A history of England

by Charles Oman

But ere the Dutch war had come to an end, there had occurred a sweeping political change in England. The "Rump" Parliament had persevered in its unwise courses; it had carried no reforms, either in Church or State, but spent all its time in profitless debating. Nor had it improved its popularity in the country by raising taxes by a new system which recalled the "tallages" of John or Henry III. Making lists of all who had taken the Royalist side in the old civil war, it imposed heavy fines on them, for offences of six or seven years ago. The army began to grow desperately impatient with the Parliament that it had made. In August, 1653, a great body of officers petitioned Cromwell, as their chief, to insist on the Commons dissolving themselves. Somewhat frightened, the House passed a bill for a dissolution, but with the extraordinary and preposterous claim that all sitting members should appear again in the next Parliament without having to seek re-election by their constituents.

Cromwell dissolves Parliament by force.

This strange attempt to perpetuate themselves for ever provoked Cromwell's wrath to boiling-point. He resolved to take a step even more drastic than Pride's purge. On April 20, 1653, he went down to Westminster with a guard of musketeers, whom he left outside the door. Taking his seat as a private member, he presently arose and addressed his colleagues in a fiery harangue, in which he told them that they were a set of worthless talkers with no zeal for religion or reform. When shouted down by the angry Commons, he bade his soldiers enter, and thrust the dismayed politicians out of the door. The Speaker was hustled from his chair and Cromwell bade his men "take away that bauble," the great mace, which lay on the table and represented the dignity of the Commons of England.

Thus perished the last remnant of the mighty "Long Parliament," dissolved by the mere fiat of the great general. Nor did its fall cause much murmuring, for the nation had long ceased to regard it as anything more than a body of garrulous and self-seeking oligarchs.

The "Barebones'" Parliament.

For the moment there was no legal government in England, for Cromwell's position was quite unconstitutional. He felt this himself, and was anxious to create a new House, which should work with him and carry out his ideas of reform; as yet he had no intention of becoming an autocrat. Accordingly, he summoned in June an assembly which differed from all that had been before it, since the members were not elected by the shires and boroughs, but named by a committee of selection, at which Cromwell presided. This illegally created body was called the "Nominee Parliament," or more frequently "Barebones' Parliament," from a London merchant with the extraordinary name of Praise-God Barebones, who was one of its prominent members.

But Cromwell was to find by repeated experiments that it was impossible for him to discover any body of men who could work with him on exactly the lines that he chose. For his own opinions were not those of the majority of the nation, and hence any assembly that he called was bound, sooner or later, to quarrel with him. And since he possessed in his army a weapon able to dissolve any number of parliaments, he was tempted to bring every quarrel to an end by abruptly dismissing the recalcitrant House. A less self-confident man, or one who did not think that he possessed a mandate from above to reform England, might have learnt to co-operate with a Parliament. But Cromwell was so sure of his own good intentions, and so convinced that those who questioned them must be wrong-headed and factious, that he drove away three parliaments in succession with words of rebuke and of righteous anger.

Barebones' Parliament, a body full of stiff-backed and fanatical Independents, soon proved too restive for its creator. Cromwell smiled on their first efforts, when they began to codify the laws and abolished the Court of Chancery. But he began to frown when this conclave of "the Saints," as they called themselves, commenced to speak of confiscating Church-tithes—the maintenance of the clergy—and the rights both of state and of private patronage to livings. It is even said that they wished to substitute the Mosaic law from the Book of Deuteronomy for the ancient law of England. This drew down a rebuke from Cromwell, whereupon the House very honestly gave their power back into the hands from whence they had taken it, and dissolved themselves (December, 1653).

The "Instrument of Government."

The dispersion of this unconstitutional assembly was followed by another experiment in illegality. Cromwell published a paper-constitution drawn up by himself, called the "Instrument of Government." This provided that England should be governed by a "Lord Protector" and a House of Commons. Cromwell himself, of course, took the post of Protector, which was to be held for life, and had a quasi-royal character, for it was he who was to summon and dissolve Parliaments, and his assent was required to all bills; but it was stipulated that "the Protector should have no power to reject such laws as were themselves in accordance with the constitution of the commonwealth"—a vague check, since he himself would have to decide on the legality of each enactment. The new House of Commons was a fairly constituted body, for it included members from Scotland and Ireland, and among the English seats all the "rotten boroughs" were disfranchised, while their members were distributed among the rising towns, such as Leeds, Liverpool, and Halifax, and the more populous counties. The Protector was to have no power of dissolving the Commons till they had sat five months at least (December 16, 1653).