How popular was the Protectorate Flashcards
What form of government followed the nominated assembly?
Cromwell and his council 1654
When did the first protectorate parliament sit?
3rd Sept 1654 - 22nd January 1655
What happened in the first Protectorate Parliament and what did it achieve?
The new parliament gave priority not to reform, but to attacking the Instrument.
This was led by Commonwealthsmen, who challenged the right of the Protector to exercise the civil and military authority granted to him by the Instrument
They also objected to the high cost of maintaining the standing army and demanded that it be reduced from 50,000 to 30,000
Cromwell tried to lesson the growing opposition by obliging MPs to take an oath of loyalty to the Protectorate - resulted in the exclusion of 100 members who refused
Of the 84 ordinances which Cromwell had previously prepared - none were passed by parliament
How did Cromwell deal with the Religious Sects
- Religious considerations weighed heavily with
Cromwell, much due to his own religious intensity but
also he held the root of all evil wars being religious
division - Cromwell was the first English statesmen to make religious toleration the basis of his government policy
- Cromwell condemned religious fanatics
- Cromwell believed in bringing the various sects
together to recognise each others freedoms - Cromwell’s appeal for toleration was not simply a
matter of words, he was focused on removing those
clerics whose extreme views disturbed the religious
peace - One example of religious differences between
Cromwell in parliament occurred in 1656. Parliament ,
Quaker impersonated Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and
was arrested on grounds of Blasphemy - Cromwell was deeply horrified when he found out
parliament sentenced this man to a series of brutal
punishments and wrote sharply to the speaker.
What was Cromwell’s own religious attitudes
-Cromwell’s life actions had a radical spring to them and
this largely came from his strong religious faith
- He was a Puritan and was a highly religious man who believed that everybody should lead their lives accurately according to what was written in the bible
-This strong belief was strengthened during the civil war,
he believed his troops had been chosen by God to
perform his will
What was Cromwell’s ‘balancing act’
Throughout the Protectorate, Cromwell was engaged in a balancing act, trying to satisfy the army, whose natural sympathies were with the sects, without alienating Parliament.
All the same time, he still had hopes of achieving a religious settlement that would establish godliness and toleration without permitting extremism
During his Protectorate - Cromwell made considerable efforts to ensure that the parish system was maintained and improved
This was because he judged that in the conditions of the 1650s, the traditional Church structure in the localities had to be preserved if the ordinary people were to have access to the means of worship
How did parliament change as the 1650s wore on
it became increasingly dominated by conservative Presbyterians, who were inherently less tolerant than Cromwell
This added to the difficulties in Cromwell’s ‘balancing act’
Best example of Cromwell religious toleration?
- In the 1650s Cromwell suggested that Jews be granted full freedom in England
What must be addressed when analysing Cromwell’s religious toleration
- Cromwell is not a modern liberal
- his toleration was selective and conditional
- It did not extend, for example, to Catholicism or what he called ‘blasphemy’ - by which he meant the extreme sectaries
- Nevertheless, it was during his Protectorate that England experienced unprecedented degrees of religious freedom
How did the royalists resist Cromwell within this period
- One of Cromwell’s constant fears as Protector was that
the unsettled situation might encourage a royalist
uprising in England - His anxieties were understandable, yet throughout his
reign they were only a limited threat - Charles II retreat to mainland Europe in 1651 left the
royalist cause weak and leaderless - However, there was still a level of hunger for a
revolution - In 1655, John Penruddock led a contingent of royalist
troops, of 300, in an attack on the jail in Salisbury. - However, Cromwell’s speed and readiness to deploy
4000 troops to quell the threat led to the scatter and
defeat of the uprising after only 2 days.
What was Cromwell’s introduction of Major Generals and why was the system a failure
- In 1655 rumours continued to circulate surrounding the
republican plots and Leveller dangers that threatened
an assassination of Cromwell - Cromwell introduced a system of direct military
government, known as the rule of Major-Generals
-The decimation tax supported these Generals, who had
the authority to raise local troops in order to maintain the
army’s strength - However, they were particularly unpopular as they
interfered with every day life, imposing moral behaviour
on the inhabitants - The military rank could not disguise the fact that it was
of a lower social status than the local gentry - the
intrusion of social upstarts into the conduct of affair was
particularly distasteful and challenged the independence
of he local gentry - The generals had imposed taxes and raised local militia
with little reference to the opinion of the leaders in the
community
What financial difficulties did Cromwell face
- Cromwell found difficult to run the government on the
income he was granted by his various Parliaments - The administrative and military costs of the Protectorate
was high - There was a 500,000 pound disparity between
expenditure and revenue - This deficit was increased by the added costs of the
Spanish war that began in 1954.
What changed in the second Protectorate from 1656-58
Again, difficulties quickly began to develop
- First major difficulty arose over the House’s prosecution
of Quaker, James Nayler, for blasphemy - The second, occurred in January 1657 when parliament
voted against tax, which supported the upkeep of the
Major Generals
How did the case of James Nayler add to the difficulties between parliament and Cromwell as Protector
- In October 1656, James Nayler, a Quaker, had ridden
into Bristol in an apparent intimidation of Christ’s entry
into Jerusalem on the first Palm Sunday - He was arrested for Blasphemy, however the case was
taken up by the second Protectorate Parliament which
sentenced him ti a series of brutal punishments - Cromwell was deeply disturbed, he believed parliament
had exceeded it’s authority - In December, he wrote sharply to the speaker to inform
Parliament that nothing in the Instrument of Government
conferred on them the legal powers they had claimed - He believed parliament had denied ‘liberty of
conscience’
How did the defeat of the Desborough’s militia bill in 1657 add to the strained relationship between Cromwell and Parliament
- In January 1657, John Desborough, the main
spokesmen for the Major Generals, introduced a bill to
renew the decimation tax for the maintenance of the
militia in the counties - Since the upkeep of the Major Generals depended on
this tax, to vote against the bill was to vote against their
regime - Cromwell reacted angrily
