Cromwell's Upper House

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The Other House (also referred to as the Upper House or House of Peers), established by Oliver Cromwell under the terms of the Humble Petition and Advice, was one of the two chambers of the Parliaments that ruled England, Scotland and Ireland in 1658 and 1659, the final years of the Protectorate.

Previously under the Commonwealth and Protectorate, parliaments had consisted of a single chamber, the House of Commons, since the abolition of the House of Lords on 19 March 1649. However, the constitution established by the Humble Petition and Advice in 1657 authorised the Lord Protector to establish an Upper House of between forty and seventy members, nominated by the Protector but approved by Parliament; the new House was to have the power to veto any legislation passed in the Lower House, and no vacancy caused by the death of its original members could be filled up except by the Upper House’s own consent.

The Other House was first called to sit in the second session of the Second Protectorate Parliament, opening on 20 January 1658. Cromwell summoned 61 members to form the new House. They included: seven peers who would have sat in the House of Lords if it still existed, and other baronets and gentlemen of old family and fortune; Cromwell’s two sons, Richard and Henry; several of the leading members of his council, and the chief officers of his army; some of the old members of the long parliament; and a few other distinguished lawyers and civilians. However, a number of these refused to take their places. The innovation was unpopular with the more extreme republicans, who saw in it a potential re-establishment of an aristocratic class; their fears were doubtless stoked by Cromwell’s opening address to the two houses, which he began with the traditional introduction “My Lords, and gentlemen of the House of Commons”. But some of the old peers also found its egalitarian composition an insult to their lineage. The Earl of Warwick, previously supportive of Cromwell, was recorded as saying that "He could not sit in the same assembly with Colonel Hewson, who had been a shoe-maker, and Colonel Pride, who had been a drayman". Only 42 of those summoned accepted (including only one of the old peers); one, Sir Arthur Haselrig, defiantly took up his seat in the House of Commons.

The establishment of the Other House exacerbated the political difficulties faced by Cromwell. In the first session of the Second Protectorate Parliament, 93 MPs judged as “ungodly” (in other words, opposed to the Protectorate regime) had been prevented from taking their seats by order of the Army. But the Humble Petition and Advice had re-established that only Parliament itself could prevent its members from sitting, and the 93 could no longer be excluded. Thus Cromwell was faced with an influx of fractious and rebellious members into the previously manageable Commons, most of whom were opposed to the new Upper House as well as to many other aspects of Cromwell’s rule. The transfer at the same time of several dozen of the most loyal and most capable members to the second house ensured deadlock. Led by Haselrig and Thomas Scot, the Commons refused to acknowledge the Other House; meanwhile, the republicans negotiated with religious radicals to prepare a petition calling for the abandonment of the Upper House, as well as a guarantee of religious toleration and - to enlist the support of discontented officers - an undertaking that no soldier could be cashiered from the army without a court martial. Copies of the petition were circulated in London and are said to have gathered thousands of signatures. Cromwell was forced to dissolve Parliament within a fortnight, on 4 February 1658.

The Other House sat once more, as part of the Third Protectorate Parliament summoned by Richard Cromwell after his father’s death, which met on 27 January 1659. Once again, arguments over the Upper House dominated the business of the Commons. The Commons agreed to the general principle that there should be a second chamber of Parliament, but heated debates continued for several weeks regarding its composition, with strong objections to the number of army officers presently sitting and demands that members of the traditional aristocracy who had been faithful to Parliament should be re-admitted. Eventually, the Commons voted by a narrow majority to recognise the Upper House; but a few weeks later an effective coup d’etat by the army leaders saw the Parliament dismissed and the Rump of the Long Parliament House of Commons restored to power without a second chamber to restrain it.

[edit] Members

The 61 members summoned by the Lord Protector to form the Other House were:

Peers who had previously sat in the House of Lords

Peer who had succeeded too late to sit in the House of Lords

  • The Lord Eure, MP for the North Riding of Yorkshire

Scottish and Irish peers

Heir to a peer

Commoners

[edit] References

  • Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
  • Daniel Wilson: Oliver Cromwell And The Protectorate (London & Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1848)
  • This article incorporates text under a Creative Commons License by David Plant, the British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk