Committee and Commissioners for Indemnity: Books and Papers

Records of the Committee and Commissioners for Indemnity including order books, minute books, registers (of appearances, parties and timetables), miscellaneous papers (some of them relating to the general business of the commission), and case papers.

The case papers include plaintiffs' petitions, answers to them and committee correspondence on the subject. Their folders bear the names of contenders (eg Bushell v Colson) and sometimes provide references which appear to link the cases with entries in the order books of the committee. The records form a useful source of information on supporters of Parliament, civil and military, and their antagonists.

The series was formerly known as Interregnum H.

• Commissioners for Indemnity, 1652-1659
• Committee for Indemnity, 1647-1652

The Committee for Indemnity was created by Parliamentary Ordnance of 21 May 1647 to exempt from prosecution all those who acted on Parliamentary authority during the Civil War and were being vexatiously sued. A further ordinance of 7 June specifically shielded officers and soldiers in the same way, to assuage the grievances of the Parliamentary army on the eve of disbandment. Prosecutors whose suits the committee adjudicated against were liable to costs. Additions to these ordinances were made up to October 1659. On 23 June 1652 the committee, which had consisted of 26 peers and 52 commoners (with a quorum of five) was replaced by a commission, also meeting at Haberdashers Hall, of seven commoners.