This volume contains the debates on the passage of the Act of Continuance that assured the parliament that it would not be adjourned, prorogued, or dissolved in conjunction with the Strafford business. On 10 May that act was passed by royal commission, as was the act of attainder against the Earl of Strafford, thus concluding with his impeachment trial and assuring the continuance of parliament. Strafford was beheaded on 12 May and the subsidy bill, providing further relief for the King's army, passed into law on the 13th. On 11 May, in between the passage of the attainder and the execution of Strafford, the Scottish treaty passed the Upper House. Debate on the treaty began in the lower House immediately and by June most of the articles had been hammered out. The conclusion and the passage of the treaty will be published in Volume V.
Also contained in Volume IV are the materials relating to a plot to gain control of a demoralized army and to attempt a rescue of Strafford. The extent of the "army plot" has to a certain extent remained a question in the minds of historians. The accounts in Volume IV will shed new light on this puzzling matter.
MAIJA JANSSON is Director of the Yale Center for Parliamentary History