Short Parliament

(April 13–May 5, 1640), parliament summoned by Charles I of England, the first to be summoned for 11 years, since 1629, and the prelude to the Long Parliament. Determined to impose the Anglican liturgy on the Scots, Charles sent an army northward in the first of the so-called Bishops’ Wars. The campaign was abortive, and Charles then called a new parliament to grant the subsidies that he desperately needed for a second campaign. Parliament, led by such men as John Pym, balked, citing numerous grievances over the previous decade, including the crown’s questionable collection of a tax known as ship money. Moreover, it set May 7 as the date for a debate on the Scottish question, a debate that was apt to lead to a petition against the war. Charles thereupon dissolved Parliament on May 5. The dissolution further weakened Charles’s position and strengthened the will of the Scots, who invaded England in the second Bishops’ War. The result was the Long Parliament.

Unusually in the election that preceded this parliament there were many more actually contests than was common in elections at that time. Many were galvanized with the religious question of whether the King was taking a path away from the established protestant creed. Nonetheless, Parliament would vote the King money if he agreed to Parliament's demands and it was argued that Scotland's threat was less than the threat of Charles himself. Charles I dissolved Parliament after about three weeks

	Date"Date" is a type and predefined property provided by Semantic MediaWiki to represent date values.
Act Abolishing the Office of King	17 March 1649
Army Remonstrance	18 November 1648
Civil War - Regicide	6 December 1648 30 January 1649
Civil War - Restoration	4 April 1660
Commissions of Array	1 June 1642
Execution of Archbishop William Laud	10 January 1645
Execution of Charles I	30 January 1649
Execution of Thomas Wentworth	12 May 1641
Four Bills	24 December 1647
Grand Remonstrance	22 November 1641
Heads of Proposals	22 September 1647
Instrument of Government	16 December 1653
Militia Ordinance	7 December 1641
Naseby	14 June 1645
National Covenant	27 February 1638
Newcastle Proposals	1 July 1646
Nineteen Propositions	1 June 1642
Petition of Right	7 June 1628
Petition of the Leveller Women	11 September 1649
Putney Debates	1 October 1647
Representation of the Army	5 June 1647
Root and Branch Petition	11 December 1640
Saffron Walden	1 May 1647
Scottish Prayer Book	23 July 1637
Short Parliament	13 April 1640
The Bishop's War	1 January 1639
The Five Members	4 January 1642
The Second Civil War	22 February 1648
The Self Denying Ordinance	19 December 1644
Treaty of Uxbridge	29 January 1645