A Cautionary Tale
This doesn't mean someone in our clan wasn't related to him. I may not have searched properly or may have run into Family Search's limit of 15 generations to find a match. But he is still the link that leads to today's history.
The Nominated Assembly or Parliament, as it is more formally known, began after the death of Charles I. Oliver Cromwell led the rebellion that brought about Charles' downfall, and in the aftermath he established a Commonwealth. Cromwell was a religious man of the nonconformist bent -- nonconformist being anyone who belonged to any of the Protestants sects outside the established Church of England. They are also called Dissenters. The Puritans and Pilgrims who made their way to the New World fit into this group. Cromwell belonged to the Puritans.
Even though Charles' father, James I, commissioned the Bible that bears his name, Charles seemed to think that the divine right of kings meant he could do pretty much whatever he pleased and led a profligate lifestyle that required much financial support, which would be raised through taxes. And many people at the time believed he was trying to make the national church more Catholic. Plus he didn't care for nonconformists.
Cromwell, working with a council of his military officers, put together a ruling body, the Nominated Assembly drawn heavily from the nonconformist ranks and charged them reforming the nation's laws to make the nation more godly. The initial design called for the body to be composed of 70 men, in imitation of the Sanhedrin but the group would up being a little more than twice that large and included representation from Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Two religious issues arose quickly. One was a proposed law requiring the citizens of the realm to pay a tithe that would be used to support the established church, especially its clergy. The other was how to reform England's legal system.
You can imagine that a group dominated by nonconformists would take exception to being forced to pay for a church and clergy they did not support, and that issue would up dying. The second issue would bring about the end of the Nominated Assembly.
Several nonconforming groups existed at the time who followed what we now would "conservative theology," with a particular emphasis on the Second Coming of Christ. One particular subset of this group were the "Millenarians," who believed in a "literal," physical reign of Jesus and his followers on Earth. Ideas about how this would look and work varied among the groups, but all of them had the idea that their actions could bring about Jesus' return and subsequent rule -- with them being the ones holding all the important offices and all the laws being based on their particular interpretation of the Bible. Sorta sounds familiar, don't it.
One such group was the Fifth Monarchy Men, or Fifth Monarchists. These guys were probably the most extreme group -- Praise-God may have been a member -- and advocated junking the old political system altogether and putting together a government in which congregations would run things locally, and regional assemblies would coordinate the congregations' efforts. Presumably a national council would be the final word.
Not surprisingly this didn't set well with churches that disliked that much structure, and it didn't set well with those who believed they had a better idea or a better theology. Eventually, the bickering among the various groups caused a majority of the assembly to decide a solution could not be found. They petitioned Cromwell to dissolve the assembly, and he, having been put off by some of the extreme positions being argues, obliged. Most of the delegates left from home, but a group of diehards remained. Cromwell sent troops to force them to go home, and took over running the government as Lord Protector until his death five years later.
Image: Oliver Cromwell, retrieved 9/22/2035 from Wikipedia Commons, listed as public domain but carrying the {{PD-Art|PD-old-100}} tag.
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