Why is the Oblivion Act condemned to oblivion?

It is almost like there is something the modern powers don't want us to know

If you are watching world events unfold, you are likely to have seen the “V for Vendetta” masks of Guy Fawkes around, as shown above. It is a frequent quip that Guy Fawkes, who intended to blow up Parliament but got caught, was the last man to enter the place with honest intentions. That said, if the yard in front of Parliament was good enough to hang Guy Fawkes, it could be argued that it would be perfectly appropriate for the modern traitors to have their final moments there too, even if it is an unkind diminution of the reputation of Guy Fawkes by association with absolute scum.

While Guy Fawkes “got a bad headache” way back in 1606, the consequences of the events of the 17th century and later English Civil War are still very much with us. My previous article introduces the idea of “subinfeudation”, which is how power is delegated in a feudal society, which we appear to still be, albeit unannounced. It also discusses the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion 1660, which consigned the period of the Interregnum between monarchies to the memory hole. With this was the recollection that Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth had given the alloidal title of the land to the people.

The Prohibition of Kings Act 1649 was never given royal assent, since Charles I had been executed for treason. My understanding is that laws passed by Parliament during the period of Cromwell’s Commonwealth were considered fully valid nonetheless. The restoration of the monarchy with Charles II was done as a fait accompli, but there was no repeal of this earlier law. Instead, it is somehow deemed “nullified”, as well as consigned to official oblivion. There is a repeating pattern here of the state picking and choosing which of its own laws it will adhere to!

The question that is being raised today is whether the Crown is effectively acting as a squatter for nearly four centuries. Who really really really owns England? On what basis is the modern state claiming a right to charge men and women money to exist on their own land and seek shelter? It is sometimes asserted that Ted Heath and Queen Elizabeth II committed treason with our accession to the European Economic Community, nullifying all since. Could this be true going as far back as the middle of the 17th century? Are any of our modern governmental institutions founded on a fully lawful basis?

Now, I am not a historian or legal scholar, so I cannot confirm or deny this hypothesis that our constitutional foundations have a subsidence problem that goes back many centuries. However, I do like to do my own research, so I looked for this Indemnity and Oblivion Act 1660 on the government legislation website. It isn’t there. Nor is the 1649 Act that bans kings, which has never been repealed. This is a big deal, as the whole of our modern society is based on the constitutional settlement that came out of the English Civil War (e.g. Act of Settlement 1662, Cestui Qui Vie Act 1666, Bill of Rights 1688).

So I wrote to the National Archives who manage legislation.gov.uk to ask why:

Dear Sir/Madam,

While the events around the English Civil War may seem remote to us, we continue to live with many of the same legal, moral, and political struggles. I have been researching the era, and noticed that Act of Indemnity and Oblivion 1660 appears to be missing from your legislation archive.

Can you help me understand whether this is a known limit of your scope, an error, or something else?

Kind regards,

Martin Geddes

I have received the following response:

Thank you for your enquiry. I’m afraid the legislation you request is not available in a web publishable format. The most likely reason for this is that you are looking for an old legislation item that was repealed before our base date of 1991 or was for some other reason not included in the earlier hard-copy editions of the revised statutes. We are currently working to add to the website scanned original text PDFs for English, GB and UK Acts dating from 1225, and for printed UK Statutory Instruments dating from 1945. Unfortunately we have yet been able to locate a copy of this particular Act and therefore cannot give a specific timeline of when this work will be completed however we are adding these as and when they become available.

In the meantime you may be able to obtain a printed copy from The British Library ( https://www.bl.uk/subjects/social-sciences ) which runs a photocopying service of official publications (including legislation) which they hold, or try the Parliamentary Archives website (http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/parliamentary-archives/  -  email: archives@parliament.uk .

By way of background, legislation.gov.uk carries most (but not all) types of legislation and their accompanying explanatory documents. For a full list of legislation types held on legislation.gov.uk see Browse Legislation.

For information about the legislation we do hold, and why some legislation is not available, please see: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/help#aboutLeg and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/help#aboutWhySomeLeg .

The website also provides information which may help you to find the legislation you want from alternative sources: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/help#aboutLegNotOnWebsite .

If your query relates to something that you think might be held in the records of The National Archives, then you need to submit your request choosing "Make an Enquiry" button on the following web page - https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/contact-us/make-a-records-and-research-enquiry/  

I hope this is of assistance.

To be fair, this is not a complete brush-off, so the respondent has done the job. Yet it is also concerning. We are 25 years into the Internet revolution, 20 years after the mass rollout of fixed broadband, and 15 years into smartphones. Shouldn’t we by now at least have a definitive list of the legislation passed by our Parliament, even if the text of some more obscure orders has yet to be digitised? And shouldn’t a critical Act that establishes the very foundation of our modern system of constitutional monarchy, and affects the title to all the land in England, be instantly available in final form to all? Its absence almost says more than its content!

The erasure of our legal and constitutional history is not a minor thing. In America there is a controversy over the true nature of the 13th Amendment, as relates to titles of nobility. This could come back to bite those who in the present era have sworn an oath to a foreign legal guild, the Bar Association, and taken on a title that might deny them American citizenship if enforced. I do not wish to take a position on the matter, but merely note that the lack of a definitive and non-repudiable list of laws is something of great importance.

Maybe someone has something to hide when it comes to English law and our civil rights? The only way this laxity over our history and rights will change is if we become active and demand it. Maybe if you are a British citizen you want to let them know that you consider it a priority to have a complete collection online of all laws and documents that are foundational to our modern rule of law? We “celebrate” the demise of Guy Fawkes every year on 5th November, so clearly we have a cultural desire to preserve the memory of events of that era.

Is it true that Cromwell was just a cover for the hunting down of the true royal bloodlines of Britain? Why was Charles I, even if a bit nasty, the last monarch to support the right of Englishmen to bear arms? Could it be the case that Charles II was just a Vatican-aligned stooge installed by the bankers who stole England? Is today’s Charles III even a living and legitimate King of England? Does someone else have a rightful claim to the throne? Is the Crown just a proxy for foreign powers in the City of London and the Vatican? Did it all go wrong for the English way before with the Norman invasion? Who paid for William the Conqueror to conquer the English?

I am sure the modern powers will have no objection to such a laudable goal of rescuing our constitutional history from oblivion! After all, it’s not like they are covering up the greatest acts of treason in our nation’s history, are they?

Right? 😎

Painting with light