Barebone's Parliament
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Barebone's Parliament, also known as the Little Parliament, the Nominated Assembly and the Parliament of Saints, came into being on 4 July 1653, and was the last attempt of the
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
Following the
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
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
Inauguration
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.[b] 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
Membership
The parliament became a subject of ridicule very quickly after its establishment. A newswriter called them "
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
On 13 July, the assembly began debating
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 collapse of the radical consensus which had spawned the Nominated Assembly led to the
See also
- List of MPs nominated to the English parliament in 1653
Notes
- ^ The members were Lambert, Harrison, Cromwell, Desborough, Strickland, Pickering, Sydenham, Carew, Stapley, Bennett, Tomlinson, Jones, and Moyer.
- ^ See discussion and particularly (Woolrych 1982, pp. 148–149, n. 17)
- ^ Archontology.org (2010).
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 105)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, pp. 106–110)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, pp. 112–113)
- ^ Gardiner 1897, p. 224.
- ^ Cromwell (1653, speech)
- ^ Abbott (1988, vol. iii, pp. 53–55)
- ^ Abbott (1988, vol. iii, p. 63)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 165)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 193)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 232)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 105)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, pp. 236–244)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 264)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 274)
- ^ Abbott (1988, vol. iii, p, 89)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 189)
- ^ Woolrych (1982, p. 345)
References
- Abbott, W. C. (1988). The writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198217730.
- Archontology.org (13 March 2010). "England: Parliament 1640–1660". Archontology.org. Archived from the original on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 7 September 2013.
- Cromwell, Oliver (14 July 1653). "Speech 1" (PDF). Cromwell Website. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2010. Speech Index at the Wayback Machine (archived 2010-05-03)
- Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1897). History of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, 1649–1660. Vol. II. London: Longmans, Green, and Co. OCLC 1101343689.
- Woolrych, Austin (1982). Commonwealth to protectorate. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-822659-4.
Further reading
- Chambers' Book of Days: Praise-God Barebones' Parliament
- Firth, C.H. (1900), Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans, New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons
- Midgley, Henry Charles (2016). "Political thinking and the creation of the Assembly of 1653". The Seventeenth Century. 31 (1): 37–56. S2CID 156601831.
- 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), ISBN 0-460-01254-1.
- Trevor-Roper, Hugh (1967). "Oliver Cromwell and his Parliaments", in his Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (Macmillan). [1]
- Worden, Blair (1977). The Rump Parliament (Cambridge University Press), ISBN 0-521-29213-1.