It then decreed England to be
a Commonwealth with neither king nor House of Lords.
[Sidenote: The Commonwealth, 1649-1660]
The executive functions, hitherto exercised by the king, were intrusted
to a Council of State, of whose forty-one members thirty were members
of the House. The Rump Parliament, instead of calling for new
elections, as had been expected, continued to sit as the
"representatives of the people," although they represented the
sentiments of only a small fraction of the people. England was in the
hands of an oligarchy whose sole support was the vigorous army of
Cromwell.
Menacing conditions confronted the newly born Commonwealth. War with
Scotland and with Holland was imminent; mutiny and unrest showed that
the execution of Charles had infused new life into the royalists;
Catholic-royalist rebels mastered all of Ireland except Dublin. Under
these circumstances, the Commonwealth would have perished but for three
sources of strength: (1) Its financial resources proved adequate:
customs duties were collected, excise taxes on drinks and food were
levied, and confiscated royalist estates were sold; (2) its enemies had
no well-drilled armies; and (3) its own army was remarkably powerful.
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