Rump Parliament
The Rump Parliament was what remained of the Long Parliament after Pride's Purge on 6 December 1648, when Colonel Thomas Pride commanded his soldiers to exclude from the House of Commons those members who were against the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason. The Rump was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell in 1653 and replaced by the Barebone's Parliament. After Richard Cromwell's removal from power in 1659, the Rump was briefly reinstated.
"Rump" normally means the hind end or backside of a mammal; its use meaning "remnant" was first recorded in the above context in English in 1649.
Treaty of Newport
In September 1648, at the end of the Second English Civil War, the Long Parliament was concerned with the increasing radicalism in the New Model Army. The Long Parliament began negotiations with King Charles I. The members wanted to restore the king to power, but wanted to limit the authority he had. Charles I conceded militia power, among other things, but he later admitted that it was only so he could escape. In November the negotiations began to fail, and the New Model Army seized power. Charles I was then taken into the Army's custody to await trial for treason.Pride's Purge
The New Model Army wanted to prevent Parliament from agreeing on the Treaty of Newport to reinstate King Charles I. While Presbyterian and moderate elements within Parliament were inclined to continue negotiations, the Army was impatient with Charles. Thomas Fairfax, by issuing a command to Commissary General Ireton, organized a military coup in 1648. Ireton intended to dissolve the Long Parliament but was persuaded to purge it instead. He then ordered Colonel Thomas Pride to prevent the signing of the Treaty of Newport.Between 6 and 12 December, Pride—supported by two regiments—prevented 231 known supporters of the treaty from entering the House, imprisoning 45 for a few days. The remaining free members then became the Rump Parliament.
Execution of Charles I and abolition of the monarchy
When it became apparent to the leaders of the New Model Army that Parliament—then controlled by the Presbyterian faction—was ready to come to an agreement with the King that would restore him to the throne and negate the power of the Army, they resolved to shatter the power of both King and Parliament. Pride's Purge brought Parliament to heel under the direct control of the Army; the remaining Commons then on 13 December 1648, broke off negotiations with the King. Two days later, the Council of Officers of the New Model Army voted that the King be moved from the Isle of Wight, where he was prisoner, to Windsor, "in order to the bringing of him speedily to justice". The King was brought from Windsor to London in the middle of December.On 4 January 1649, the House of Commons passed an ordinance to set up a High Court of Justice, to try Charles I for high treason in the name of the people of England. The House of Lords rejected it, and as it did not receive royal assent, Charles asked at the start of his trial on 20 January in Westminster Hall, "I would know by what power I am called hither. I would know by what authority, I mean lawful authority", knowing that there was no legal answer under the constitutional arrangements of the time. He was convicted with fifty-nine commissioners, many of them members of the Rump Parliament, signing the death warrant.
The execution of Charles I was stayed until 30 January, so that the House of Commons could pass an emergency act, the "Act prohibiting the proclaiming any person to be King of England or Ireland, or the Dominions thereof", that made it an offence to proclaim a new King, and to declare the representatives of the people, the House of Commons, as the source of all just power. The Commons voted to abolish the House of Lords on 6 February and to abolish the monarchy on 7 February; an act abolishing the kingship was formally passed by the Rump on 17 March, followed by an act to abolish the House of Lords on 19 March. The establishment of a Council of State was approved on 14 February, and on 19 May an Act Declaring England a Commonwealth was passed. The Treasons Act made it an offence to say that the House of Commons was not the supreme authority of the land.
Membership, attendance, and allegiances
Although an exact number is unknown, it is estimated that there were about 210 members of the Rump Parliament, or less than half the membership of the Long Parliament before Pride's Purge. Though nine new members were admitted to the Rump Parliament, the vast majority were transferred from the Long Parliament.Most of the membership continued to regard purged colleagues as members of parliament and remained hopeful that the excluded members would be readmitted. "The Rump did not think of itself as a corporate political entity distinct in membership, aims and character from the Long Parliament". There were a variety of reasons why people wanted to be a part of the Rump Parliament. Some members stayed in the Rump Parliament because they supported the revolutionary changes afoot, while others were there for financial advantage, civilian power, or to satisfy their relish for political activity.
Because of the varied energies within the Rump, the parliament divided into two categories, front benchers and back benchers, meaning respectively those who attended parliament regularly and those who did not. Only about one-third of the Rump Parliament became front benchers while the other two-thirds were back benchers. Within the active third of the Rump, there were many family allegiances, local allegiances and most importantly, common interest groups. The majority of active rumpers could fit into one of the two common interest categories:
- Members of Parliament who were professional lawyers and cooperated to oppose the reformation of the English legal system. Some of the best-known lawyer allies were Bulstrode Whitelocke, Sir Thomas Widdrington, Nicholas Lechmere and Lisliborne Long.
- Members who were particularly concerned with commercial matters and politics in the City of London. Three remarkable pairs of allies in this category are Jon Venn and Miles Corbet, Isaac Pennington and Thomas Atkin, and Frances Allen and Richard Salwey.
Political changes
During the time of the Commonwealth of England, the Rump passed a number of acts in the areas of religion, law, and finance, as well as in commercial and colonial policy. Most of the members of the Rump wanted to promote "godliness", but also to restrict the more extreme puritan sects like the Quakers and the Ranters. An Adultery Act of May 1650 imposed the death penalty for incest and adultery and three months imprisonment for fornication; the Blasphemy Act of August 1650 was aimed at curbing extreme religious "enthusiasm". To stop extreme evangelicals from preaching, they formed a Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel, which issued licenses to preach. To allow Puritans freedom of worship, they repealed the Elizabethan requirement of compulsory attendance at an Anglican Church. As lawyers were overrepresented in the Rump Parliament, the Rump did not respond to the popular requests made by the Levellers to change the expensive legal system.The Rump raised revenue through the sale of Crown lands and Church property, both of which were popular. Revenue raised through excise levies and through an Assessment Tax on land were unpopular as they affected everyone who owned property. The proceeds from confiscated Royalist estates were a valuable source of income, but it was a double-edged sword. It ingratiated Parliament to people like John Downes who were making a fortune from the business but it did nothing to heal the wounds of the Civil War.
Three acts of the parliament in 1650 and 1651 are notable in the historical development of England's commercial and colonial programs. These include the first Commission of Trade to be established by an Act of Parliament on 1 August 1650. The instructions to the named commissioners included consideration of both domestic and foreign trade, the trading companies, manufactures, free ports, customs, excise, statistics, coinage and exchange, and fisheries, but also the plantations and the best means of promoting their welfare and rendering them useful to England. This act's statesmanlike and comprehensive instructions, along with an October act prohibiting trade with pro-royalist colonies and the first Navigation Act of October 1651, formed the first definitive expression of England's commercial policy. They represent the first attempt to establish a legitimate control of commercial and colonial affairs, and the instructions indicate the beginnings of a policy which had the prosperity and wealth of England exclusively at heart.
Oliver Cromwell
In 1653, after learning that Parliament was attempting to stay in session despite an agreement to dissolve, and having failed to come up with a working constitution, Cromwell's patience ran out. On 20 April he attended a sitting of Parliament and listened to one or two speeches. Then he stood up and harangued the members of the Rump. This speech does not survive, but has often been paraphrased, for instance in the Book of Days: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" He then declared "you are no Parliament" and called in a troop of soldiers, under the command of Major-General Thomas Harrison, ordering them to clear the chamber. According to Charles Dickens in A Child's History of England and Hilaire Belloc, he then turned to the Speaker's Mace, the symbol of parliamentary power, declared it a "fool's bauble", and ordered the troops "here, carry it away". Cromwell's motives are uncertain, but may lie in his disapproval of Sir Henry Vane's scheme for a redistribution of constituencies that retained sitting members of Parliament and continued to fill vacancies with recruiter elections.A more detailed record of the event is recounted by Thomas Salmon in his Chronological Historian :
Salmon does not cite his own sources but the version is sufficiently detailed to suggest that he had access to descriptions of the event that were certainly current in his time, and were probably derived from eye-witness descriptions. It is therefore probably at least accurate in general tone, if not precise detail.
Within a month of the Rump's dismissal, Oliver Cromwell on the advice of Harrison and with the support of other officers in the Army, sent a request to Congregational churches in every county to nominate those they considered fit to take part in the new government. On 4 July, a Nominated Assembly, nicknamed the "Assembly of Saints" or Barebone's Parliament, took on the role of more traditional English parliaments.