3.4 The Nominated Assembly

Question 1

Nominated Assembly in July-December 1653

Answer 1

Cromwell hoped this was a moment for the ‘godly’ to be truly represented in an assembly. This Parliament or Assembly has been referred to by different titles.

Question 2

1. Nominated Assembly

Answer 2

Reason: Members were nominated rather than elected. Cromwell referred to the body as an ‘assembly’ rather than a ‘Parliament’.

Question 3

2. Little Parliament

Answer 3

Reason: There were only 144 members. In the 1640 Parliament there had been 507 MPs.

Question 4

3. Barebone’s Parliament

Answer 4

Reason: A term of abuse derived from the name of one of its members, Praise-God Barbon.

Question 5

4. The Parliament of Saints

Answer 5

Reason: A positive term from those who saw the members as godly.

Question 6

Positives about the Nominated Assembly

Answer 6

The Assembly looked at many reform proposals:
- Reform of the law on debt
- More humane treatment of the insane
- Civil registration of births, deaths and marriages
- Tougher measures against thieves and highwaymen

Question 7

Religious radicals

Answer 7

• Some in the assembly wanted to go much further.
• Only 12 definite Fifth Monarchists, but they were very well organised.
• They were able to abolish Chancery and lay patronage of Church livings.
• July-October 1653: Many JPs who had supported the Rump were removed, leaving fewer gentry in positions of local power than ever before.

Question 8

Moderates

Answer 8

• Radicals measures alienated the moderates in and outside the Assembly, including Cromwell.
• The moderates had never really supported the Assembly, and its failures confirmed to them the need for a different form of settlement.

Question 9

The removal of the Nominated Assembly

Answer 9

• 12 December 1653: Moderates from the Assembly outvoted the radicals to hand power back to Cromwell.
• Key figure behind the military coup was Lambert, working in alliance with moderate MPs.
• The officers of the NMA in Scotland had addressed their support for the removal of the Nominated Assembly to Lambert, not Cromwell.

Question 10

Lambert

Answer 10

• The coup was to establish Cromwell as Lord Protector under the terms of the written constitution, the Instrument of Government, which Lambert had written himself.
• Lambert played the most prominent role in the installation of Cromwell as protector.
• He was regarded as ‘Cromwell’s Understudy’.