This was the question posed by Derek Hirst as part of his important study of representation in early Stuart England. His answer, after a detailed investigation of the surviving evidence, was that the relationship between members of Parliament and their constituents was growing ever closer in the early seventeenth century. Indeed, at the beginning of the Long Parliament, ‘to many both in Parliament and country … the people were no longer merely to be governed, but they were to act in partnership with their representatives in the House’. Despite Hirst's optimistic prognosis, this situation was eminently reversible. The experience of the Civil Wars, purges of Parliament, the execution of the King, and the repeated forced dissolutions of Parliament all had the potential to erode that ‘partnership’. The Protectorate itself could be seen to mark another stage in that process of erosion. In chapters 3 and 4, we saw the way in which elections were managed, with varying degrees of success, the extent to which changes to the constituencies, the new franchise, and the qualifications demanded of voters influenced the make-up of the Protectorate Parliaments, and how exclusions moulded the Commons in 1654 and 1656, creating what some contemporaries viewed as ‘forced’ Parliaments.

To his highness the Lord Protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

The humble Remonstrance of the knights, citizens and burgesses now assembled in the Parliament of this commonwealth.

We, the knights, citizens and burgesses in this present Parliament assembled, taking into our most serious consideration the present estate of these three nations, joined and united under your highness's protection, cannot but in the first place with all thankfulness acknowledge the wonderful mercy of Almighty God in delivering us from that tyranny and bondage, both in our spiritual and civil concernments, which the late king and his party designed to bring us under, and pursued the effecting thereof by a long and bloody war, and also it hath pleased the same gracious God to preserve your person in many battles, to make you an instrument for preserving our peace, although environed with enemies abroad and filled with turbulent, restless and unquiet spirits in our own bowels. And we have great cause to hope that as the Lord hath used you so eminently in treading down our enemies and restoring us to peace and tranquillity, so also that he will further use you in the settling and securing our liberties, both as we are men and Christians, which are those innate and glorious ends which the good people of these nations have so freely, with the hazard of their lives and estates in a two years' war, so earnestly contended for.

It is ironic that historians have tended to neglect the constitutions that framed the Protectorate, and dominated its Parliaments. There were in fact six different constitutional documents considered between 1653 and 1657: the Instrument of Government that established the Protectorate in December 1653; the failed Parliamentary Constitution (or ‘government bill’) of 1654–5; the monarchical Remonstrance introduced on 23 February 1657; the Humble Petition and Advice which replaced it on 31 March, and was itself turned into a Protectoral constitution on 25 May (which passed into law on 26 June); and finally the explanatory Additional Petition and Advice presented to Cromwell at the end of June, as a companion to the Humble Petition. Of these, only the Instrument has been thoroughly examined by modern historians, and the most detailed studies of the Parliamentary Constitution and the Humble Petition remain those of S. R. Gardiner and C. H. Firth, published over a century ago, as more recent students have concentrated on politics rather than constitutional affairs. Even the most basic requirement for a study of these constitutions – the availability of definitive printed texts of the original proposals – has not been met in two of the six cases: those of the Remonstrance and the monarchical version of the Humble Petition. The resolution of this textual ambiguity is the first task of this chapter.

Richard Cromwell's relationship with Parliaments inevitably stands in marked contrast to his father's relationship with them. Lord Protector for less than nine months compared to nearly five years, Richard's only Parliament consisted of a single session lasting less than three months. Furthermore, although Richard had been a member of both the first and second Protectorate Parliaments, he lacked the extended parliamentary experience that helps to set his father's handling of his Parliaments within a much longer context. Nevertheless, Richard's relations with Parliament deserve to be examined in their own right as an integral part of the parliamentary and political history of the Protectorate, and not merely to be seen as a codicil to the story told in chapter 6. This chapter will consider Richard's early career and parliamentary experience, and explore the development of his political and religious attitudes as reflected principally in his surviving speeches and correspondence. We will then turn to examine his relationship with the third Protectorate Parliament in 1659, and the reasons why that Parliament ultimately collapsed.

RICHARD CROMWELL'S EARLY CAREER

Richard was one month short of his 32nd birthday when he was proclaimed Lord Protector. Born on 4 October 1626, he was the third son of Oliver Cromwell and Elizabeth Bourchier. He was educated at Felsted School, probably served briefly in the Parliamentarian armies during 1647, and was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn on 27 May 1647.

Over fifty years have passed since Hugh Trevor-Roper wrote his controversial assessment of the politics of the Protectorate Parliaments. His primary concern was to explain how Oliver Cromwell failed to get what he wanted from the Parliaments that sat in 1654 and 1656; but he was also interested in the nature of parliamentary management. His conclusions on Cromwell are well known, and provocative:

According to Trevor-Roper, the corollary of this ‘vacuum of leadership’ at the centre was that the Protectorate Parliaments were beset by factionalism, with the ‘country’ party (led by ‘Presbyterian’ veterans from the 1640s) opposing the ‘courtiers’ in 1654–5, and the ‘kingship’ party in 1656–7 trying to foist a new monarchical constitution on Cromwell. The rejection of the crown gave power instead into the hands of the army, and this, together with the return of a republican caucus to Parliament in 1658 and 1659, brought chaos, and the ineffectual Richard Cromwell was forced to dissolve Parliament and resign as Protector.