This pioneering monograph on the Cromwellian parliaments of 1654, 1656, and 1659 was written by two very talented English scholars. David Smith, of Selwyn College, Cambridge, has been a colleague of John Morrill for twenty years. Patrick Little, of the History of Parliament Trust, has been working for around fifteen years on the members of parliament for the English counties of Devon and Cornwall for 1640–60 and the members for Ireland and Scotland in the Cromwellian parliaments. There is a natural progression from their earlier articles and books to this work. About ten years ago, Smith produced a very helpful survey, The Stuart Parliaments, 1603–1689 (London, 1999), and more recently Little has published his widely acclaimed monograph Lord Broghill and the Cromwellian Union with Ireland and Scotland (Woodbridge, 2004) and his edited anthology The Cromwellian Protectorate (Woodbridge, 2007). One of the keys to understanding the book is that it originated in Morrill's suggestion to Smith that a general overview of these parliaments was needed. Smith then invited his friend Little to join forces because of his knowledge of the Irish and Scottish MPs and his work on Broghill who was one of the key parliamentary managers in these parliaments. In this unusually successful collaboration, Smith wrote seven chapters, including an excellent introduction, and Little wrote six chapters, including a superb conclusion that readers should consider reading first.

Little's chapter “Parliament and the Paper Constitutions,” the longest in the book, is an important discussion of the six constitutions and proposed constitutions in the Protectorate years. In the book's appendix 2, he prints (for apparently the first time) one of the six, the Remonstrance of February 1657 that asked Oliver Cromwell to become king and provoked the kingship crisis of the ensuing months. It has never been brought out so clearly before that the Humble Petition and Advice, the long-hoped-for parliamentary constitution of 1657 designed to replace the army's Instrument of Government of 1653, created as many problems as it solved. His chapter on “Factional Politics and Parliamentary Management” examines the key groups in these parliaments and vigorously opposes the views of Peter Gaunt and Derek Hirst, who used a fluidity or consensus model without fixed parties or factions. Little sees a court party that divided over kingship into civilian and army interests, Presbyterians, and Commonwealthsmen. One feels that Little does not so much disprove the arguments of Gaunt and Hirst as give a plausible account using his own labels. He admits that there were frequent periods of harmony in these parliaments, casting some doubt on the existence of well-defined, antagonistic parties or factions.

Smith's chapter on elections gives a very helpful summary of the parliamentary elections in these years. He wisely tells readers about the changes in constituencies included in the Instrument of Government that saw a drastic reduction in borough seats that were then given to the counties on the basis of tax assessments. Smith informs us that Richard Cromwell's Parliament in 1659 was “the largest House of Commons that had ever assembled up to that point” with potentially 567 MPs as compared to 400 in 1654 and 1656 and 507 in 1640 (77). Not much attention is paid to the great election managers such as John Glynne in North Wales, Philip Jones in South Wales, and Bulstrode Whitelocke in the Thames Valley or to Cromwell's own patronage as holder of vast confiscated estates in counties such as Monmouthshire.

In his chapter on exclusions, Smith gives a good survey of the constitutional novelty under the Instrument of Government that allowed the Council of State to keep MPs from taking their seats for certain reasons. The exclusion of around 100 MPs from the 1656 Parliament (listed in appendix 1) gets center stage, but Smith's approach is rather descriptive and quantitative. He does well, however, to emphasize that the exclusion was the Council's doing and that Cromwell stayed out of it. More attention should have been paid to the apprehension in the army that their constitution was about to be revised in a monarchical direction and to the strong probability that the major-generals worked to keep out MPs who had talked carelessly about kingship on or before election day. More concrete human drama could have helped explain the antigentry bitterness of some of the major-generals. Smith tells us about Major-General Thomas Kelsey's sending in objections to MPs, but he does not tell us that he had recently been insulted by the gentry of Kent. The county election went on for two full days, and at dusk of the second day the gentry allowed Kelsey to run for the last of eleven places and then defeated him!

In his chapters “Oliver Cromwell and Parliaments” and “Richard Cromwell and Parliaments,” Smith frequently implies that Oliver and Richard inevitably failed, and the reviewer does not agree. It was refreshing to see Smith praise Richard's many fine qualities and suggest that some of the army leaders staged a coup against him because they were afraid that he was being too successful with the MPs in his parliament. Smith's chapter on “Law Reform, Judicature, and the Other House” is one of his best, lucidly surveying the various plans for reform of the laws concerning such problem areas as debt, probate, and the Chancery. The savage penalties that parliament imposed on the Quaker radical James Nayler in 1656 pointed up the need for a restraining second chamber, and the awkwardly named Other House that emerged in the new constitution of 1657 was the result. In his chapter on “Religious Reform,” we see how Cromwell's laudable dedication to “liberty of con science” was a constant irritant to conservative MPs who wanted a tight national church with a rigid Calvinist doctrine.

Little, in his chapter on “Representation and Taxation in England and Wales,” effectively demonstrates that Cromwellian MPs worked very hard to secure favorable legislation for their constituencies. He is able to use his history of Parliament research on Dorset to great advantage, presenting the county as a case study of representation and taxation (232–38). In his chapter on “Parliament and Foreign Policy,” Little challenges other historians who had explained this area in terms of initiatives from either the Protector or the Council of State, for he is determined that we understand parliament's important role. His next chapter on “Irish and Scottish affairs” is one of the best, reflecting his years of intensive primary research on the topic.

Readers will choose different chapters for their favorites, and the reviewer picks in the Little group the ones on foreign policy and Scotland and Ireland and in the Smith group the chapters on elections and law reform. It must be noted that in his conclusion Little takes a more positive view of Cromwell and these parliaments than Smith appears to do in his chapters. The authors deserve our congratulations for writing such a valuable and enjoyable book that will give readers the confidence that they have a clear understanding of what went on in these parliaments and why.