In Theater of State, Chris Kyle argues that a radical break in political culture in the 1620s, not in the 1640s, as others have argued, placed Parliament at the center of the post-Reformation public sphere. This process produced a sustained political discourse that moved the epicenter of politics from the court to Parliament in preparation for the earthquake that shook English society in 1640. In support of this thesis, the author presents evidence about where the transition had substantial consequences: issues of free speech, the roles of laughter and silence, recording of parliamentary business, and networks of communication. By 1629 this development had made Parliament the focal point of the political nation, well before the advent of the Short Parliament in 1640.

With respect to these different questions, Kyle provides arguments that are novel yet also steeped in a long scholarly tradition. For example, the author makes excellent use of work on public and private space in the early modern period. In addition, in regard to parliamentary free speech, the change from oratory to debate is well documented. Yet there is also room for Wallace Notestein's Winning of the Initiative, an argument now nearly a century old. Government control of debate by any measure had declined in the 1620s, especially by the standard of Elizabethan politics.

With that evidence accepted, it still remained that a majority of speeches in the House of Commons were made by a relatively few members. Increased reporting, however, sparked interest in political discussion well beyond the confines of London. Printed lists of MPs removed the cloak of anonymity and made them more available to petitioners and lobbyists and cast them in a public role hitherto unanticipated. The problems between Crown and Parliament that took center stage in the 1640s had been rehearsed twenty years earlier by the transformation of the public sphere.

Without dissenting from the book' primary conclusions, however, it is important to note, as the late Geoffrey Elton asserted on numerous occasions, that what Parliament did mattered most, not the manner in which business was transacted. Thus the Petition of Right in 1628 gained its importance by virtue of what it did and did not accomplish, not the style accompanying its passage. Sufficient accounts of the political narrative exist, so this work adds an interesting dimension to the understanding of the prelude to the Civil War.

Although firmly grounded in empirical research, the book also conjures powerful imaginative scenes. Parliamentary chambers no longer afforded sanctuary from public intrusion but were often crowded by individuals with widely divergent agendas to pursue. Such scenes no doubt featured excited crowds, mixing together news, gossip, and rumor, and waiting for some information that made sense in the contemporary context. Finally, one might also imagine the throngs that played such an important part in affecting the grave parliamentary decisions of the day in national politics.

The Civil War has never lacked for interpreters, and the author emphasizes that “the Crown dispensed with Parliament because it was too powerful and too popular” (182). The blame game, court versus country, Crown versus Parliament, feudal versus capitalist economic organization, will last forever, so the author clearly has scant sympathy for Charles I. In 1640 Parliament had to be recalled, and the circumstances inaugurated in the 1620s came into full operation. The public sphere had expanded so dramatically that royal authority no longer proved decisive.

In the end, therefore, this book will appeal primarily to specialists and graduate students working in the early Stuart era. However, I believe that, with appropriate tutelage, it deserves consideration from undergraduates as well. Concise and well written, the volume makes a contribution to the political atmosphere that provided the context for the destruction of trust in 1640. It was theater in one sense, but it had real consequences.