developer of the most complete and insightful version of classical republicanism that had yet appeared in England. He sat in Parliament from 1584 to 1585 and took a role in leading religious agitation. His An abstract of certaine acts of parlement (1584) attacked episcopal pretensions, their civil functions and their seats in Parliament. Stoughton also wrote An assertion for true and Christian church-policie (1604). After 40 years where the language of mixed government died out in political language and the thought of men, he revived the old Elizabethan debate and theory over the three estates.
