Cromwell storms into Parliament, declares 'you are no parliament,' and orders soldiers to clear the chamber.
The History of England is a long-running narrative history podcast covering English history from Anglo-Saxon times. Episode 417 continues the Commonwealth period, picking up where the previous episode left off with a review of military successes in Ireland, Scotland, and the Dutch Wars. The episode argues that despite this military competence, the Commonwealth had largely failed to deliver social reform. Moral reforms were divisive and intrusive. Taxation remained high. Without elections, the Rump Parliament appeared to be perpetuating its own power indefinitely. Newsbooks — early newspapers — consistently accused the Rump of corruption and pocketing the lands and wealth confiscated from royalists. Crowther notes that historian Blair Worden argues this perception was largely false: factional competition was so intense that every land transfer was litigated and scrutinised by political opponents. But the perception of corruption, anchored by a few real examples — notably the parliamentarian Arthur Haselrigg — was damaging enough to undermine the regime's moral authority. Crowther quotes Gerrard Winstanley's famous accusation that Parliament had killed the king not to build a better world but to seize power for itself, comparing the act to a thief killing a man for his money. Cromwell's position is examined carefully: he was clearly the most powerful individual in the country, recipient of a Milton sonnet calling him the Lord General and chief of men, and re-elected to the Council of State with the most votes. But Crowther stresses that Cromwell was still first among equals, could lose arguments in council, and did not expect remuneration proportionate to a head of state. He was reluctant about the Dutch war. The episode situates these tensions as the prelude to Cromwell's eventual forcible dissolution of the Rump, which will come in a future episode.
