After conflict and infighting, on 12 December 1653, the members of the assembly voted to dissolve it. It was preceded by the Rump Parliament and succeeded by the First Protectorate Parliament.
Need for a parliament
Oliver Cromwell
Following the execution of King Charles, the Rump Parliament was the last remaining element of the English government. It had little or no claim to representation of the populace and held elections only to replace members. The mood of the country was for long-needed reforms to be carried out but the Rump made little progress. The enactment of a Navigation Act to aid merchants led to the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652. There was an expectation that a new parliament should be called; however, the Rump made no moves towards its dissolution.
Debate over form of assembly
The forced dissolution of the Rump Parliament on 20 April 1653 left a gap in the legislature, with no blueprint to fill it. Cromwell and the Council of Officers claimed to be "led by necessity and Providence to act as we have done, even beyond and above our own thoughts and desires, so we shall... put ourselves wholly upon the Lord for a blessing".[2]
On 29 April, Cromwell set up a small Council of State of thirteen members, responsible for foreign policy and administration of the country.[lower-alpha 1] The Council of Officers remained responsible for decisions about the new form of government. John Lambert argued in favour of lodging power in the hands of ten or twelve men. Thomas Harrison, drawing on his Fifth Monarchist beliefs, argued that their duty was to accelerate the coming of the kingdom of Christ by putting power into the hands of godly men. Another Fifth Monarchist, John Rogers (Fifth Monarchist), proposed the idea of an assembly numbering 70 based on the Jewish Sanhedrin. The Council of Officers settled on an assembly of 140 representatives, double the Sanhedrin model, which may signify a practical compromise to emulate the Sanhedrin while accommodating members from across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Scottish and Irish delegates were English soldiers serving in those countries.[3]
The Council of Officers then settled the question of how to select the group's representatives, agreeing that members should be chosen by the council, all of whom were free to put forward nominations. Power would be vested in each member by Cromwell in his role as commander-in-chief of the army. Although there was negative reaction from some churches, with a member of a congregation in London declaring "the question is not so much now who is Independent, Anabaptist, etc., as who is for Christ and who is for Cromwell", most of the sects welcomed the decision.[4]S. R. Gardiner conjectured that the Council of Officers consulted congregational churches in each county, asking them to send names of suitable candidates for the new assembly.[5] However, no copy of any letter of consultation survives, and although some churches did send in nominations, there is no evidence that a mass consultation took place. By 3 May the Council of Officers had had over a hundred names submitted by its members. By 23 May an initial list of nominations was ready, which was then added to and refined over the next few weeks.
Inauguration
John Lambert
The assembly met for the first time on 4 July in the council chamber at Whitehall. Cromwell opened proceedings with a speech around two hours long.[6] He began by summing up the "series of Providences" that had brought them to this point, starting with the Short Parliament and singling out 1648 as the "most memorable year that ever this nation saw".[7] In a much-analysed passage, Cromwell is supposed to have declared: "God doth manifest it to be the day of the Power of Jesus Christ".[8] This has sometimes been adduced as evidence that Cromwell shared Harrison's Fifth Monarchist beliefs, welcoming the assembly as the start of Christ's kingdom on earth. However, the first published version of the speech records this sentence as "God doth manifest it to be a day of the Power of Jesus Christ", considerably softening the impact, and implying that he merely thought it to be a spiritually joyful occasion.[lower-alpha 2] Cromwell then asked a written 'instrument' to be read out, drawn up by the Council of Officers and investing power in the assembly.[citation needed]
The assembly then adjourned before sitting in full on the following day. On that day they elected Francis Rous, initially as chairman (he was not known as Speaker until a month later). Henry Scobell was appointed as Clerk. Cromwell and four other officers – Lambert, John Desborough, Harrison and Matthew Tomlinson – were then co-opted as members. On 12 July, the assembly published a declaration declaring itself to be the parliament of the Commonwealth of England. This was the first time that it had been formally described as a parliament.[citation needed]
Membership
The parliament became a subject of ridicule very quickly after its establishment. A newswriter called them "Pettifoggers, Innkeepers, Millwrights, Stockingmongers and such a rabble as never had hopes to be of a Grand Jury".[9] In particular, its members were singled out for their alleged low social status, their puritanism and their relative lack of political experience. These criticisms were seen to be encapsulated by one of its members, Praise-God Barebone, a leather seller, Fifth Monarchist and lay preacher from Fleet Street in London. Before its dissolution the assembly had become known as Barebone's Parliament.
Despite contemporary slanders, the assembly's members were mainly drawn from the richest five per cent of the population, and few tradesmen were represented.[10] Nor was it solely composed of Fifth Monarchists, despite the impression that hostile contemporary pamphlets give. Twelve or thirteen members can be identified as Fifth Monarchists, some of whom had served with Harrison. These were contrasted with about fifteen of the more active members of the assembly, who were more moderate Independents. Although it is misleading to divide the assembly into two parties, an analysis of its entire membership along moderate and radical lines identifies 76 members as religious moderates and 47 as radicals, with a further 21 either impossible to identify or not participating in the assembly.[11]
Only four regicides, Anthony Stapley, John Carew, Thomas Harrison, and Cromwell himself, were appointed. Thomas Harrison was the leader of the Fifth Monarchists and John Carew was also a Fifth Monarchist.[12]
The rise of conflict
Praise-God Barebone
On 13 July, the assembly began debating tithes – which were objected to by many sects on the grounds that they were a remnant of Catholicism, that they supported a professional rather than voluntary clergy, and that their economic burden fell unequally. There was general consensus that tithes were objectionable, but little agreement about what mechanism for generating revenue should replace them. Debate within the assembly was quickly echoed by petitions from churches around the country.[13] Another contentious issue the assembly debated during its early weeks was the trial of John Lilburne, which again did little to unite opinion. A third issue, reform of the legal system, again split the members, with Fifth Monarchists arguing that only laws contained in scripture should be reflected in the temporal legal system, while former members of the Rump's Hale Commission pushed for progressive reform.[14]
By early September, Cromwell was already said to have been growing frustrated with the assembly's in-fighting between different groups. A newswriter reported him saying to a confidant that he was "more troubled now with the fool than before now with the knave".[15] He also wrote to his son-in-law Charles Fleetwood complaining that the members "being of different judgements, and of each sort most seeking to propagate their own, that spirit of kindness that is to them, is hardly accepted of any".[16] Attendance also began to fall. Over one hundred members were present at most votes in July, dropping to an average turnout of 70 by October.[17] Various bills inflamed conflict between the radical and moderate members – bills to abolish the Court of Chancery, regulate legal fees, and speed up settlement of cases in the Court of Admiralty all became bogged down in conflict. At this point, however, radical members were still mainly outnumbered in votes by moderate and conservative members.
Dissolution and aftermath
This changed during November and December when debate returned to the question of tithes. On 6 December the committee of the assembly appointed to consider the question presented their report, covering the question of how unfit ministers were to be ejected, naming commissioners who would have the job of enacting this, and retaining support for tithes in prescribed circumstances. The first clause of the report was voted against by 56 votes to 54 in a defeat for the moderates. Two days later, moderates came to the House and demanded that the assembly abdicate its powers, criticising radical members for threatening the wellbeing of the Commonwealth by fomenting disagreement. Rous and around 40 members walked out and went to Cromwell at Whitehall, presenting a document signed by nearly 80 members that declared: "Upon a Motion this day made in the House, that the sitting of this Parliament any longer as now constituted, will not be for the good of the Commonwealth".[18] Those left in the house were soon confronted by troops requesting that they leave.
The Commonwealth was the political structure during the period from 1649 to 1660 when England and Wales, later along with Ireland and Scotland, were governed as a republic after the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. The republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth", adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. Power in the early Commonwealth was vested primarily in the Parliament and a Council of State. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and the Anglo-Scottish war of 1650–1652.
The Fifth Monarchists, or Fifth Monarchy Men, were a Protestant sect which advocated Millennialist views, active during the 1649 to 1660 Commonwealth of England. Named after a prophecy in the Book of Daniel that Four Monarchies would precede the Fifth or establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, the group was one of a number of Nonconformist sects that emerged during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Perhaps its best known adherent was Major-General Thomas Harrison, executed in October 1660 as a regicide, while Oliver Cromwell was a sympathiser until 1653.
Oliver Cromwell was an English statesman, politician, and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the British Isles. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially as a senior commander in the Parliamentarian army and latterly as a politician. A leading advocate of the execution of Charles I in January 1649, which led to the establishment of The Protectorate, he ruled as Lord Protector from December 1653 until his death in September 1658. Cromwell remains a controversial figure due to his use of the army to acquire political power, and the brutality of his 1649 campaign in Ireland.
Richard Cromwell was an English statesman, the second and final Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland and the son of the first Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell.
Major-General Thomas Harrison, baptised 16 July 1616, executed 13 October 1660, was a prominent member of the radical religious sect known as the Fifth Monarchists, and a soldier who fought for Parliament and the Commonwealth in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. One of those who approved the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, he was a strong supporter of Oliver Cromwell before the two fell out when The Protectorate was established in 1653. Following the 1660 Stuart Restoration, he was arrested, found guilty of treason as a regicide, and sentenced to death. He was hanged, drawn and quartered on 13 October 1660, facing his execution with a courage noted by various observers, including the diarist Samuel Pepys.
Praise-God Barebone was an English leather-seller, preacher, and Fifth Monarchist. He is best known for giving his name to the Barebone's Parliament of the English Commonwealth of 1653.
The Protectorate, officially the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, was the English form of government lasting from 16 December 1653 to 25 May 1659, under which the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, with their associated territories were joined together in the Commonwealth of England, governed by a Lord Protector. It began when Barebone's Parliament was dissolved, and the Instrument of Government appointed Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Cromwell died in September 1658 and was succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell.
John Lambert was an English Parliamentarian general and politician. Widely regarded as one of the most talented soldiers of the period, he fought throughout the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and was largely responsible for victory in the 1650 to 1651 Scottish campaign.
The Rump Parliament was the English Parliament after Colonel Thomas Pride commanded soldiers to purge the Long Parliament, on 6 December 1648, of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason.
William Lenthall (1591–1662) was an English politician of the Civil War period. He served as Speaker of the House of Commons for a period of almost twenty years, both before and after the execution of King Charles I.
Colonel John Hewson, also spelt Hughson, was a shoemaker from London and religious Independent who fought for Parliament and the Commonwealth in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, reaching the rank of colonel. Considered one of Oliver Cromwell's most reliable supporters within the New Model Army, his unit played a prominent part in Pride's Purge of December 1648. Hewson signed the death warrant for the Execution of Charles I in January 1649, for which he reportedly sourced the headsman, while soldiers from his regiment provided security.
The English Council of State, later also known as the Protector's Privy Council, was first appointed by the Rump Parliament on 14 February 1649 after the execution of King Charles I.
John Desborough (1608–1680) was an English soldier and politician who supported the parliamentary cause during the English Civil War.
The Third Protectorate Parliament sat for one session, from 27 January 1659 until 22 April 1659, with Chaloner Chute and Thomas Bampfylde as the Speakers of the House of Commons. It was a bicameral Parliament, with an Upper House having a power of veto over the Commons.
The Interregnum was the period between the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649 and the arrival of his son Charles II in London on 29 May 1660, which marked the start of the Restoration. During the Interregnum, England was under various forms of republican government.
Jonathan Goddard (1617–1675) was an English physician, known both as army surgeon to the forces of Oliver Cromwell, and as an active member of the Royal Society.
The Tender of Union was a declaration of the Parliament of England during the Interregnum following the War of the Three Kingdoms stating that Scotland would cease to have an independent parliament and would join England in its emerging Commonwealth republic.
Christopher Feake (1612–1683) was an English Independent minister and Fifth-monarchy man. He was imprisoned for maligning Oliver Cromwell in his preaching. He is a leading example of someone sharing both Leveller views and the millenarian approach of the Fifth Monarchists. His violence was exclusively verbal, but he wrote against the Quakers.
Colonel Nathaniel Rich was a member of the landed gentry from Essex, who sided with Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He has been described as "an example of those pious Puritan gentlemen who were inspired by the ideals of the English Revolution".
References
Abbott, W. C. (1988). The writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN0198217730.
Midgley, Henry Charles (2016). "Political thinking and the creation of the Assembly of 1653". The Seventeenth Century. 31 (1): 37–56. doi:10.1080/0268117X.2016.1153979. S2CID156601831.
Plant, David, Nominated Assembly, The British Civil Wars & Commonwealth website, archived from the original on 31 May 2013, retrieved 7 September 2013
Roots, Ivan (1989). Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (Everyman classics), ISBN0-460-01254-1.
Trevor-Roper, Hugh (1967). "Oliver Cromwell and his Parliaments", in his Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (Macmillan).
Worden, Blair (1977). The Rump Parliament (Cambridge University Press), ISBN0-521-29213-1.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
