This is Stuart England The Civil Wars episode two point one hundred and three.
The Young Gentleman. For all his pragmatism, Oliver Cromwell was a man who
saw the hand of God at work in the world. He spent much of
his life searching for signs, providential clues, though let him know whether he
was following God's plan or not. One especially meaningful hand Providence provided was a
fateful date, the third September. That was the day in sixteen fifty on
which Cromwell had won the most miraculous of his victories, the Battle of Dunbar.
Seemingly trapped and exhausted, the new Model Army had somehow annihilated a much
larger Scottish army, perhaps the greatest challenge Cromwell ever faced. Then exactly a
year later, on the third of September sixteen fifty one, Cromwell did it
again, defeating the exiled King's invasion force at Worcester. This was a pattern,
not a coincidence. Cromwell was so convinced that the third of September held
a special significance that, when he became Lord Protector, he opened his first
Parliament on that date. In sixteen fifty four, despite the fact that it
fell on a Sunday, usually a day of rest at Westminster. Of course,
the first Protector at Parliament didn't go nearly as well as the battles of
Dunbar or Worcester. Whether Cromwell read anything into that is impossible to say,
as is what the Lord Protector thought of the third of September, marking one
more milestone in his life, that dave is death in sixteen fifty eight.
I have to think it must have crossed his mind. Was it a sign
of God's continued favor or a rebuke for how his divine mission had gone astray.
We've spent as much time with Cromwell as anyone in this podcast, with
the possible exception of Charles the first I am too lazy to do the math,
so it's only fitting to give the Lord Protector a proper send off.
As I recall, this will be the fourth such retrospective assessment. James and
Charles each got one, as did the Duke of Buckingham. In terms of
impact on British history, Cromwell fits well in their company, though it does
seem as though in popular consciousness Cromwell often acts as a stand in for other
forces in Men for the entire Interregnant period or even the Civil War before it.
As we've seen, Cromwell did not declare a personal war on Charles the
First in sixteen forty two, and even as the Lord Protector, he didn't
exercise total control over English political life. I feel like, comparatively speaking,
I've been relatively generous to Cromwell in this podcast, But then again, I'm
a pretty generous guy. I'm one of the few people I've met who actually
has a soft spot for the Duke of Buckingham. I guess it's inevitable.
The more time you spend with someone, the more you see the world through
their eyes and feel you understand their motivations, even if you don't necessarily endorse
them. Though it's hard to like Oliver Cromwell. He doesn't seem like he
would be especially pleasant company. He could be cold and vindictive, and he
certainly left a trail of discarded allies who could attest to his lack of loyalty
or principles, which makes him a bit of an enigma because he most definitely
had principles. I don't think anyone can doubt the religious conviction the drove Cromwell
throughout his political career, and while he sometimes adapted his definition of independent religious
conscience to fit the political moment, he clung to the principle tenaciously, even
when it seemed like a political liability, which I think sums up the contradiction
in Cromwell that I find most fascinating. He was a consummate political pragmatist at
the tactical level, but his overarching strategy always directed him towards the idealized England
he and his colleagues have fought for in the Civil War. Those dual qualities
often frustrated his contemporaries to more inflexible men devoted to straightforward ideologies, Cromwell was
a hypocrite. Levelers like John Lilburn, parliamentary sovereigntists like Arthur Hesselrig, or
Republicans like Henry Martin all saw Cromwell as a man who again and again abandoned
the cause in the name of political expediency. But I think those critics were
wrong when they accused Cromwell of pursuing whatever course brought him more power, or
at least they weren't entirely right. Cromwell wasn't a great ideologue, but that
didn't mean that he lacked a vision for England. His goal, which was
consistent for much of his public life, was political stability in a religious system
that allowed for independent churches. The democracy John Lilleburn advocated for or the absolute
sovereignty of parliament Arthur Hasselry called for, were only useful to Cromwell if they
achieve those goals. All too often ridget adherence to those systems produced disorder and
instability. Instead, Cromwell found himself drawn to more practical schemes that were short
on grand principles but offered a plausible path to a peaceful, godly England.
In this sense, Henry Ireton and especially his successor John Lambert were ideal partners.
Cromwell himself doesn't seem to have been too active in drawing up the political
programs they crafted, but they suited his political instincts. The instrument of government,
for instance, spent a lot of time laying up the powers and responsibilities
of government institutions and less on the kind of bold pronouncements John Lilleburn liked to
deliver. From this perspective, Cromwell's failing wasn't so much a lack of principles,
but a failure to find a pragmatic constitution that worked. In the spring
of sixteen fifty three, he forcibly shuttered the Rump. Then months later the
nominated Assembly dissolved in acrimony, having failed to produce a new political system.
The Protectorate state that emerged from that failure was never really implemented as designed.
Parliament, always imagined as a key component of the Protectorate, proved unwilling to
cooperate, necessitating another constitutional adaptation, the rule of the Major Generals. When
Cromwell tried a second time to reconcile Parliament to the regime, the result was
yet another constitutional adjustment laid out in the Humble Petition and Advice, but that
one proved as ineffective as all the others when the restored Upper House failed to
make Parliament any more compliant. Cromwell's tenure as Lord Protector saw a near constant
search for a political system that would deliver his goal of stability and independent religion.
Each attempt that failed alienated a fresh set of allies and made the next
project that much more unlikely to succeed. Cromwell may have been more pragmatic than
his rivals. But that pragmatism again and again failed to deliver, which leads
into another angle from which to approach. Cromwell was the protectorate. He had
constructed a viable, long term state to let the cat out of the bag
of it. The whole system didn't long outlive the Lord protector, but is
there a case to be made that it might have done so had Cromwell lived
a bit longer. You may recall a similar argument about Charles the First's unparliamentary
regime of the sixteen thirties. Sure it was a bit of a model,
but had Charles not stumbled into his Scottish War, perhaps the project could have
worked. Every year that passed without a parliament made the institution less and less
relevant back then, I believe. I mentioned that some historians raised a similar
point about the sixteenth century. The reason Queen Elizabeth's Church prevailed rather than her
half brother Edward's radical Protestant program or her half sister Mary's Catholic restoration was that
she lived to sit on the throne for decades, whereas they died after brief
reigns. Could the same be applied to all of a Cromwell's Protectorate. Had
he lived, say ten more years to the age of seventy, would that
have been enough to lock England into a future without the monarchy. I do
enjoy a good counterfactual, and I'm certainly no fan of inevitability in history,
but on this one, I'd probably have to lean against that outcome. As
the whirlwind history of the Protectorate had just laid out guests, Cromwell was hardly
succeeding in laying the groundwork for durable state institutions. The Protectorate was in a
constant state of flux, as new ideas and institutions were abandoned almost as fast
as they had been adopted. Certainly, lasting political systems have emerged out of
such periods of turmoil. The early history of the United States might be an
example, though I'll leave that to people more knowledgeable on the topic than me.
But if Cromwell was finding his way towards a more lasting constitution for England,
there seems to be little evidence of it in sixteen fifty eight. And
finally, any assessment of all of Cromwell's life would be incomplete without a trip
to Ireland. For how closely. Cromwell is associated with Ireland in popular consciousness.
It's remarkable how a little time he spent there. He landed with his
army in August sixteen forty nine, and after a whirlwind campaign, left for
England soon after the fall of Clommel in May sixteen fifty. But to be
fair, in those ten months he perpetrated two of the most notorious massacres of
the Irish Wars, the sacking of Drahada and Wexford. At Drahda, Cromwell
felt he was operating within the rules of warfare, albeit at their most brutal
extreme. Wexford was a bit more complicated, as negotiations for surrender were ongoing,
putting the impromptu assault on the town and subsequent atrocities in a gray area.
It's also worth noting that Cromwell wasn't the only general to endorse the killing
of enemies after their surrender, or even civilians. There were massacres in Ireland
before Cromwell arrived and after he left, most notably those perpetrated by Lord Inchiquin,
who won the well deserved moniker the Butcher of Cashell. But we in
the twenty first century aren't obligated to judge Cromwell's solely by the standards of seventeenth
century rules of war. Neither did Cromwell's influence in Ireland, and when he
returned to England, the actions of Henry Ireton, who managed the Irish War
in Cromwell's absence, cannot be so easily separated from his father in law and
mentor. Ireton's Irish campaign turned into a prolonged and bloody counter insurrection. Historians
estimate that between the Irish rebellion of sixteen forty one and the victory of the
Commonwealth regime in sixteen fifty three, ten percent of Ireland's population died to the
war, roughly two hundred thousand people. Much of that devastation predated the arrival
of Oliver Cromwell, but there's every reason to believe that the final years of
the war were the bloodiest, and Cromwell, whether directly involved or not,
bears much of that responsibility. Cromwell's legacy in Ireland after the war is a
bit more complicated. The Act of Settlement, which authorized the forced migration and
dispossession of Ireland's Catholic population, was produced by the rump Parliament before the height
of Cromwell's political power at Westminster, and the implementation of that legislation was somewhat
moderated by Henry Cromwell, the Lord Protector's son and primary political agent in Dublin.
Which isn't to say that Cromwell had any sympathy for Catholics or the Irish
people, but rather that the old family tradition of pragmatism was at play.
For various reasons, the Cromwell father and son duo opposed the hardlined Baptist faction
in Ireland, who pushed for the most comprehensive interpretation possible of the active settlement.
Of course, there's little reason to think that Irish Catholics wouldever be inclined
to thank the Cromwell's for overseeing a repress and murderous regime that was just a
little less oppressive and murderous than the alternative. But it's perhaps worth complicating Cromwell's
legacy by noting that hatred of Irish Catholics was a feature of just about every
faction in English politics. Once again, in terms of popular memory of a
confused and violent period in English history, Cromwell acts as a useful stand in
which isn't to say that he deserves our sympathy. By perhaps it's a helpful
reminder that while making him the villain of the mid seventeenth century makes sense of
a complex historical moment, it can let other figures, ideas, or social
trends off the hook. The people of Ireland didn't so much of a Cromwell
problem as much as they had an English problem. To return to the more
material realm, historians believe Cromwell died of blood poisoning due to an infection caused
by a kidney stone. His health had been in steep decline over the summer
of sixteen fifty eight, and in the days before his death he was weakened
by a bout of malarial fever, an affliction that had periodically incapacitated him since
the sixteen thirties. Cromwell's declining health over a period of weeks punctuated by periods
of apparent recovery, produced a degree of anxiety within the Protectorate government. The
succession had always been a key problem within the various constitutions that regulated the regime.
John Lambert's instrument of government, the original rule Book, had created the
Lord Protector as a lifetime office. On the death of the old Lord Protector,
a new one would be elected by the Council of State. However,
that elective system was tossed out and replaced in the constitutional reforms of the Humble
Petition and Advice. As you may recall, Cromwell had secured a whole host
of concessions from parliament men eager to have him take the crown and become a
king. In the end, the Lord Protector refused the royal title, but
he did a crew plenty of new powers as a result of the negotiations.
One of them was the ability to unilaterally name his successor. At the time
of his final illness, Cromwell had not yet done so, but there were
signs that he had a successor in mind, his oldest surviving son, Richard.
Now we've met Cromwell's younger son, Henry, but Richard has not really
made an impression on the podcast so far, and really he hadn't made much
of an impression on England either. Like his brothers, Richard had served in
Parliament's army during the Civil War, but hadn't done much to distinguish himself in
battle. After the war, he wasn't especially active in politics. Richard took
little interest in religion or the other national issues of the day, instead settling
down to the life of a country gentleman in Hampshire. But he wasn't hugely
successful at that either, and after a few poor business decisions he had to
call on his father to bail him out. His life began to change though,
in the Protectorate era. At the age of twenty eight, Richard was
elected to sit in the first Protectorate Parliament, and in the second Parliament took
on a greater role in some key committees. Although he was hardly a prominent
leader of Westminster, it seemed clear that he was being groomed for some kind
of role in the family business. John Thurlow would later claim that Albert Cromwell
intended to name Richard his successor as early as the spring of sixteen fifty seven,
more than a year before his death. The evidence was a sealed letter
Thurlough kept in his office, though he never produced it and has since disappeared
if it ever existed. The first reliable evidence we have that Richard was destined
to be the next Lord Protector came from his father's deathbed. On the thirtieth
of August sixteen fifty eight, the Lord Protector informed the Council of State that
he would be succeeded by his son, Richard. For the moment, this
was just an informal expression of intent. It wasn't yet clear that Cromwell's illness
would be fatal, and so there would be plenty of time to draw up
the paperwork in the future. When Cromwell's health seemed to suddenly improve the next
day, any sense of urgency dissipated. But suddenly he took a turn for
the worse. On the second of September, it was clear that Cromwell was
at death's door. When the Council once again assembled at his bedside, he
was unable to speak. When asked to confirm his choice of Richard, Cromwell
could only nod. The events surrounding Cromwell's death, which came the following night,
had the potential to create a succession crisis. It seemed fairly clear that
Cromwell intended Richard to be a successor, which, by the terms of the
Constitution, was all that mattered. But there were three factors that could potentially
undermine any smooth transfer of power. First was the irregular nature of Cromwell's decision.
As a technical matter, you could argue that Richard had never been formally
designated the successor. An informal expression of intent and a non verbal confirmation from
a man on the edge of death were hardly legally binding. If someone chose
to contest Richard's claim, the legal hurdles wouldn't be difficult to surmount. The
second issue was the constitution itself. How definitive could the rules on succession be
when those rules seemed to change every few months. This wasn't the royal line
of succession buttressed by centuries of tradition and custom. Really, the men surrounding
Cromwell at the top of the protectorate state had built their careers on reshaping the
rules of the game to match the political reality of the moment. If the
future of England was at stake, the humble pedition and advice would be treated
with the same sacred awe as the instrument of government, the nominated Assembly,
or all the other institutions that had been tossed aside in the name of expediency.
Finally, there was Richard himself. He was not likely to be an
obstacle to anyone attempting to usurp his power. Although he had been taking a
larger role in politics recently and was promoted to the Other House beginning of the
year, no one saw him as a major player in his own right.
If heavy weights like John Lambert or John Desbroo contemplated seizing power for themselves,
the fear that Richard Cromwell would oppose them was likely pretty low on their list
of concerns, which leads to one of the enduring questions surrounding Richard Cromwell.
Why him? Why did Oliver Cromwell select his rather unimpressive eldest son to be
his successor. The obvious answer is that, despite his rejection of a kingly
title, Cromwell hoped to establish a royal lineage in all but name. Personally,
I'm inclined to think that Henry Cromwell would have been a much better choice.
Henry was still in Ireland at the time, now elevated to the office
of Lord Lieutenant as Charles Fleetwood's nominal position in Irish government had timed out.
The consensus of historians, however, seems to be that as a younger son,
Henry was unsuitable, and he still had reputation for making impetuous decisions.
But in the immediate term, Cromwell's choice worked out quite well, though likely
not in the way he had intended. Despite the weakness of Richard's claim from
both technical and personal standpoint, the transition between Lord Protectors went seamlessly. No
one within the Protectorate leadership challenged Richard's authority. In fact, for a government
that had been riven by internal factions for almost two years, the whole process
was eerily peaceful. Army leadership accepted the new Lord Protector without reservations, as
did the Scottish administration, over which George Monk now exercised direct control. Meanwhile,
in Dublin, Henry Cromwell held more control than ever over the state apparatus
and had little incentive to contest his brother's elevation. It's possible that Richard was
seen as easier to work with than his father. He was less devoted to
the moral and religious reform that preoccupied the old Lord Protector, a welcome change
for the more conservative men who had championed the humble petition and advice. The
general acceptance of Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector should not, however, be taken
as a sign that he enjoyed the same respect his father had, or that
the factional battles within the protectorate state had subsided. Instead, it's likely that
multiple factions and players saw Richard as a weak ruler who might be easily manipulated
to serve their interests. In terms of personality, Richard could not have been
more unlike his father. People actually enjoyed his company, and he inspired almost
no personal animosity. Most of the criticisms leveled against him pointed to his naivete
or an inborn gentleness that left him unsuited for politics, though some historians believe
Richard may have been a more skilled politician than had appeared. He had an
ability to disarm audiences with self deprecating humor. But if Richard did have certain
political skills, they were too subtle for most of his contemporaries to recognize or
respect. Within the army, Richard Cromwell was condescendingly known as the young Gentleman,
and while Monk's growing independent influence in Scotland was being used to support the
regime, now there were suspicions that the General wasn't doing so out of devotion
to the Cromwell name. If multiple groups welcomed Richard as a pawn who could
be used to their advantage, eventually someone would end up disappointed when someone else
started moving him around the board. Sure Enough, it didn't take long for
the factional battles of the old administration to re emerge. Will be once again
to the shorthand historians used for the two rival groups that dominated the upper echelons
of the protector at State, the Civilian Faction and the Army Faction. The
labels don't necessarily denote the profession of those involved. In fact, several prominent
members of the Civilian faction were themselves army officers. Rather than names, point
to diverging visions for Britain's future. Another way of thinking of the split is
as the manifestation of all Cromwell's long running internal conflict. The Army faction represented
his desire for godliness, while the Civilian faction represented his desire for a pragmatic,
conservative social order. The Army faction was led by Richard Cromwell's in laws,
John desbro and Charles Fleetwood. They advocated for the army to continue playing
a prominent role in politics. You may recall that during the second Protector at
Parliament, desbro had called for new taxes to provide permanent funding for the major
general system. The army men also pushed for a continuation of the moral and
religious reform that had been such an important component of major general responsibilities. The
civilian faction, on the other hand, argued a kind of conservative normalcy.
They had been the guys who drafted the humble petition and advice that moved the
Constitution towards something that in some ways resembled the old monarchy. Future stability could
only come through broadening the support the regime enjoyed. Army taxes and hectoring religious
policy would only divide England, not united. Membership in the Civilian faction tended
to be a mix of traditional constitutionalists like Bustrode Whitelock and pragmatic politicians like John
Thurlow, Henry Cromwell or his ally Roger Boyle. The latter pair bring out
another element of the Civilian party their British presence. Henry Cromwell exerted influence from
Dublin, and Boyle had a foot both in Ireland, where he was from
and Scotland, where he was heavily involved in state administration. For the most
part, the Civilian faction advocated reconciliation with groups the regime had alienated over the
years, especially Presbyterians and other traditional elites. This usually conflicted with the Army
factions, desired to maintain a hard line on their religious and ideological principles.
The first battleground the new administration was the Council of State. The Civilian faction
won an early victory by getting Richard to support new additions to the council,
most notably his brother Henry and Roger Boyle, but their Army faction rivals complained
that by the terms of the constitution, such appointments had to be approved by
the existing council. Mobilizing their power there, they effectively blocked the appointments.
Within days, the Army faction presented its own case to fill the vacancies in
the council. Charles Fleetwood presented his brother in law, Richard Cromwell, a
petition signed by more than two hundred army officers. The document proclaimed their loyalty
to the new Lord Protector, with the somewhat ominous caveat that they trusted he
was a friend to the godly army. The petition further urged the Lord Protector
to appoint only godly men to the Council. In fact, the phrase Fleetwood's
petition used was men who supported the Good Old Cause. The term was quickly
spreading through the army like a meme, and carried with it significant political meaning.
Like all good political slogans, the Good Old Cause was somewhat vague.
Broadly speaking, had represented the goals and aspirations the new model Army had fought
for. What precisely those aspirations were were left to the individual soldier to imagine.
For some it might have been religious freedom, for others liberty of a
more political nature. What was clear was that a group of self interested powerbrokers
were looking to sell out the Good Old Cause and betray everything the army had
led for. Fleetwood and his ally John desbro were playing with dangerous populist resentments
within the army, and as it turned out, neither of them had the
political skill to manipulate those resentments safely, nor did they hold trademark rights on
the Good Old Cause. The phrase was used liberally in the press by any
number of factions, some more organized than others. Perhaps the most influential custodian
of the phrase was Henry Vane. As we've seen ever since, Oliver Cromwell
exiled Vane from power in the wake of the Rump dissolution, he had sniped
at the Protectorate regime as an outsider. His accusations of the current regime betraying
the cause were more convincing than those of men like Fleetwood, who had long
stood by his father in law Oliver Cromwell. While the Protectorate leadership bickered,
Vain refined his earlier program of godly republicanism into a fairly coherent expression of the
good Old Cause. Under these circumstances, it was only a matter of time
before Fleetwood and desbro lost control of the situation, which they did in early
October, barely a month after Oliver Cromwell's death, a group of junior officers,
spurred on by a desire to defend the good Old Cause, produced a
new petition. This one demanded that Richard Cromwell surrender his position as commander in
chief in the army and passed it to Fleetwood. On the surface, this
made a certain degree of sense, Although the office of Lord Protector included the
role of commander of the army, Richard Cromwell had very little military experience,
why not pass his duties after a veteran soldier like his brother in law Fleetwood.
But this was far more than a mere shuffling of titles. The petition
called for the new Commander in Chief to have absolute authority over the army,
without any interference from the Lord Protector, Parliament, or the Council of State.
Fleetwood would be in control of all officer appointments and dismissals. Officers could
only be removed by word of the Commander in Chief or by court martial.
In other words, the army would become an entirely separate political institution, a
fourth pillar of the state, joining the Lord Protector, the Council of State
and Parliament. This was an opportunity for Fleetwood, and one he likely relished,
but the move was instigated by junior officers beyond his control. It wasn't
clear where all this would end, or whether Fleetwood would be able to tame
the anxieties of the officer corps once he was in power, though for the
moment that hypothetical was moot. The Lord protector held firm. On the eighteenth
of October, Cromwell delivered a speech intended to placate the army, drafted by
John Thurlow. The key element to the speech was a compromise. Fleetwood would
be named Lieutenant General of the Land Forces in charge of England's armies, but
Cromwell would retain his role as Commander in chief. To do otherwise would be
to violate the Constitution. He did, however, promise to consult Fleetwood on
all appointments and dismissals. For now, it was enough to force Fleetwood to
back down lest he looked on reasonable and greedy for power. But just a
few weeks into Richard Cromwell's reign, the protectorates state seemed wobbly. Even if
Fleetwood was willing to accept Cromwell's compromise, many of the junior officers who had
drafted the petition were not. In the following days and weeks, numerous junior
officers denounced their superiors for not being forward enough. In the good old cause
Fleetwood and desbro didn't so much look like leaders as figureheads for army sentiment who
could be easily tossed aside. If they continued to waver, one false move
could spark coup or even a civil war, and the greatest challenge was yet
to come. Before his death, Oliver Cromwell had been drawing up plans for
another parliament. Money was needed to continue the war on the continent, and
the ongoing crisis in Denmark threatened to be expensive as well. Even if England
could manage to stay out of the Northern War, funds had to be raised
to keep the navy stationed in the region. Without the presence of English warships,
the Protectorate's diplomatic leverage in the Northern theater would disappear. The need for
money had not gone away with the change in law Protector If anything, Richard
needed a parliament even more than Oliver. The new constitution created by the humble
petition and advice was no more secure than the last one. In fact,
it was even less secure now that an untested and unfamiliar Richard Cromwell sat a
topic. Only parliament could deliver an unambiguous vote of confidence for the new regime.
But while it was obvious to everyone that a new parliament was necessary,
few were enthusiastic about the prospect. The army faction worried about losing their influence
once a new session convened. At Westminster. They had a brief window where
soldiers were the only thing keeping Cromwell in power. That was leverage that might
be lost once a new parliament was seated if past elections were any indication the
Good Old Cause that the Army champion was not a winner at the polls.
Meanwhile, the civilian faction was reluctant to call a parliament too. Many of
them were the same men who had crafted the Humble Petition and Advice, a
controversial program they had pushed through a purged and divided parliament. It was a
troubling dilemma. Their beloved Constitution required a parliament to be completed, but would
it survive scrutiny at Westminster. Indecision and animosity paralyzed the Protectorate state through the
fall and into December. Frustrated army officers began holding weekly meetings every Friday at
Saint James's Palace, looking an awful lot like a shadow government ready to immediately
step into power after a coup. One of the most frequently discussed demands was
a reinstatement of officers who had been purged by Oliver Cromwell over the years.
Most alarmingly, that included Thomas Harrison, the influential Fifth Monarchist, and John
Lambert, who had been banished from government for his refusal to recognize the Humble
Petition and Advice which had superseded his instrument of government. There's some speculation among
historians that John Lambert was himself behind this agitation, seeing Richard Cromwell's unsettled position
as an opportunity to return to the center of events. Meanwhile, the civilian
faction attempted to consolidate their position, and another rumor surface that Roger Boyle would
be appointed to the Council of State, but this only sparked fresh rounds of
heated rhetoric among the officers, and the idea was quickly abandoned. The most
explosive incident, however, involved Edward Montagu, who he met previously as Robert
Blake, second in command of the Navy when all the Cromwell died. Montagu
had been commanding the English fleet that was coordinating with English and French land forces
in the Spanish Netherlands. He was a close ally of the late Lord Protector
and rushed home to ensure power passed smoothly to Oliver's chosen successor, Richard.
Significantly, Montagu had also aligned with men like Boyle, Whitelocke and Thurlow during
the debates on the Humble Petition and Advice. The nucleus of the Civilian faction.
For men like Fleetwood, Montagu was dangerous. With the death of Robert
Blake, he was the new top man in the Navy. What's more,
before becoming a general at sea, Montagu had a long career in the New
Model Army. If the Civilian faction were to make a move on their rivals
in the army, Montagu would likely play a key role in securing the loyalty
of the military. The leaders of the Army faction were therefore alarmed when in
December sixteen fifty eight, the Lord Protector assigned Montague command of a regiment in
the army, this while he still remained the commander of the nation's navy.
Not only did this violate Cromwell's promise to take Fleetwood's advice on all army appointments,
but it seemed to expose the Army faction to danger at a raucous meeting
of the Council of State. John desbro accused Montagu of engineering a plot to
arrest or even kill himself and his ally Charles Fleetwood. But despite the growing
civil war at the top of the Protectorate state, a parliament could not be
put off any longer. The treasury faced a whopping two million pounds of debt
and the real possibility of having to pay for two wars in the coming year.
The elections held at the end of sixteen fifty eight saw none of the
organized management that marked these elections for Cromwell's second Protectorate Parliament. As you recall,
back then, the major generals had used their influence to return as many
government friendly candidates as possible. The results had been underwhelming. The divided and
disorganized administration of Richard Cromwell's Protectorate had no hope of matching even that modest achievement.
When the Parliament opened on the twenty seventh of January sixteen fifty nine,
more than half of its members were sitting at Westminster for the first time.
It was a young co whose political loyalties were virtually unknown. Even worse for
the government, the loyalties of some of the more experienced members were all too
obvious. Once again, Arthur Hesselrigg and his ally Thomas Scott won seats,
and this time Oliver Cromwell wasn't there to bar them from sitting. In fact,
the reverse was true. When Richard Cromwell visited Westminster to open the Parliament,
more than one hundred and fifty members refused to attend his speech. For
most, this was a symbolic rejection of the constitution created by the humble Petition
and advice. The Lord Protector's opening was to be attended by both the House
of Commons and the other house, the quasi House of Lords, created a
year earlier. Many of the elected members did not recognize the existence of that
institution and so refused to sit with them in a formal setting. Others had
a more alarming reason to stay away. They refused to recognize the legality of
the entire protectorate system, which, as far as they were concerned, had
never been formalized in a free parliament. But while this was undoubtedly a major
blow to an administration that was already weak and divided, the opposition was hardly
unified itself. Numerous factions vied for the support of a large body of uncommitted
members. Henry Vane hosted daily strategy sessions for his circle of Godly Republicans.
Through back channels, they approached dissident army officers and longtime critics of the Protectorate.
Meanwhile, Arthur Hasselrigg tried to mobilize support for his claim that the Rump
Parliament had been the last legitimate institution in English politics. John Thurlow, representing
the Protectorate State, tried to bring some order to the chaos. Just days
into the session, he introduced the first concrete bill. Thurlow proposed that Parliament
formally approved the humble Petition and Advice and confirmed the Protectorate system of ground rules
too, at the very least, lend some structure to their work. This
was an effective tactical move, as neither Vain nor Hasselerigg had built a coalition
they had any confidence in. Yet Hasselerigg and his allies certainly opposed the measure,
but their immediate goal was to delay any decision rather than vote against Thurlow's
bill. They needed more time to build a party. After three weeks of
confused debate, the Commons passed a compromise bill on the nineteenth of February.
The Humble Petition and Advice and the Protectorate system would set the rules for their
work, but Hasselrigg managed to attach a caveat the Commons retained the prerogative to
limit the lower Protector's power and extend that of the House to what degree was
left conveniently vague. Even so, it was more than a month before the
Commons could be brought to grudgingly recognize the existence of the other house. Only
at the end of March that the two houses of Parliament opened lines of official
communication between each other. The first Parliament of Richard Cromwell's Protectorate set a record
for gridlock that surpassed anything in the previous fifteen years at Westminster, an impressive
feat. Both the Government and the House of Commons were internally divided, and
a significant group at Westminster saw the entire enterprise as illegitimate for them. The
stalemate was deliberate paralyzed by a campaign of obstructionism. It was only a matter
of time before the wobbly protectorate regime crumbled. In fact, multiple parties,
both inside and outside of government, had already lost faith in Richard Cromwell as
a political leader. Any pretense of fixing the regime was abandoned. Next time
will watch as the vultures began to circle, waiting for their opportunity.