The Answer to the Nineteen Propositions Revisited

Abstract

Subjects and Sovereigns: the grand controversy over legal sovereignty in Stuart England by Professors C. C. Weston and J. R. Greenberg is the sort of work which emerges from prolonged and thoughtful labour in the thick undergrowth of historiography and political pamphleteering.¹ However, the treatment by Subjects and Sovereigns of the Civil War period raises two important problems, both of which concern the significance of the king's Answer to the Nineteen Propositions of June 1642. This note will contend (a) that the treatment by Weston and Greenberg of the Answer and the debate to which it belonged makes them appear easier to understand than they really are, (b) that the strictures of Weston and Greenberg on the Answer, and on other Royalist publications which shared its fundamental contentions, are unwarranted.