolishing the standard interpretation of high politics, spirited opposition, and principled conflict perfected by Sir John Neale. Elton's analysis of the early Elizabethan Parliaments provides, for the first time, the detailed revisionist argument, one capable in many respects, moreover, of logical extension over the remainder of the reign and buttressed by a series of general overviews. For all the necessary emphasis on cooperation, bill procedure, and “business as usual,” Elton is well aware that politics intruded on legislative affairs, and at no time was this more obvious than during the troubled 1566 session. Neale had devoted forty-seven printed pages to his interpretation of constitutional crisis during these three months. Elton provides a far briefer, more taut, coverage but nonetheless the session figures very prominently in his portrayal of “great affairs.” It is not the intention of this article to dispute Elton's general interpretation of a political crisis orchestrated in good measure by privy councillors intent on exerting pressure on the queen to settle the succession issue. That portrayal is sensible and, in its broad outlines, generally supported by the known evidence. Nevertheless, in his desire to purge Neale's interpretations from the corpus of Elizabethan parliamentary history, Sir Geoffrey has, in a number of instances, permitted his arguments and beliefs to outrun his evidence. These occasions are important for the understanding of events and themes within Parliament.

Political legitimacy was a shifting concept in medieval England. On the one hand were the tangible aspects of power such as control over appointments and the purse; on the other were the symbolic attributes of power. Baronial rebels were able to gain control over the material aspects of political power on more than one occasion, and they also tried to establish control over the symbolic aspects of legitimacy. Here, they usually failed, for medieval people generally failed to accept baronial use of political symbols as legitimating future developments. Monarchs, on the other hand, were more successful in exploiting the symbolic aspects of kingship to further legitimate their power.

The simultaneous success and failure of royal and baronial efforts at establishing legitimacy bear further scrutiny. After viewing the problem of the establishment of legitimacy, this essay focuses on two related episodes during the reign of Richard II: the attempted canonizations of King Edward II and Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel. Richard II's reign is chosen for three reasons. First, there was a clearly articulated struggle between king and barons that was fought out in both the physical and symbolic arenas. Second, the process of political canonization produced a royal and a baronial saint during the reign. Although not premeditated on either side, there was a conjunction of events and a desire by the king and the barons to manipulate the symbolic aspects of these events during the reign. The final reason for subjecting saintly symbolism in Richard's reign to examination is that the process of political canonization reached its zenith then.