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How Did the English Commonwealth Become a Protectorate? - From Regicide to the Protectorate | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

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Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. On January
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30, 1649, a king knelt in the winter cold and
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lost his head. Within months, the English monarchy
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and the House of Lords were formally abolished,
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and England was declared a commonwealth and free
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state. Yet the men who destroyed centuries of
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political order quickly found themselves trapped
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by the structural pressures of military force,
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religious conviction, and financial necessity.
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This episode explores the improvised constitutional
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experiments that followed the regicide from the
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military -backed rump parliament to the nominated
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assembly of bare -bones parliament, and finally
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to the written constitution that created the
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office of Lord Protector. I wanted to understand
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why a revolution born in opposition to personal
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rule produced an executive with powers the executed
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king might have envied. The story of the Commonwealth
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is not one of hidden ambition or democratic aspiration,
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but of a series of desperate solutions to the
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problem of governing without a king. It examines
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the army's frustration with civilian institutions,
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the constitutional novelty of the instrument
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of government, and the complex reasons Cromwell
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ultimately refused the crown when it was offered
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to him in 1657. The collapse of the Protectorate
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under Richard Cromwell and the subsequent restoration
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of Charles II reveal a difficult truth about
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revolutionary government. The forces that make
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a revolution possible are rarely the ones that
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can build a stable state. This is a calm, detailed
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look at how the English Republic struggled to
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convert revolutionary destruction into constitutional
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construction and why the old order eventually
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returned. On the 30th of January 1649, A king
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knelt in the January cold and lost his head.
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Within months, the monarchy, the House of Lords,
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and centuries of political order were formally
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extinguished. Yet the men who accomplished this
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destruction found themselves again and again,
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rebuilding the very concentration of power they
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had condemned. On the 30th of January, 1649,
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a crowd gathered outside the banqueting house
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in Whitehall. to watch the execution of Charles
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Stuart, King of England, Scotland and Ireland.
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They saw a black -draped scaffold erected against
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the palace wall. They saw a low block positioned
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for kneeling. They saw an executioner in a wig
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and false beard to disguise his identity. Soldiers
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held the crowd back as the king stepped from
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a window of the banqueting house onto the platform.
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He wore two shirts against the January cold so
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that he would not shiver. and be mistaken for
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afraid. He spoke briefly, denying the authority
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of the court that had condemned him, and forgiving
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those who had brought him to this end. Then he
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knelt, stretched out his hands to signal he was
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ready, and the axe fell. A groan rose from the
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crowd. What they had witnessed was not merely
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the death of a man. It was the destruction of
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a political order that had governed England for
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centuries. Within weeks, the House of Lords would
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be abolished. Within months, the monarchy itself
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would be formally extinguished. England would
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be declared a commonwealth and free state, governed
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by the people in Parliament assembled. Except
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that the Parliament in question was not the one
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elected in 1640. It was a purged remnant from
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which the army had forcibly excluded anyone who
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might have negotiated with the King. The men
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who made this revolution had destroyed the old
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constitution. What they had not done, and perhaps
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could not do, was create a new one that could
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stand on its own. This is the story of what happened
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when a kingdom became a republic, not through
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design, but through the logic of civil war. It
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is also the story of why that republic, born
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in opposition to personal rule, would within
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four years produce a Lord President. with powers
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that the king it had executed might have envied.
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It is not a story of hidden ambition or democratic
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aspiration. It is a story of structural pressures.
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Military, financial, religious, and constitutional
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pressures made stable Republican government extraordinarily
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difficult to sustain. A series of improvised
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solutions each revealed the depth of the problem
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they were meant to solve. To understand the Commonwealth,
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one must first understand what it was not. It
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was not a body elected to create a republic.
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The Long Parliament, summoned in 1640 to address
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the grievances of Charles I's personal rule,
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had fractured over the course of the Civil War.
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Some members wished to preserve a reformed monarchy.
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Others believed the King himself was the obstacle
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to peace. In December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride
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and his soldiers stood at the door of the House
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of Commons to enforce the army's will. They stationed
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themselves in the lobby and at the entrance to
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the chamber, checking arriving members against
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a list. Those whose names appeared on the list
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of approved members were allowed to pass. Those
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marked for exclusion were turned away physically.
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Some 200 Presbyterian members who favoured negotiating
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with the king, were prevented from crossing the
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threshold that separated the public space of
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Westminster from the chamber where England's
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representatives sat. The physical door of the
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Commons had become a boundary controlled by military
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force. Those who passed through it did so only
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with the army's permission. What remained became
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known as the Rump. Perhaps 60 to 70 members out
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of an original house of over 500 remained. It
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was this Rump never elected as a republican assembly,
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that tried and executed the king. It was this
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rump that abolished the House of Lords in March
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1649, and it was this rump that in May formally
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declared England a commonwealth. The rump's claim
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to authority rested on a profound contradiction.
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It asserted the sovereignty of the people's representatives.
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Yet it existed only because military force had
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removed the representatives the people had actually
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chosen. This was not lost on contemporaries.
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The Levellers, a radical movement that had emerged
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from the political ferment of the Civil War,
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demanded that the rump dissolve itself and call
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fresh elections based on a greatly expanded franchise.
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Their petitions circulated in print and presented
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to the Army Council. argued that government derived
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from the people. They argued that the current
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Parliament had betrayed the very cause for which
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the war had been fought. The army leadership,
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including Oliver Cromwell, viewed the Levellers
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with deep suspicion. They had not fought to create
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a democratic republic. They had fought to secure
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what they understood as godly reformation. They
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were not prepared to see power dispersed to those
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they considered ungodly or unfit. The executive
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machinery of the new regime was equally improvised.
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The Council of State, established in February
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1649, was elected annually by the Rump. It combined
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civilian politicians with senior army officers.
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It handled foreign correspondence, military administration,
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and the daily business of government, but its
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authority was derivative and its position precarious.
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The real foundation of the Commonwealth was not
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parliamentary institutions. It was the New Model
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Army, the professional force created in 1645
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that had defeated the Royalists in the field
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and now remained the ultimate guarantor of the
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revolutionary settlement. The army was not simply
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a military instrument. It was a body of men with
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strong Puritan and independent religious convictions.
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They were convinced that Providence had called
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them to a special role in England's Reformation.
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They were increasingly impatient with civilian
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politicians who seemed to them temporizing and
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corrupt. The immediate survival of the regime
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depended on military success. In Ireland, Royalist
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and Catholic forces had established a formidable
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confederation. It threatened to provide a landing
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ground for foreign invasion or a base from which
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Charles II proclaimed king by the Scots, might
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reclaim his father's thrones. In Scotland, the
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Covenanter government had crowned the young Charles
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II and was preparing an army to invade England.
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The Commonwealth faced enemies on multiple fronts.
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Its response would reveal both its military effectiveness
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and its moral character. Cromwell was sent to
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Ireland in August 1649 with an army of some 12
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,000 men. What followed was not a single atrocity.
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It was a sustained campaign of conquest that
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included multiple sieges, massacres, confiscations,
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and the systematic displacement of Catholic landowners.
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The most notorious episodes occurred at Regeda
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in September and Wexford in October. At Trujeda,
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Cromwell's artillery breached the walls of the
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fortified town after the garrison refused summons
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to surrender. A storming party entered through
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the gap. The defenders fell back to the Mill
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Mount and to St. Peter's Church, where some had
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taken refuge in the tower. Cromwell's troops
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killed those who had surrendered. The church
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tower was set alight, burning those inside. Cromwell's
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own letters to Parliament, which survive as primary
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evidence, justified the slaughter in explicitly
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providential terms. He described it as the righteous
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judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches
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who had participated in the rebellion of 1641.
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At Wexford, a massacre occurred during surrender
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negotiations. Perhaps 2 ,000 were killed, including
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soldiers, townspeople, and priests. These were
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not isolated incidents in an otherwise humane
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campaign. They were part of a military logic
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that treated Irish resistance as both political
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rebellion and religious sin, deserving of exemplary
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punishment. The Irish campaign established patterns
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that would define the Commonwealth. It demonstrated
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that the regime could project force and that
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Cromwell was its most effective commander. It
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also deepened the financial dependence of the
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government on conquest and confiscation. Irish
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lands were seized to pay army arrears and to
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settle English soldiers. The human cost was enormous.
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The sectarian and colonial dimensions of the
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conquest would shape Irish history for generations.
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But for the men who ordered it, the Irish campaign
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was a necessary security measure. It was a fulfillment
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of divine judgment. And it was a solution to
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the persistent problem of how to pay an army,
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that had made the revolution possible from ireland
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cromwell turned to scotland the scottish covenanters
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having crowned charles ii represented a different
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kind of threat this was not catholic rebellion
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but presbyterian monarchy it was a rival vision
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of reformed government that the independents
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who dominated the english army found politically
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and religiously unacceptable Cromwell's campaign
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in Scotland in 1650 and 1651 culminated in two
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decisive victories. The Battle of Dunbar in September
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1650 saw his outnumbered forces achieve a victory
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that Cromwell attributed to divine intervention.
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The Battle of Worcester in September 1651 destroyed
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Charles II's invasion force and sent the young
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king fleeing into exile. Worcester ended the
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prospect of immediate royalist restoration. It
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secured the Commonwealth's military position.
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These victories, however, created expectations
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that the civilian government could not satisfy.
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The army had borne the burden of conquest and
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now demanded reform. It demanded reform of the
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legal system, which it saw as corrupt and inaccessible.
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It demanded reform of the religious settlement,
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which remained unresolved. and it demanded reform
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of Parliament itself, which the army believed
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should dissolve and make way for fresh elections.
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The rump Parliament, for its part, had developed
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a different view of its role. Its members had
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survived pride's purge. They had presided over
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the execution of the King. They had established
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the Commonwealth. They were not inclined to surrender
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power to an electorate whose loyalties were uncertain.
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nor were they inclined to embrace the radical
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reforms that the army's more zealous officers
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demanded. The tension between military and civilian
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authority came to a head in 1653. The Rump had
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established a committee to consider constitutional
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reform, but its proposals were cautious and slow.
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Army leaders, including Cromwell, grew increasingly
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frustrated. They believed that the Rump was preparing
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to perpetuate itself. perhaps by restricting
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the franchise in new elections to preserve its
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own members' positions. The precise intentions
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of the Rump's leaders remained debated by historians,
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but the perception in the army was clear. The
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parliament that had made the revolution was now
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obstructing its completion. On April 20, 1653,
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Cromwell acted. He went to the House of Commons
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with a body of soldiers and forcibly dissolved
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the Rump. He had been sitting in the chamber,
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listening to the debate on a bill that seemed
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designed to prolong the rump's existence, when
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his patience broke. He rose to speak. His anger
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escalated as he told the members that they were
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no parliament and that their sitting was an offence
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to the nation. The soldiers entered. One by one,
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the MPs were removed from the chamber. The mace.
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The gilded staff that symbolized parliamentary
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authority was carried before the Speaker on ceremonial
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occasions, was taken up and carried out. Cromwell
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reportedly called it a fool's bauble. The physical
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expulsion of elected representatives by military
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force was a coup against the very institution
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that had provided the legal cover for the regicide.
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It revealed what had been true since 1648. The
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army was the ultimate source of authority in
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the Commonwealth. When civilian institutions
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failed to satisfy military demands, those institutions
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could be swept aside. Cromwell's justification,
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as recorded in his speech and subsequent writings,
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was not personal ambition, but frustration with
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obstruction. He claimed to have waited patiently
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for reform. He claimed to have been driven to
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act by the Rump's refusal to govern for the public
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good. Whether this explanation fully accounts
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for his motives is a question historians continue
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to debate. What is clear is that the dissolution
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of the Rump solved one problem by creating another.
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The Republic now had no parliament at all. The
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army faced the question of what should replace
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the institution it had destroyed. The answer
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when it came, was one of the most unusual experiments
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in representative government attempted in early
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modern europe in july 1653 a new assembly gathered
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it was not elected by the people it was nominated
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by the army council and cromwell's advisers from
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lists of men judged godly and reliable it became
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known as barebones parliament after one of its
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members praise god barebone a leather seller
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and baptist preacher whose name seemed to epitomize
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the assembly's character. The nominated assembly
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met not in the ornate chamber of the House of
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Commons with its traditional furniture and ceremony.
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It met in a plain room at Whitehall. Its members
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sat as individuals selected for their religious
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standing rather than as representatives chosen
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by constituents. The physical setting embodied
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the constitutional improvisation. There was no
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speaker's chair. There was no mace. There was
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no accumulated ritual of parliamentary tradition.
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There was just a body of men assembled because
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they were thought to be godly enough to govern.
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The experiment collapsed within months. The nominated
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assembly of some 140 members divided almost immediately.
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Moderates wished to pursue conventional governance.
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Radicals saw the moment. as an opportunity to
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advance sweeping religious and social reforms.
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The Fifth Monarchists, a millenarian movement
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that expected the imminent kingdom of Christ
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on earth, pressed for the abolition of tithes.
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They pressed for the reform of the legal system.
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They pressed for other measures that threatened
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established interests. The moderates, alarmed
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at the direction of proceedings, took the extraordinary
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step of surrendering their powers back to Cromwell.
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In December 1653, the nominated assembly dissolved
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itself. It had accomplished little. It had demonstrated
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that non -elected representation based on religious
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qualification was no more stable a foundation
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for government than the purged parliament it
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had replaced. The failure of bare -bones parliament
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cleared the way for a different kind of solution.
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If neither a purged elected parliament nor a
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nominated assembly of the godly could govern,
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perhaps what was needed was a written constitution
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that defined powers and limited conflicts in
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advance. The Instrument of Government, promulgated
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in December 1653, was the result. Drafted principally
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by John Lambert, a senior army officer, it was
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England's first written constitution. It remains
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one of the most significant documents in the
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history of English constitutional thought. The
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novelty of this document was itself a break with
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English tradition. Government in England had
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always been understood as accumulated custom
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and precedent. It was a body of practices and
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understandings developed over centuries, not
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defined in advance by a single text. The instrument
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of government was a physical document drafted
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by army officers. that attempted to set down
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on paper the powers of the Executive, the Council,
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and the Parliament before they came into conflict.
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It could be read, copied, circulated, and disputed.
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It was a text that claimed to create authority,
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rather than merely describe it. That claim was
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as radical as anything the Revolution had produced.
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The instrument created a Lord Protector with
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Oliver Cromwell as the first incumbent. He would
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hold office for life with defined powers over
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foreign policy, the military, and the appointment
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of officials. The instrument established a council
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of state to advise the protector. It provided
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for a triennial parliament elected on a franchise
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that, while expanded from the pre -Civil War
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period, still excluded the bulk of the population.
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Parliament was to meet for at least five months
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every three years. Certain matters required its
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consent, including taxation and the alteration
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of fundamental provisions. Religious toleration
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was granted to all Protestants, though Catholics
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and those guilty of licentiousness were excluded.
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The instrument of government was not a democratic
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constitution. It concentrated significant power
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in the executive and the council. It restricted
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both the electorate and the matters on which
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Parliament could legislate without the Protector's
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consent. But it was also not simply a mask for
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dictatorship. It represented a genuine attempt
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to create a stable constitutional order that
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could balance military necessity, executive authority
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and limited representation. The men who drafted
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it had witnessed the failure of two parliamentary
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experiments. They believed that only defined
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limits and guaranteed institutions could prevent
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the chaos of competing claims to authority. The
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protectorate that emerged from the instrument
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was, in its initial form, a constitutional experiment
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without clear precedent in English history. Cromwell's
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authority as Lord Protector combined four elements.
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There was his own profound belief that Providence
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had called him to his position. There was the
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support of the army that remained the ultimate
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guarantor of order. There were the civilian institutions
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created by the instrument. And there was the
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coercive power that suppressed opposition when
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the other three proved insufficient. Cromwell
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was not a secret king, plotting to restore monarchy
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under another title. He was not a modern democrat,
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believing in popular sovereignty or universal
23:05
rights. He was a man convinced that God had given
23:08
England an opportunity for reformation. He was
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frustrated by the inability of its political
23:14
institutions to seize that opportunity. He was
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increasingly willing to impose solutions when
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deliberation failed. The Protectorate's history
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from 1654 to 1658 was defined by a recurring
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constitutional conflict. This conflict revealed
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the instability of the settlement Lambert and
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Cromwell had attempted to create. The First Protectorate
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Parliament, which met in 1654, immediately challenged
23:43
the legitimacy of the instrument itself. Many
23:46
members argued that they could not be bound by
23:48
a constitution imposed without parliamentary
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consent. They disputed the protector's religious
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policies, which offered toleration to sects they
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considered heretical. Cromwell dissolved the
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Parliament in 1655. He had failed to secure the
24:05
financial supplies he needed. He had faced open
24:09
constitutional resistance. The dissolution provoked
24:13
a crisis that led to one of the most unpopular
24:16
experiments of the Protectorate. In 1655, a royalist
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rising known as Penrodoc's Rebellion, though
24:23
quickly suppressed, revealed the vulnerability
24:26
of the regime to conspiracy and insurrection.
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Cromwell's response was the rule of the major
24:32
generals. England was divided into military districts.
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each governed by a senior officer with powers
24:40
to enforce order, suppress vice, and raise a
24:44
decimation tax on royalist estates to pay for
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security. In practice, this meant a senior army
24:51
officer arriving in a county to govern directly.
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Local magistrates and gentry were forced to answer
24:58
to a soldier they had not elected and could not
25:00
remove. The physical presence of military authority
25:04
was inserted into the ordinary administration
25:06
of civilian life. The major generals represented
25:10
an attempt to govern through direct military
25:12
administration, bypassing local elites and traditional
25:16
institutions. It provoked widespread resentment
25:20
among the gentry and merchant classes, who found
25:23
themselves subject to arbitrary authority in
25:25
their own counties. The experiment was abandoned
25:28
after little more than a year. but it demonstrated
25:32
how easily the Protectorate could revert to military
25:35
rule when civilian institutions failed. By 1657,
25:40
the constitutional instability of the Protectorate
25:43
had convinced many of its supporters that a more
25:46
radical solution was needed. The humble petition
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and advice, presented to Cromwell by a group
25:52
of MPs and officers, offered him the crown itself.
25:56
The proposal was not merely a change of title.
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It was an attempt to solve the legitimacy problem
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by restoring the traditional form of English
26:06
monarchy. Cromwell would become king rather than
26:09
lord protector. A reconstituted House of Lords
26:13
would balance the commons. The offer recognized
26:17
what the instrument of government had tried to
26:20
deny. The English political imagination still
26:23
understood legitimate authority in monarchical
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and aristocratic terms. A republican executive,
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however powerful, lacked the symbolic and traditional
26:33
foundations of stable government. The crown was
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not simply a word. It was a physical object.
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It was a title that carried centuries of symbolic
26:44
weight. It was a coronation ceremony that transformed
26:48
an individual into a sacred office. It was a
26:51
form of address and deference that the title
26:54
Lord Protector could never match. To become king
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was to step into a role that the English political
27:01
language understood and accepted, however much
27:04
the revolution had attempted to destroy it. Cromwell's
27:08
response to the offer of the crown revealed the
27:11
complexity of his position and the genuine uncertainty
27:14
of his private intentions. For weeks, he deliberated.
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He consulted advisors. He prayed for guidance.
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He visibly struggled with the decision. His refusal
27:29
of the crown when it came was not a rejection
27:31
of monarchical power. It was a rejection of the
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title. It was motivated partly by his belief
27:40
that Providence had judged monarchy in the person
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of Charles I. It was motivated partly by his
27:47
knowledge that the army contained strong opposition
27:50
to any restoration of kingship. And it was motivated
27:54
partly, perhaps, by his own sense that the role
27:57
of king was incompatible with the spiritual character
28:00
of his authority. He accepted instead a modified
28:04
version of the humble petition and advice. It
28:07
increased his powers as lord protector. It allowed
28:11
him to name his successor. It created a second
28:15
chamber without explicitly calling it a house
28:17
of lords. The constitutional revision of 1657
28:22
moved the protectorate closer to traditional
28:24
forms without fully restoring them. Cromwell
28:27
was now more powerful than he had been under
28:30
the original instrument. The regime's institutions
28:33
more closely resembled the monarchy it had replaced.
28:37
Yet the fundamental problem remained. The Protectorate
28:41
rested on military force, and the personal authority
28:44
of a single man. It had not solved the question
28:48
of how to create legitimate representative institutions
28:51
that could govern without the army's intervention.
28:54
It had not reconciled the competing religious
28:56
visions that had fractured the revolutionary
28:58
coalition. It had not secured the financial foundations
29:02
of government without resort to extraordinary
29:05
expedience. And it had not created a political
29:09
culture in which the transfer of power could
29:12
occur peacefully and predictably. Cromwell died
29:15
in September 1658, worn out by the burdens of
29:19
office and the illnesses that had plagued his
29:22
final years. Contemporaries noted his visible
29:26
decline. They noted the recurring sicknesses
29:29
that interrupted his work. They noted the exhaustion
29:33
of a man who had carried the weight of government
29:35
on his shoulders for nearly a decade. His son
29:40
Richard succeeded him as Lord Protector. He did
29:43
so not through any demonstrated capacity for
29:46
leadership, but because the constitutional settlement
29:48
provided no other mechanism for the transfer
29:51
of authority. Richard Cromwell lacked his father's
29:55
military reputation. He lacked his father's religious
29:58
conviction. He lacked his father's political
30:02
skill. Within months, the army factions that
30:06
his father had managed to hold in uneasy balance
30:09
began to fracture. The Protectorate collapsed
30:12
in 1659. The Rump Parliament was briefly recalled
30:17
and again expelled. The chaos of military faction
30:20
gave way within two years to the restoration
30:23
of the monarchy under Charles II. The English
30:27
Commonwealth from the regicide of 1649 to the
30:30
collapse of the protectorate in 1659 was not
30:34
a coherent republican project that was betrayed
30:37
by Cromwell's ambition. It was a series of improvised
30:41
constitutional experiments. Each was driven by
30:45
the failure of the previous attempt to solve
30:47
the fundamental problem of how to govern without
30:50
king or lords when the forces that had made the
30:53
revolution possible were not easily reconciled
30:57
with the representative legitimacy that the revolution's
31:00
own ideology seemed to require. Those forces
31:04
were military power, religious zeal, and minority
31:07
rule. parliament failed because it could not
31:12
escape its origins as a purged remnant. It could
31:15
not satisfy the demands for reform that military
31:18
victory had generated. The nominated assembly
31:21
failed because religious qualification proved
31:24
no more stable a foundation for government than
31:28
military purge. The instrument of government
31:31
failed because the constitutional order it created
31:34
could not secure the consent of the very institutions
31:37
it needed to function. The protectorate that
31:41
emerged from this sequence of failures was not
31:44
simply monarchy by another name, nor was it a
31:47
military dictatorship pure and simple. It was
31:51
a constitutional experiment that attempted to
31:54
balance executive authority, military necessity,
31:57
and limited representation in a form that had
32:00
no precedent in English history. Its failure
32:04
reveals something important about the difficulty
32:07
of revolutionary government. The destruction
32:10
of an old order does not automatically produce
32:13
the conditions for a new one. The very forces
32:17
that make revolution possible may make the construction
32:19
of stable institutions extraordinarily difficult.
32:23
The English Commonwealth was not a precursor
32:26
to modern democracy. Cromwell was not a democracy.
32:30
It was a regime born of civil war, sustained
32:34
by conquest. and ultimately undone by the gap
32:38
between the revolutionary hopes of its creators
32:41
and the structural realities of 17th century
32:44
English society. What remains uncertain, and
32:48
perhaps unrecoverable, is the exact balance of
32:51
personal ambition and structural necessity in
32:54
Cromwell's own decisions. His letters and speeches
32:58
reveal a man genuinely convinced of divine purpose.
33:01
They reveal a man genuinely frustrated by political
33:05
obstruction. They reveal a man genuinely uncertain
33:09
about the proper form of government for a people
33:11
he believed God had called to special responsibility.
33:14
They also reveal a man who accumulated power.
33:18
He dissolved parliaments when they opposed him.
33:22
He authorized military rule when civilian institutions
33:25
failed. He accepted a position of quasi -monarchical
33:29
authority while refusing the name of king. Whether
33:34
he was driven more by conviction or by the logic
33:37
of circumstances is a question that the surviving
33:40
evidence does not permit us to answer with confidence.
33:43
What can be said with confidence is that the
33:47
English Commonwealth revealed, with unusual charity,
33:50
the problem of converting revolutionary destruction
33:53
into constitutional construction. The men who
33:57
executed Charles I and abolished the House of
34:00
Lords had not intended to create a military dictatorship
34:03
or a personal protectorate. They had intended
34:07
in their various ways to create a godly commonwealth,
34:11
a reformed nation, a government that would serve
34:14
the public good rather than the private will
34:17
of a king. That they failed to achieve these
34:20
ends was not simply a matter of individual failure
34:23
or betrayal. It was a consequence of the structural
34:27
pressures that made stable republican government,
34:29
in that time and place, extraordinarily difficult
34:32
to sustain. Those pressures were war, finance,
34:36
religion and the unresolved question of who could
34:40
legitimately claim to represent the people.