{"id":16689,"date":"2025-03-25T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/?p=16689"},"modified":"2025-04-01T14:36:51","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T13:36:51","slug":"oliver-cromwell-other-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/03\/25\/oliver-cromwell-other-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Oliver Cromwell\u2019s \u2018Other House\u2019 and the perils of Lords \u2018reform\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this guest post, Dr Jonathan Fitzgibbons<\/a> of Lincoln University, looks at a constitutional issue from the 1650s with obvious contemporary relevance<\/em>: the place of the House of Lords.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As politicians continue to debate the House of Lords\u2019 future, including legislation to eliminate its remaining hereditary peers, they might draw lessons from its past. Particularly instructive are the events of the English Revolution, which saw the House of Lords and monarchy abolished in 1649. Both were collateral damage in the single-minded pursuit of King Charles I\u2019s trial by a radical minority of MPs abetted by the parliamentarian army. The unicameral parliaments that followed in the 1650s proved unmanageable, or at least unserviceable to what Oliver Cromwell and the godly believed should be the agenda for settlement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after expelling the torpid Rump Parliament by force in 1653, and assuming the title of Lord Protector under Britain\u2019s first written constitution, The Instrument of Government<\/em>, Cromwell struggled with his parliaments. Desperate measures, including the exclusion of around a hundred MPs before the meeting of the Second Protectorate Parliament in 1656, failed to bring that assembly to heel. Cromwell was particularly alarmed when that same parliament gave rein to its religious intolerance, not least by claiming the power to define, judge and punish the alleged misdemeanours of a Quaker named James Naylor, who MPs unilaterally found guilty of \u2018horrid blasphemy\u2019 and voted a suitably savage punishment. As Cromwell warned a meeting of army officers in February 1657, the \u2018case of James Naylor might happen to be your own case\u2019. As far as he was concerned, the Commons needed \u2018a check, or balancing power\u2019 in the form of a second chamber (John Morrill et al, The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell<\/em>, iii. 340-1).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Drawing of James Naylor’s punishment, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

His wishes were answered in March 1657 when MPs presented Cromwell with a new written constitution, The Humble Petition and Advice<\/em>, which created an \u2018Other House\u2019 of parliament. This was no straightforward revival of the House of Lords. Its membership would consist of a maximum of seventy men, sitting not by hereditary right, but chosen by the Protector and approved by the Commons. Members would serve for life, or until removed for misdemeanours, whereupon new ones would be chosen to fill vacant places. While Cromwell was no political theorist, he found hereditary systems of rule inherently unsound. He failed to see the logic in an arrangement where it mattered little if a person was \u2018a fool or wise, honest or not\u2019, for \u2018whatever they be\u2019, they \u2018must come in\u2019 (Morrill et al, iii. 144). Instead, admission to the Other House was based on what Cromwell perceived to be individuals\u2019 merits or principles. He claimed to chose men who valued \u2018not titles\u2019, but \u2018a Christian and an English interest\u2019 (Morrill et al, iii. 493).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This does not mean Cromwell was unwilling to select noblemen for the Other House. Ultimately, though, only seven old English peers received summons: the earls of Manchester, Mulgrave and Warwick, Viscount Saye and Sele and Lords Eure, Fauconberg and Wharton. These were men who had either shown a willingness to play some role in the Cromwellian regime, or were erstwhile allies from the 1640s who Cromwell hoped to win back. Many other peers were overlooked, however, including some, like the earl of Salisbury, who had sat in the House of Commons during the 1650s. Other noblemen were chosen who had not been eligible to sit in the English House of Lords, including the Irish Lord Broghill and the Scottish earl of Cassillis, perhaps suggesting that Cromwell aimed to make the new chamber representative of the fragile union achieved by the English republic\u2019s conquest of Scotland and Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, the vast majority of the sixty-two members summoned to the Other House were not noblemen but new men: Cromwell\u2019s \u2018sons and kindred, flattering courtiers, corrupt lawyers, degenerated swordmen, and… self-interested salarymen\u2019, as one critic put it (A Second Narrative of the Late Parliament (so called)<\/em> (1658), pp. 23-4). The charge had substance: over a quarter of the members were closely related to the Protector, including two sons and three sons-in-law. They also included all but one of Cromwell\u2019s privy councillors, and many administrators, court officials and judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is hardly surprising, given Cromwell\u2019s desire for the new chamber to act as a balance on the Commons, that he selected those who shared his political and religious vision. But this made the Other House a very different animal to the old Lords. Its membership was more socially diverse: several had amassed fortunes only after rising through the ranks during the civil wars, such as the shoemaker John Hewson, the brewer Thomas Pride, and James Berry, who was a clerk at an ironworks before the conflict. Of course, this made it easy for critics to suggest the Other House was an assemblage of men of mean birth and low principles, but from Cromwell\u2019s perspective it represented a meritocracy not an aristocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Playing Cards from the 1679 including satirical images of Cromwell\u2019s \u2018lords\u2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Those old peers summoned to the \u2018Other House\u2019 recognised its novelty. Writing to Lord Wharton in late 1657, Viscount Saye was clear that they must not accept Cromwell\u2019s writ of summons. To do so would make them complicit in the \u2018laying aside of the Peers of England who by birth are to sit\u2019; they would \u2018disown their own rights and the rights of all the Nobility of England\u2019. By breaking the ancient link between hereditary nobility and parliamentary membership, Saye believed the Other House was \u2018a stalking horse\u2019 to \u2018carry on the design of over-throwing the House of Peers\u2019 (Bodl. Carte MS 80, f. 749).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Playing Cards from the 1679 including satirical images of Cromwell\u2019s \u2018lords\u2019.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Saye\u2019s warning was prophetic. When the Other House assembled in January 1658, Cromwell pointedly referred to it as \u2018our House of Lords\u2019, implying it now assumed the position of its predecessor (Morrill et al, iii. 467). To complete the charade, its members were styled \u2018lords\u2019 and sat in the Lords\u2019 chamber at Westminster. Yet, the Commons were not easily deceived. As the republican MP Thomas Scot mischievously put it, if the Other House was really the House of Lords, Cromwell must summon all \u2018the old peerage\u2019, but the \u2018old nobility, will not, do not, sit there\u2019. The Other House were \u2018but Commoners\u2019; its members were \u2018part of the Commons, in another place\u2019 (The Diary of Thomas Burton, <\/em>ed. J.T. Rutt (1828), ii. 389-90). Other MPs stressed that the new chamber must be styled the \u2018Other House\u2019 to make clear it derived its authority from the Humble Petition and Advice<\/em> alone. As the MP William Brisco explained, it must have a \u2018new name\u2019 because it was a \u2018new constitution\u2019; its members and powers were \u2018new\u2019. The \u2018Other House\u2019 was not a \u2018revival\u2019 of the old upper chamber but was a new creation, brought into being by the Commons through the written constitution. As Brisco informed the Commons, it was \u2018a House set up by you\u2019 and \u2018the derivative power shall never exceed the primitive power\u2019 (Burton<\/em>, ii. 410-11). The old House of Lords was a different matter because its membership sat by virtue of their birthright, not election; their membership and authority had been independent of the Commons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parliamentary session ground to a halt as the Commons failed to agree on how to address, or define, the new chamber. The feeling of exasperation was best summed up in the speech of Griffith Bodurda, who pleaded with the Commons to give the new chamber \u2018some name… You must call them a House, of men, or women, or something that have two legs\u2019 (Burton, <\/em>ii. 432). His calls fell on deaf ears and Cromwell angrily dissolved the parliament on 4 February 1658. Ironically, Cromwell\u2019s hope that a second chamber would better control the Commons foundered upon MPs\u2019 unwillingness to own that chamber as a balance over them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much about the Other House was novel: a membership of life peers, fixed in number, and more socially and geographically diverse than any House of Lords had been. Yet, in a society that revered precedent, it was always going to be a hard sell. Cromwell failed to convince others that it was a suitable replacement for the House of Lords: styling it as such was never enough. The lack of the old peers left many questioning the extent to which it was a legitimate, or independent, component of the parliamentary trinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, as the final hereditary peers are removed from the House of Lords, politicians will emulate their counterparts from the 1650s by reflecting on the identity crisis posed by a House of Lords without the ancient nobility. Will it essentially become another House, an \u2018Other House\u2019? On what basis will its remaining members sit, and what will be the chamber\u2019s constitutional foundation? Is it destined to become a cipher for the government, or a House of Commons sitting elsewhere?  These are thorny issues, but the Cromwellian era has lessons to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JF<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further Reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biographies of James Berry, Griffith Bodurda, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle), William Brisco, the earl of Salisbury (William Cecil), Oliver Cromwell, John Hewson and Thomas Pride are in the recently-published Commons 1640-60<\/em> volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J. Fitzgibbons, Cromwell\u2019s House of Lords: Politics, Parliaments and Constitutional Revolution, 1642-1660 <\/em>(2018)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C.H. Firth, The House of Lords during the Civil War<\/em> (1910)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P. Little and D.L. Smith, Parliaments and Politics during the Cromwellian Protectorate<\/em> (2007)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

J. Fitzgibbons, \u2018Hereditary Succession and the Cromwellian Protectorate: The Offer of the Crown Reconsidered\u2019, English Historical Review<\/em>, 128 (2013), 1095-1128.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this guest post, Dr Jonathan Fitzgibbons of Lincoln University, looks at a constitutional issue from the 1650s with obvious contemporary relevance: the place of the House of Lords. As politicians continue to debate the House of Lords\u2019 future, including legislation to eliminate its remaining hereditary peers, they might draw lessons from its past. Particularly instructive are the events of the English Revolution, which saw … Continue reading Oliver Cromwell\u2019s \u2018Other House\u2019 and the perils of Lords \u2018reform\u2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244848225,"featured_media":16700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[754660295,7086711,126553,774275559,774275562,774275741,48731,375808],"tags":[35890,774276086,3963975,774276087,9206216,774276036],"class_list":["post-16689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-revolutionary-stuart-parliaments","category-17th-century-history","category-electoral-reform","category-interregnum","category-oliver-cromwell","category-parliamentary-life","category-religious-history","category-social-history","tag-featured","tag-house-of-lords-reform","tag-james-naylor","tag-other-house","tag-rump-parliament","tag-william-fiennes-1st-viscount-saye-and-sele"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/image-2.png?fit=425%2C705&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QYNW-4lb","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1080,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2015\/10\/21\/the-story-of-parliament-thomas-cromwell\/","url_meta":{"origin":16689,"position":0},"title":"\u2018The Story of Parliament\u2019: Thomas Cromwell","author":"History of Parliament","date":"October 21, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this year the History published \u2018The Story of Parliament: Celebrating 750 years of parliament in Britain\u2019 to mark the anniversary of Simon de Montfort\u2019s parliament in 1265. The book is a brief introduction to the full 750 years of parliamentary history, aimed at the general reader, and available to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Tudor"","block_context":{"text":"Tudor","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/periods\/tudor\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Thomas Cromwell by Jacobus Houbraken (\u00a9 Palace of Westminster)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/12-thomas-cromwell-by-jacobus-houbraken-c2a9-palace-of-westminster-woa-521.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2232,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2018\/03\/14\/a-tribute-to-former-director-of-the-history-of-parliament-trust-valerie-cromwell\/","url_meta":{"origin":16689,"position":1},"title":"A tribute to former Director of the History of Parliament Trust, Valerie Cromwell","author":"Stephen Roberts","date":"March 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In this blog our current Director, Dr Stephen Roberts and Editor of the Commons 1422-1504 project, Dr Linda Clark pay tribute to Valerie Cromwell, Director of the History of Parliament Trust between 1991 and 2001. 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The Rump came into being after\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interregnum"","block_context":{"text":"Interregnum","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/periods\/interregnum\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2012\/11\/13\/new-material-parliament-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":16689,"position":3},"title":"New material for www.historyofparliamentonline.org released for Parliament Week","author":"Emma Peplow","date":"November 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Next week is an exciting one for us at HOP, and especially for www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Not only will we be publishing a series of specially commissioned articles for Parliament Week, we\u2019re also releasing all the material from the volumes on the House of Commons in 1604-29 online for the first time.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "History of Parliament Trust"","block_context":{"text":"History of Parliament Trust","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/history-of-parliament-trust\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Holding-Featured-Image-4.jpeg?fit=1200%2C658&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":13520,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2024\/07\/23\/the-sport-of-kings-and-protectors\/","url_meta":{"origin":16689,"position":4},"title":"The Sport of Kings \u2013 and Protectors!","author":"Patrick Little","date":"July 23, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"In this blog, Dr Patrick Little, of the 1640-60 Lords section, explores the enduring popularity of horse-racing, even during the rule of that archetypal puritan, Oliver Cromwell... Oliver Cromwell is blamed for many things without any basis. There are ruined castles said to have been destroyed by him (even though\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Revolutionary Stuart Parliaments"","block_context":{"text":"Revolutionary Stuart Parliaments","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/category\/sections\/revolutionary-stuart-parliaments\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/byerley_turk_by_thomas_spencer.jpg?fit=872%2C637&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/byerley_turk_by_thomas_spencer.jpg?fit=872%2C637&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/byerley_turk_by_thomas_spencer.jpg?fit=872%2C637&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historyofparliament.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/byerley_turk_by_thomas_spencer.jpg?fit=872%2C637&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15627,"url":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2024\/11\/28\/the-last-of-the-cromwells\/","url_meta":{"origin":16689,"position":5},"title":"The Last of the Cromwells","author":"Robin Eagles","date":"November 28, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The current BBC production of Wolf Hall: the Mirror and the Light, the last of Hilary Mantel\u2019s novels charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, is a reminder that Cromwell\u2019s dynasty did not end with him on the block. 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