Cromwell's Other House

During the Rule of the Major-Generals and the selection of members for the Second Protectorate Parliament there was a firming of opinion that a second chamber was needed.[1]

During the debate over the Humble Petition and Advice, the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, and others wanted an upper chamber as a check on the power of the Lower House because he had found it difficult to control over the Naylor case. He pushed for a second chamber which would consist of nominated members who, in Thurloe's words, would be "a great security and a bulwark to the common interest".[2] On 11 March 1656 the House of Commons passed a bill creating a second house which would consist of up to 70 members nominated by the Lord Protector.[2]

On 6 May 1656 Cromwell rejected the title of King as proposed in the draft version of the Humble Petition, but accepted a reworded Humble Petition on 25 May. It included provisions for him as Lord Protector, tri-annual parliaments and an Other House of 40 to 70 members nominated for life by the Lord Protector, with a quorum of 21. Thus the second house became a fixture of the Protectorate, cemented in place by the Humble Petition and Advice, a new written constitution.[lower-alpha 1][3]

The Judges of the Upper Bench, who at this time were Warburton and Newdigate; of the Common Bench, Atkins, Hale, and Wyndham; with Barons of the Exchequer, Nicholas, Parker and Hill, were summoned as assistants to the second chamber.[4][lower-alpha 2]

All the peers but one (Lord Eure) summoned to attend this second chamber declined to sit, and to show his contempt for them, Sir Arthur Hesilrige took his seat in the Commons as member for Leicester.[4] So, filling the second house proved more difficult than creating it. Of the 63 nominees only 42 accepted and only 37 came to the first meeting.[5]

Matters were made worse when Parliament reconvened on 20 January 1658. Republicans in the lower house attempted to kill off the second house before a name for the chamber had been decided upon. After five days of debate with no agreement on whether it should be called the 'House of Lords' or the 'Other House', Cromwell addressed both houses warning them that such disagreements encouraged Royalists and threatened the country with a new civil war. Parliament was in no mood to heed his warning and continued to disagree among themselves, so on 4 February 1658 Cromwell dissolved Parliament.[6]

After Oliver Cromwell's death in September 1658, those in the funeral procession who had noble titles under the ancient regime were so called (for example Edward, Earl of Manchester); those who had sat in Cromwell's Other House were called lord (for example Philip, Lord Skipton), but those such as "George Monck, General in Scotland", who had not taken up their seats in the Other House, were not referred to as lord.[7][8]

The Third Protectorate Parliament (27 January 1659 – 22 April 1659) included a second chamber, but republicans in the House of Commons treated it with suspicion as they considered some of the members to be Presbyterians and closet Royalists. Parliament was soon deadlocked and was dissolved by Richard Cromwell, the new Lord Protector, on the advice of the Army, when it became clear that the Commons was seeking ways to disband the Army.[9] With that dissolution the Other House, that had come into existence in 1656, never reconvened.

Oliver, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the Domynions and Territories thereunto belonging. To our trusty and wellbeloved Sonne Lord Richard Cromwell, Greeting.—— Whereas by the advise and assent of our Councell for certain greate and weighty affaires concerning toe the state and defence of the saide Comonwealth, We ordayned our present parliament to be held at our City of Westminster, the seventeenth day of September, in the yeare of our Lorde one thousand six hundred fiftie and six, and there to consult and advise with the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of our said comonwealth, which Parliament was then and there held, and continued until the six and twentieth day of June last past, and then Adjourned until the twentieth day of January now next coming: Therefore we command and firmely enjoyne you, that considering the difficultie of the said affaires and eminent dangers, all excuses being left aside, you be personally present att Weftminster aforesaid the said twentieth day of January next comeinge, there to treate, conferr, and give your advise with us and with the Greate Men and Nobles in and concerninge the affaires aforesaid. And this as you Love and Honor our safety and the defence of the commonwealth aforefaid, you shall in noe wise omitt. Witness ourselfe at Westminster, the nynth day of December, in the yeare of our Lord one thousand six hundred fifty and seaven.

Lett the like writts be directed to the respective persons under written, dated as aforefaid (to wit)[10][lower-alpha 3]

• Knights, baronets and peers of the Protectorate

• Cobbett, William, ed. (January 1808), Cobbett's parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest, in 1066 to the year, 1803: from which last-mentioned epoch it is continued downwards in the work entitled, "Cobbett's parliamentary debates", Volume 3 (Comprising the period from the Battle of Edge-Hill, in October 1642, to the restoration of Charles the Second, in April 1660), vol. 3, London: R. Bagshaw
• Craik, George Lillie; MacFarlane, Charles; Knight, Charles (1856), The Pictorial History of England: Being a History of the People as Well as a History of the Kingdom, vol. 3, W. and R. Chambers
• Forster, John (1846), The Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England: With a Treatise on the Popular Progress in English History, vol. 5, Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longmans
• Jenkins, Philip (2002), The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry 1640-1790, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-52194-9
• Lundy, Darryl (23 January 2011), John Kennedy, 6th Earl of Cassillis, The Peerage, p. 2426 § 24260
  • Cokayne, G.E.; et al. (2000), The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, vol. III (new, 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959); reprint in 6 volumes ed.), Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, p. 76.
• Noble, Mark (1787), Memoirs of the protectoral-house of Cromwell;: deduced from an early period, and continued down to the present time ... collected chiefly from original papers and records ... together with an appendix ... Embellished with elegant engravings, vol. I, Paternoster-Row, London: Robinson G. G. J. and Robinson J., pp. 370–427
• Royle, Trevor (2006) [2004], Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638-1660, Abacus, ISBN 978-0-349-11564-1
• Rutt, John Towill, ed. (1828), Diary, of Thomas Burton, Esq. Member in the Parliaments of Oliver and Richard Cromwell from 1656-59 ...: With an introduction containing an Account of the Parliament of 1654; from the Journal of Guibon Goddard, vol. II (IV volumes ed.), H. Colburn
• Walford, W. S. (1860), "Notice of the Roll of Arms belonging to Wilkinson Mathews esq. Q.C.", The Archaeological Journal, 17: 218–223

• Cokayne, George Edward, ed. (1916), "Appendix G", Complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct or dormant (Dacre to Dysart), vol. 4, London: The St. Catherine Press, ltd., pp. 585–648 A complete list of the members of the Other House with bibliographies.
• Oldys, William, ed. (1810), "A second narrative and the Oath", The Harleian Miscellany: A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining Pamphlets and Tracts, as Well in Manuscript as in Print, John White, and John Murray, Fleet-Street; and John Harding, St. James's-Street, pp. pp. 483–507 contemporary pamphlet written by a supporter of the Good Old Cause on the persons sitting in Cromwell's House of Lords.
• "Titles conferred by Cromwell (10 S. x. 49)", Notes and Queries, London: John C. Francis and J Edward Francis, 10: 112, July–December 1908
  • A list of these will be found in vol. ii. of Noble's Memoirs of the Protectorate House of Cromwell.
    • For an exhaustive list of Cromwell's "Other House" or "House of Lords" see G. E. C.'s Complete Peerage, vol. ii. pp. 84–9.
    • For full particulars of Cromwellian baronets see G. E. C.'s Complete Baronetage, vol. iii. pp. 3 to 9.
    • The knights made by both the Protectors, Oliver and Richard, are enumerated in William Arthur Shaw's Knights of England vol. ii. pp. 223–4.
  • — W.D. Pink, Lowton, Newton-le-Willows.
  • The MS. Journal of the Protectorate House of Lords, in possession of the late Sir Richard Tangye, was published this year for the first time in The House of Lords' Manuscripts, Vol. IV. (New Series), ... . This contains the lists of the different peers attending the meetings of Cromwell's House of Lords, with mention also of the various offices held by them. — R. B. Upton.
  • There is a list of many of these persona (with armorial bearings) in Sir J. Prestwich's Respublica, 1787, at pp. 149 et seqq. — M.