1660 the
nation was called upon to pass through an era of political
experimentation happily unparalleled in its history. May 19, 1649,
kingship and the House of Lords having been abolished as equally
"useless and dangerous,"[28] Parliament, to complete the work of
transformation, proclaimed a commonwealth, or republic; and on the
great seal was inscribed the legend, "In the first year of freedom by
God's blessing restored." During the continuance of the Commonwealth
(1649-1654) various plans were brought forward for the creation of a
parliament elected by manhood suffrage, but with the essential
principle involved neither the Rump nor the people at large possessed
substantial sympathy. In 1654 there was put in operation a
constitution--the earliest among written constitutions in modern
Europe--known as the Instrument of Government.[29] The system therein
provided, which was intended to be extended to the three countries of
England, Scotland, and Ireland, comprised as the executive power a
life Protector, to be assisted by a council of thirteen to twenty-one
members, and as the legislative organ a unicameral parliament of 460
members elected triennially by all citizens possessing property to the
value of L300.[30] Cromwell accepted the office of Protector, and the
ensuing six years comprise the period known commonly as the (p. 030)
Protectorate.

[Footnote 27: S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional
Documents of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1899),
202-232.]

[Footnote 28: Gardiner, Documents of the Puritan
Revolution, 384-388; Adams and Stephens, Select
Documents, 397-400.]

[Footnote 29: Gardiner, Documents of the Puritan
Revolution, 405-417; Adams and Stephens, Select
Documents, 407-416.]

[Footnote 30: On the history of this unicameral
parliament see J. A. R. Marriott, Second Chambers,
an Inductive Study in Political Science (Oxford,
1910), Chap. 3; A. Esmein, Les constitutions du
protectorat de Cromwell, in _Revue du Droit
Public_, Sept.-Oct. and Nov.-Dec., 1899.]

The government provided for by the Instrument was but indifferently
successful. Between Cromwell and his parliaments relations were much
of the time notoriously strai