Recording, reporting and printing the Cromwellian ‘kingship debates’ of 1657

Abstract

This article explores the problem of recovering early modern utterances by focusing upon the issue of how the ‘kingship debates’ of 1657 between Oliver Cromwell and a committee of ninety-nine M.P.s came to be recorded, reported and printed. Specifically, it investigates the two key records of the kingship debates which, despite being well known to scholars, have extremely shady origins. Not only does this article demonstrate the probable origins of both sources, but by identifying the previously unknown scribe of one of them it points to the possible relationship between the two. It also questions whether the nature of the surviving sources has exacerbated certain interpretations about the kingship debates and their outcome.