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School of Thought: 17th Century Natural Rights Theorists
Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Religion
Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The English Revolution

NOTES ON TEXT - Arthur Sutherland Pigott Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents [1938]

Edition used:

Puritanism and Liberty, being the Army Debates (1647-9) from the Clarke Manuscripts with Supplementary Documents, selected and edited with an Introduction A.S.P. Woodhouse, foreword by A.D. Lindsay (University of Chicago Press, 1951).

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NOTES ON TEXT

The text of both sets of Debates is derived from the sole primary source, the Clarke MSS., volume 67 (Worcester College, Oxford: 65. 5. 6), compared with that printed in The Clarke Papers, edited by C. H. Firth (Camden Society). Everything in square brackets has been added by the present editor (or adopted by him from Firth). Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are modernized, but with some latitude in regard to punctuation where adherence to modern usage might have obscured the sense: the complicated and often loosely-built sentences have been punctuated with attention rather to the reader’s requirements in the particular sentence than to strict rule and consistency. The designation of speakers has been reduced to brevity and uniformity; title (with Christian name) is given only at the first mention or when confusion might result from its suppression. For the rest, in this edition, unlike Firth’s, every departure from the MS. is recorded in the notes.

In the notes all MS. readings are printed in italics. Two other signs are used: + indicates that what follows is an accidental addition in the MS., and has been omitted in the text; tr indicates transposition in the text from after the following phrase. Thus: (a) butt = MS. reads ‘butt’; (b) + butt = MS. adds ‘butt’; tr butt the Kinge is nott = transposed from after ‘butt the Kinge is nott.’ It must be observed, that in the commoner additions (such as and, butt, that) a single letter has been made to do duty for a page; and that, in order not to court error by disturbing the lettering on the page, the necessary corrections in proof have been effected at a few points by omitting redundant letters, and by introducing new letters out of their alphabetical order, while preserving the alphabetical order in the notes.

[(a-b)] I have adopted Firth’s reading (indicating the phrases in MS. which he silently drops), but have added [also] in order to avoid a forced interpretation of the phrase to make uppe, which must mean ‘to constitute,’ not ‘to fill by election.’ I am not at all sure, however, that Ireton is not hinting a distinction between the property qualification demanded of electors and that demanded of members of Parliament [cf. pp. 65, 113 n., 114], that he is not saying: ‘[It is the represented] who, taken together [with those who have more property] and consequently are to make up the representers, of this kingdom—[it is the represented] and the representers, who, taken together, do comprehend whatever is of real or permanent interest in the kingdom’;

[(f)] + in Stane’s;

[(e)]if;

[(i)] + and.

[(c)] + and;

[(g)] + which is;

[(h)] + they.

[389. (a)]that.