The Commonwealth

Abstract

The King’s execution, on 30 January 1649, was of course just the great dramatic centrepiece to a series of constitutional developments. From 6 December the army nominally at the command of the English Parliament had enforced the purging from the House of Commons of two-thirds of its members.¹ It was the remnant who set up Charles’s trial, and went on in March to abolish the monarchy and the House of Lords before constituting themselves the governing body of a ‘Commonwealth and free state’ of England in May. These were the most drastic changes to have occurred in the English state since its appearance, removing two-thirds of the components of the national legislature and altering the source of sovereignty for both the executive and the judiciary. They thus amply deserve the name of the ‘English Revolution’, in the sense that the landmarks of national politics had been almost completely altered.