SC 91289-1322Special Collections: Parliament Rolls, Exchequer Series
Rolls recording proceedings before the King and Council in Parliament, including agenda, petitions, and process. They include Scottish, Irish, Gascon and Channel Islands petitions.
The collection is an artificial one, drawing together records transferred both from the Treasury of the Receipt of the Exchequer, including rolls formerly in the Treasury in the Tower; and records rediscovered in the nineteenth century among the documents then in the custody of the King's Remembrancer, with further additions recovered from unsorted miscellanea in 1958.
The documents include notes of cases remitted from inferior courts; transcripts of documents and pleadings connected with cases coming before Parliament and council, including pleadings in earlier parliaments; notes of decisions taken; enrolments of cases argued and decided in Parliament and before the Council; statutes and orders of various kinds; records of the grant of subsidies and taxes; enrolments of petitions and interim process on them; records of the attendance at Parliament and of the order of business; and notes relating to administrative routine, including the appointment of attorneys, manucaption, and the appointment of justices of gaol delivery and of oyer and terminer. The rolls are not a complete record of all the business and procedure of any single parliament.
Most of the rolls are annotated with a note of title and content, though some rolls, although titled as a record of a particular parliament, appear in practice to be an agenda for a subsequent parliament or council.