# Short Parliament

Parliaments of England :
Predecessors   Witenagemot 7th – 11th centuries   Curia regis 1066 – c. 1215 :
Henry III   1st 1237   2nd 1242   3rd 1244   4th 1246   3rd 1247   4th 1248   Unnumbered 1251   5th 1252   6th 1253   7th 1254   8th 1255   9th 1258   10th "Oxford/Mad" 1258   11th "Simon de Montfort" 1265 :
Edward I   "Model" 1295 :
Edward II   "Westminster" 1327 :
Edward III   "Good" 1376   "Bad" 1377 :
Richard II   "Wonderful" 1386   "Merciless" 1388 :
Henry IV   "Convention" 1399   "Unlearned" 1404 :
Henry V   "Fire and Faggot" 1414 :
Henry VI   "Bats" 1426   "Devils" 1459 :
Edward IV :
Richard III :
Henry VII :
Henry VIII   "Reformation" 1529–1536 :
Edward VI :
Mary I   1st 1553   2nd 1554   3rd 1554–1555   4th 1555   5th 1558 :
Elizabeth I   1st 1559   2nd 1563–1567   3rd 1571   4th 1572–1583   5th 1584–1585   6th 1586–1587   7th 1589   8th 1593   9th 1597–1598   10th 1601 :
James I  1st "Blessed" 1604  2nd "Addled" 1614  3rd 1621  4th 1624 :
Charles I  1st "Useless" 1625  2nd 1626  3rd 1628  4th "Short" Apr 1640  5th "Long (1) Nov 1640  Oxford/Mongrel 1644 :
Revolution and Commonwealth  1st "Long (2) 1645  2nd "Rump (1)" 1648  3rd "Barebone's/Little/Nominated Assembly/Saints" 1653 :
Protectorate  1st 1654  2nd 1656  3rd 1659  4th "Rump (2)" 1659 :
Commonwealth  1st "Rump (3)" 1659  2nd "Long (3)" 1660 :
Charles II  1st "Convention (1)" 1660  2nd "Cavalier" 1661  3rd "Habeas Corpus/First Exclusion" 1679  4th "Exclusion Bill/Second Exclusion" 1680  5th "Oxford/Third Exclusion" 1681 :
James II  "Loyal" 1685 :
William III and Mary II  1st "Convention (2)" 1689  2nd 1690  3rd 1695  4th 1698  5th Feb 1701  6th Dec 1701 :
Anne  1st 1702  2nd 1705 :
List of parliaments of England List of acts of the Parliament of England
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The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on 20 February 1640 and sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640. It was so called because of its short session of only three weeks.
After 11 years of personal rule between 1629 and 1640, and on the advice of the Earl of Strafford, Charles recalled Parliament to obtain money to finance his military struggle with Scotland in the Bishops' Wars. However, like its predecessors, the new parliament had more interest in redressing grievances than in voting the King funds for his war against the Scottish Covenanters.
John Pym, MP for Tavistock, quickly emerged as a major figure in debate; his long speech on 17 April expressed the refusal of the House of Commons to vote subsidies unless royal abuses were addressed. John Hampden, in contrast, was persuasive in private: he sat on nine committees. A flood of petitions concerning royal abuses were coming up to Parliament from the country. Charles's attempted offer to cease the levying of ship money did not impress the House.
Annoyed with the resumption of debate on Crown privilege and the violation of parliamentary privilege by the arrest of the nine members in 1629, and unnerved about an upcoming scheduled debate on the deteriorating situation in Scotland, Charles dissolved Parliament on 5 May 1640, after only three weeks' sitting. This led to major discontent, particularly in London, and the following week a large armed mob attacked Lambeth Palace in the hope of capturing the unpopular Archbishop, William Laud, who was popularly blamed for the dissolution. In August 1640, a Scots Covenanter army invaded and occupied parts of northern England. The truce which followed compelled the King to call another parliament which he could not dissolve. This became known as the Long Parliament.