This is the first full study in fifty years of the author of the most celebrated political tract of the early years of the English Civil War, Observations upon Some of His Majesties Late Answers and Expresses. Professor Mendle situates each of Parker's significant tracts in its polemical, intellectual, and political context. He also views Parker's literary work in the light of his career as privado, or intimate advisor, to leading figures of the parliamentary leadership. Parker emerges as a fierce opponent of clerical pretension, a strikingly brutal critic of the common law mind, and a leading proponent of parliamentary absolutism.