Talking Point.........

The 20th April 2003 marked the 350th anniversary of Oliver Cromwell's dismissal of the Rump Parliament.  Here, the historian Barry Coward asks why the anniversary has gone largely unmarked and examines why Cromwell acted the way he did.

Oliver Cromwell's expulsion of the Rump Parliament

On 20 April 1653 Oliver Cromwell took a file of musketeers into the chamber of the House of Commons and forcibly expelled MPs, thus dissolving the Long Parliament which had sat since 3 November 1640. By this stage the Long Parliament was popularly known as the Rump Parliament, a name it had acquired because early in December 1648 Colonel Thomas Pride and the New Model Army had purged parliament of the army's enemies. This rump of a parliament then proceeded to pass legislation that established a court to try King Charles I, an event that triggered a series of revolutionary events in the first weeks of 1649 that included the execution of the king and the abolition of both monarchy and the House of Lords. For the next few years the British Isles were ruled by the Rump Parliament and its council of state, a republican regime that preferred to call itself the Commonwealth. It was this regime that Oliver Cromwell and the New Model Army brought decisively to an end in April 1653.

Curiously, the 350th anniversary of that event has gone relatively unnoticed in the media. It has not been marked by the torrent of press articles, and radio and TV programmes which greeted the 350th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth I in March 2003.  Visitors to this website might like to comment on why this is the case. Why has this historical anniversary been met with a deafening silence?

For historians, though, there is a more important question to answer: why did Oliver Cromwell, a man who was a champion of parliamentary liberties, use naked military power to expel a parliament, in the process subjecting MPs to verbal abuse and referring to the mace, the symbol of parliament's authority, as 'a bauble'? For some, like Ronald Hutton (British Republic 1649-60, 1990, p. 24) the answer 'must remain a mystery'.  Sean Kelsey in Inventing a Republic: the Political Culture of the English Commonwealth (1997) finds the answer in Cromwell's and the army's desire not to lose their grip on political power. Others have taken a stance that is more generous to Cromwell, explaining his angry expulsion of the Rump as the justified actions of a man determined to bring about the end of a corrupt regime that on 20 April 1653 was about to pass 'a Bill for a new representative' that would have effectively perpetuated its own power.

What has cast doubt on that last explanation is Blair Worden's suggestion in his book The Rump Parliament (1974) that the Bill being discussed on 20 April 1653 was not designed to perpetuate the Rump Parliament, since it made provision for general elections in the autumn. Since Cromwell destroyed the Bill after expelling parliament, that must remain only a suggestion, but it one that most historians (including myself) find very plausible. This being so, the argument that Cromwell used military power to secure his own and the army's political power becomes very strong. Does this mean that 20 April 2003 marked the 350th anniversary of a display of power by an aspiring military dictator?

My firm answer to that question is NO. It is true that Cromwell grossly maligned the Rump when he said that it was a corrupt, self-serving institution. On the contrary, it was one that had many great achievements to its credit (among these I would highlight the creation of a vibrant republican political culture, glittering foreign and commercial policies, and the  unification of the British Isles under one government for the first time ever). He also was wrong to portray it as a regime intent on perpetuating its own power (I think that he suddenly realised that, to his horror, after he had led his soldiers into the chamber of the Commons, when he read the constitutional Bill that was being discussed). But Cromwell did have sound reasons to want to get rid of the Rump other than simply a selfish desire to increase his and the army's political power. Since he returned to London after his victory over the forces of Charles II and the Scots at Worcester on 3 September 1651, he and many in the army had become increasingly frustrated at the Rump's failure to make progress on the kind of reforms he and they wanted. Very little was done by the Rump towards effecting legal reforms or bringing about the kind of religious 'liberty for tender consciences' that had become centrepieces of the New Model Army's post-war aspirations for 'a godly reformation' in Britain. My view is that you neglect at your peril the power of religious aspirations in influencing what Cromwell did on 20 April 1653. What spurred him to act so impulsively and violently on that day 350 years ago was the belief that, if he did not act, then his vision of revolutionary change - godly reformation - in Britain would never be achieved, and if this happened God would rebuke him and the nation for it for ever. He was not a stereotypical military dictator who sought political power to satisfy his own personal desires. After April 1653, and especially after he became Lord Protector of Britain and Ireland in December 1653 until he died in September 1658, Cromwell continued to try to establish a government in which there were regular parliaments. But throughout his political career the cause of godly reformation always took precedence. This was the case in April 1653. As Cromwell saw it, the continued existence of the Rump would have destroyed the campaign for a godly reformation and so it had to go.

Reading

 In addition to the books mentioned above, see A. Woolrych, From Commonwealth to Protectorate (1982) and Britain in Revolution, 1625-60 (2002), and I. Gentles, The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645-53 (1992). For further details of Cromwell at this time, see B. Coward, Oliver Cromwell (1991) and The Cromwellian Protectorate (2002). Still useful are C.H. Firth's articles, 'The expulsion of the Long Parliament, I and II', History, new series, 2, 1917-18. Most of the contemporary accounts of the expulsion of the Rump are reprinted in W.C. Abbott, ed., The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, vol. 3 of 4 vols.(1937-47).

If you would like to comment on the events discussed in  Barry Coward's article please e-mail the Parliamentary Archives at hlro@parliament.uk