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In this article, Michael A.R. Graves and Chris R. Kyle take a new look at the ‘bills of grace’ or ‘sign manual bills’ which were a feature of the early-modern English parliament. These were a special category of bill, often introduced into one of the Houses already written out on parchment, and endorsed with the royal sign manual. The majority of such bills concerned either the affairs of the royal family, or the affairs of private suitors with privileged access to the royal Court, and were generally referred to as ‘bills of grace’. It has long been supposed that such bills were given favoured treatment and enjoyed a speedy and undisputed passage through the two Houses. The article first demonstrates that there have been many misunderstandings about these bills, both by contemporaries and by later historians, and then goes on to show that they present complex problems of interpretation. The authors show how the number and character of such bills varied from one reign to another, and how there were marked changes in the usage of this procedure over time. They conclude that the previously received views about this kind of legislation require revision.
