Long Parliament refers to a session of the English Parliament that lasted without a break from 1640 to 1653. It was not formally dismissed until 1660. The Long Parliament opened with a direct conflict with King Charles I. It met during the English Civil War in the 1640’s, ordered the king’s execution in 1649, and tried to rule in the uneasy years after the war. It was finally dismissed to make way for a new Parliament under King Charles II.
In its early sessions, the Long Parliament made many lasting political reforms. It abolished courts controlled by the monarchy, including the Star Chamber and the Court of Requests. It declared that the king could neither collect money nor dismiss Parliament without its consent. It also brought about the execution of Charles’s chief advisers, the Earl of Strafford and Archbishop William Laud.
On religious questions, the Long Parliament was seriously divided. Presbyterians opposed Puritans, and neither side would budge. Civil war began when the king’s supporters withdrew from Parliament, and the House of Commons soon became divided into Presbyterians, who were moderate supporters of the king, and Independents, who favored strong controls on the crown. The army, under Oliver Cromwell, supported the Independents. In 1648, an army detachment under Colonel Thomas Pride kept the Presbyterian majority from entering the House. “Pride’s Purge” resulted in what was called “the Rump Parliament,” which had less than a fifth of the usual number of members. This remainder of the Long Parliament carried out the execution of Charles I, and it made England a commonwealth.
Cromwell, the real power in the commonwealth, was unable to work with the Rump Parliament, and he suppressed it in 1653. However, he could not replace the Rump Parliament with an efficient legislature. In 1660, two years after Cromwell’s death, political chaos in England forced the army under General George Monck to intervene. Monck persuaded a newly elected Parliament to invite Prince Charles Stuart to become King Charles II. Charles accepted, and the monarchy was restored.
