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Example research essay topic: House Of Commons Charles Ii - 1,041 words

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... Parliament. At that time Cromwell was touched by the King's devotion to his children. His main task was to overcome the general feeling in the army that neither the King nor Parliament could be trusted.

When General Fairfax led the army toward the houses of Parliament in London, Cromwell still insisted that the authority of Parliament must be upheld; in September he also resisted a proposal in the House of Commons that no further addresses should be made to the King. Just over a month later he took the chair at meetings of the General Council of the Army and assured them that he was not committed to any particular form of government and had not had any underhand dealings with the King. On the other hand, he opposed extremist measures such as the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords and the introduction of a more democratic constitution. But Cromwell's efforts to act as a mediator came to nothing when Charles I escaped from Hampton Court Palace, where he had been kept in captivity, and fled to the Isle of Wight to open negotiations with Scottish commissioners offering to restore him to the throne. On January 3, 1648, Cromwell abandoned his previous position and, telling the House of Commons that the King was obstinate, agreed to a vote of no addresses, which was carried. The Royalists took up arms again and the Second Civil War began. (Gaunt, 1996) General Fairfax ordered Cromwell into Wales to crush a rising there then sent him north to fight the Scottish army that invaded England in June.

Though his army was to the Scots and northern Royalists, he defeated them both in a campaign in Lancashire; then entered Scotland to restore order; finally he returned to Yorkshire and took charge of the siege of Pontefract. The correspondence he conducted during the siege with the governor of the Isle of Wight, who kept watch on the King, reveals that he was increasingly turning against Charles. Parliament's commissioners had been sent to the island to make one final effort to reach an agreement with the King, but Cromwell told the governor that the King was not to be trusted and that concessions over religion must not be granted. (Sherwood, 1997) While Cromwell lingered in the north, his son-in-law, Ireton, and other officers in the south took decisive action. They drew up a remonstrance to Parliament complaining about the negotiations in the Isle of Wight and demanding the trial of the King as a Man of Blood. While Cromwell felt uncertain about his own views, he admitted that his army agreed with the army in the south. Fairfax now ordered him to return to London; but Ireton and his colleagues had removed, from the House of Commons, all members who favored continuing negotiations with the King.

Cromwell asserted that he had not been acquainted with the plan to purge the House, 'yet since it was done, he was glad of it, and would endeavor to maintain it. ' Hesitating up to the last moment, Cromwell, finally accepted Charles's trial as an act of justice. He was one of the 135 commissioners in the High Court of Justice and, when the King refused to plead, he signed the death warrant. (Smith, 1991) After the British Isles were declared a republic and named the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell served as the first chairman of the Council of State. However, during the first three years he was chiefly absorbed in campaigns against the Royalists in Ireland and Scotland. He also had to suppress a mutiny, inspired by a group known as Levellers, a Puritan group aimed at 'levelling' between rich and poor, in the Commonwealth army. Detesting the Irish as primitive, savage, and superstitious, he believed they had carried out a huge massacre of English settlers in 1641. As commander in chief and lord lieutenant, he waged a ruthless campaign against them.

On his return to London in May 1650 Cromwell was ordered to lead an army to Scotland, where Charles II had been acknowledged as its new king. Fairfax refused the command; so on June 25 Cromwell was appointed captain general in his place. He felt tender toward the Scots, most of whom were fellow Puritans, than toward the Catholic Irish. The campaign proved difficult, and during the winter of 1650 Cromwell was taken ill. But he defeated the Scots with an army inferior in numbers at Dunbar on September 3, 1650, and a year later, when Charles II advanced into England, Cromwell destroyed his army at Worcester. (Smith, 1991 & Sherwood, 1997) This battle ended the civil wars. Now Cromwell hoped for pacification, a political settlement, and social reform.

The army believed that the members of Parliament were corrupt and that a new Parliament should be called. Once again Cromwell tried to mediate between the two antagonists, but his sympathies were with his soldiers. When he finally came to the conclusion that Parliament must be dissolved and replaced, he called in his musketeers and on April 20, 1653, expelled the members from the House. He said they were 'corrupt and unjust men and scandalous to the profession of the Gospel'; two months later he set up a nominated assembly to take their place. In a speech on July 4 he told the new members that they must be just, and, 'ruling in the fear of God, ' resolve the affairs of the nation. Cromwell seems to have regarded this 'Little Parliament' as a body capable of establishing a Puritan republic.

But just as he had considered the previous Parliament to be slow and self-seeking, he came to think that the Assembly of Saints, as it was called, was too hasty and too radical; he also resented the fact that it did not consult him. Later he described this experiment of choosing Saints to govern as an example of his own weakness. He sought moderate courses and also wanted to end the naval war begun against the Dutch in 1652. When in December 1653, after a coup d'etat planned by Major General John Lambert and other officers, the majority of the Assembly of Saints surrendered power into Cromwell's hands, he decided reluctantly that Providence had chosen hi...


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Research essay sample on House Of Commons Charles Ii

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