‘You Are No Parliament!’
In April 1653, Oliver Cromwell learnt that Parliament was planning to prevent him from packing the Commons with yes-men.
1653
King Charles II 1649-1685
In April 1653, Oliver Cromwell learnt that Parliament was planning to prevent him from packing the Commons with yes-men.
1653
King Charles II 1649-1685
In the Spring of 1653, General Oliver Cromwell, England’s commander-in-chief and de facto ruler, was heaping pressure on Parliament to dissolve itself for fresh elections, and so give him an opportunity to pack the Commons with his own men. The Commons, however, guessed his mind, and on April 20th were ready to vote on a Bill of dissolution carefully designed to maintain their independence.
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TO this end they resolved, without any further delay, to pass the Act for their own dissolution; of which Cromwell having notice, makes haste to the House, where he sat down and heard the debate for some time. Then calling to Major-General Harrison,* who was on the other side of the House, to come to him, he told him, that he judged the Parliament ripe for a dissolution, and this to be the time of doing it. The Major-General answered, as he since told me: ‘Sir, the work is very great and dangerous, therefore I desire you seriously to consider of it before you engage in it.’
‘You say well,’ replied the General, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an hour; and then the question for passing the Bill being to be put, he said again to Major-General Harrison, ‘this is the time I must do it;’
And suddenly standing up, made a speech, wherein he loaded the Parliament with the vilest reproaches, charging them not to have a heart to do any thing for the public good, to have espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery* and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression.
* Major-General Thomas Harrison (1616-1660). “The breaking of the Parliament” he declared in 1660 following the restoration of Charles II “was the act and design of General Cromwell, for I did know nothing of it.” It was not enough to save him, and he was barbarously and lingeringly executed as a regicide on October 13th, 1660, a procedure that utterly disgusted Ludlow.
* That is, the clergy. Oliver Cromwell held to a form of Christianity heavily influenced by John Calvin in Geneva, which was vehemently opposed to bishops and other traditional structures of the worldwide Church. The crackdown became increasingly severe until Christmas itself was cancelled: see Christmas Under Cromwell.