1D - Cromwell and his aims
Cromwell sought secure government, religious reform and protection for the victories of the 1640s, but these aims pulled him towards different allies. This lesson explains the two constitutions of his Protectorate, the Major-Generals' relationship with the Political Nation and the collapse under Richard Cromwell.
Cromwell's competing aims
Cromwell wanted a godly reformation: improvements in worship, ministry, law and public conduct consistent with his understanding of Protestant Christianity. He also valued liberty of conscience for many Protestant believers, fearing that an enforced national religious system would persecute people who had supported Parliament. His hopes were not simply to make everyone conform to one narrow sect.
Toleration had boundaries. Catholics were associated with political danger and were excluded from the general protection offered to Protestant worship. The authorities also punished conduct regarded as blasphemous or disruptive. The treatment of the Quaker James Nayler by Parliament in 1656, despite Cromwell's concern about its jurisdiction and severity, demonstrated that the settlement did not give unlimited religious freedom. The informal readmission of a Jewish community in the mid-1650s shows another extension of permitted private worship, without establishing modern equality of religions.
Cromwell sought order as well as reform. He wanted to preserve property, secure justice and find a workable civilian government. Yet he would not sacrifice the army's essential interests or allow royalists to reverse its victories. This made cooperation with the property-owning Political Nation, the people with substantial influence through land, office and Parliament, both necessary and difficult.
Foreign policy could serve religion, security and trade together. He hoped to advance Protestant interests, but an alliance with Catholic France against Spain in 1657 shows that strategic objectives also mattered. The failed attack on Hispaniola and capture of Jamaica in the Western Design of 1655 likewise linked imperial ambition to costly warfare. A godly vision did not eliminate ordinary problems of revenue, diplomacy and military planning.
The central tension was practical. Reform required authority; authority depended on cooperation from people who feared radical reform and military power. Cromwell's changing institutions were attempts to manage that tension rather than evidence that he pursued one simple plan throughout.
The Instrument and the Protectorate
The Instrument of Government, introduced in December 1653 after the Nominated Assembly's collapse, divided authority between a Lord Protector, a Council and a single-chamber Parliament. John Lambert was important in its preparation. Cromwell was installed as Protector on 16 December 1653. The office restored a single head of state without restoring the hereditary Stuart monarchy.
The constitution required a Parliament at least every three years and protected each Parliament from dissolution for its first five months without its consent. The Protector and Council held executive power, while Parliament legislated. An ordinary bill could take effect after the prescribed interval without the Protector's assent if it was consistent with the constitution. The arrangement therefore contained restraints as well as strong executive power.
Representation was redistributed, with additional emphasis on counties and more substantial towns, and Scottish and Irish members were included at Westminster. The county franchise was based on a substantial property qualification. These reforms did not constitute political equality: royalist participation was restricted, and access to the vote remained limited. A united Parliament also rested on the prior conquest of Scotland and Ireland.
The Instrument guaranteed resources for armed forces and protected a religious settlement allowing considerable Protestant variety. That helped reassure officers, but raised the problem of whether civilian representatives could truly control a state whose constitution reserved so much for military security. MPs had not themselves created the Instrument through a freely negotiated parliamentary settlement.
Protectorate
The regime headed by a Lord Protector from 1653 to 1659. Oliver Cromwell held the office until 1658 and was succeeded by Richard Cromwell; its institutions changed under the revised constitution of 1657.
The first Parliament and resistance
The first Protectorate Parliament met in September 1654. Cromwell expected it to work with reforms already prepared by the Protector and Council. MPs instead debated the constitution, the army's size and cost, and the extent of religious toleration. Former republicans opposed the concentration of authority in a single person, while other property owners wanted clearer civilian control.
Cromwell required members to recognise the basic settlement of a single person and Parliament before they continued sitting. This excluded some opponents and limited the freedom of constitutional debate. Yet the remaining MPs still sought changes, so restricting entry did not guarantee cooperation. He dissolved Parliament in January 1655, interpreting its protected five-month term by lunar rather than calendar months.
The episode illustrates two competing ideas of stability. Cromwell believed some fundamentals had to be protected before Parliament could undertake useful business. Critics believed that security required Parliament to scrutinise those fundamentals, especially military finance and executive power. The same constitution that set limits on the Protector was used to justify ending a Parliament that challenged him.
In March 1655, the royalist rising associated with John Penruddock at Salisbury reinforced concern about internal security. Although the rising was defeated, it reminded the regime that military victory in 1651 had not removed all enemies. The combination of a failed parliamentary experiment and a royalist challenge encouraged Cromwell to turn towards military supervision of localities. Security measures would now test the regime's relationship with the landowners whose cooperation it needed.
Major-Generals and the Political Nation
From 1655, England and Wales were divided into regional military commands supervised by Major-Generals. Working with civilian commissioners and local officials, they monitored potential enemies, organised mounted militia and tried to promote godly conduct. They were not simply replacements for every magistrate or a uniform new bureaucracy: their effectiveness depended on cooperation within local government.
The decimation tax was an extra levy, broadly one tenth of income assessed on qualifying royalists, used to support the militia. Its supporters argued that people associated with threats to the regime should pay for protection against them, reducing the cost imposed on loyal inhabitants. Critics saw a discriminatory punishment of people who had already settled with the government, imposed through executive authority rather than a fresh parliamentary grant.
Military security and moral reform became closely linked. Major-Generals and their allies acted against drunkenness, disorderly festivities and activities regarded as profane. Zealous local Puritans welcomed efforts to improve behaviour and suppress opponents. Others resented military officers supervising communities and interfering with customs. The reaction cannot be reduced to all civilians opposing all soldiers: some members of the Political Nation worked actively with the scheme.
The broader political cost was nevertheless considerable. Landowners feared arbitrary taxation and the displacement of their customary local influence. Moral regulation could alienate people who were not royalists. A policy intended to make the regime safer therefore weakened the confidence of groups whose voluntary cooperation would make military supervision less necessary.
The second Protectorate Parliament, meeting in September 1656, rejected a bill to continue the decimation arrangement in January 1657. This removed its financial basis and helped end the system. The vote showed that a Parliament partly controlled through exclusions could still defeat a central military policy. Cromwell's government had secured obedience to a security experiment more readily than lasting consent to it.
The Humble Petition and Advice
The Humble Petition and Advice of 1657 was an attempt to move towards a more familiar civilian constitution. Parliamentary supporters offered Cromwell the crown, partly because kingship had known legal rules and could make authority more secure than an office created by the army. A hereditary or clearly settled executive might also reduce dependence on changing military alliances.
Cromwell refused the title of king. Army opposition mattered, as did his religious understanding of the destruction of monarchy: accepting the crown risked appearing to betray the victories and principles that had brought him to power. Refusal should not be treated as proof that he had no ambition or that the army alone dictated every choice; he had to weigh legitimacy, conscience and support together.
He accepted a revised settlement retaining the title Protector. It created an Other House, a second chamber resembling the former Lords, and allowed him to nominate a successor. His reinstallation in June 1657 used ceremonial forms associated with monarchy. The regime moved towards continuity with older institutions while still denying the Stuart dynasty a right to govern.
This did not secure harmony. Members previously excluded from the Commons returned in the next session, and republicans disputed the status of the Other House. Some officers feared that civilian constitutional changes threatened the army's political and religious interests. Cromwell dissolved Parliament in February 1658. The compromise had narrowed neither civilian opposition nor military suspicion enough to establish a lasting balance.
The change is best assessed by separating form from authority. Ceremonies and a second chamber looked increasingly monarchical; the regime's foundation still lay in revolution, military support and a disputed constitution. Familiar forms could assist legitimacy without curing the underlying conflict over who controlled power.
Richard Cromwell and the collapse
Oliver Cromwell died on 3 September 1658, and Richard Cromwell succeeded as Lord Protector. Richard could appeal to many civilians who wanted stability without a Stuart restoration, but he lacked his father's military career and authority among senior officers. The institutions had depended heavily on Oliver's ability to hold conflicting interests together.
Richard's Parliament met in January 1659. Arguments about the constitution and civilian control intensified conflict with army leaders. Richard could not use the Commons to bring the army securely under his authority, nor could he satisfy officers without losing civilian support. Under army pressure he dissolved Parliament in April, and the Rump was restored in May. Richard relinquished the Protectorship.
The return of the Rump did not restore agreement. In autumn 1659 officers again removed it, while rival forces disputed authority. As the army leadership lost support, the Rump returned on 26 December 1659. George Monck, commander in Scotland, then marched south and entered London in February 1660. His army was less entangled in the London factions, giving him considerable leverage. He secured the readmission of members excluded in 1648, a separate development that broadened the restored Long Parliament. It then dissolved itself and arranged elections to the Convention.
The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 emerged from these choices and the desire for an accepted civilian settlement. It was not simply an immediate consequence of Oliver's death. Between death and restoration, Richard, the Rump and army officers each attempted other arrangements. Their failure made monarchy increasingly attractive as a way to escape military intervention and constitutional uncertainty.
The Protectorates achieved several years of functioning government, important international successes and wider Protestant toleration. Yet they did not create institutions able to balance Parliament, army and executive without Cromwell's personal mediation. The collapse reveals the importance of a key individual and the limits of an order that relied on him. Compared with 1603, the form of government had changed repeatedly, but dependence on personal authority and disputes over finance and religion remained.
The Protectorate sought civilian stability while retaining military guarantees and godly reform. Its institutions could not sustain that combination once Oliver Cromwell's personal authority disappeared.