Parliament and the paper constitutions.

It is ironic that historians have tended to neglect the constitutions that framed the Protectorate, and dominated its Parliaments. There were in fact six different constitutional documents considered between 1653 and 1657: the Instrument of Government that established the Protectorate in December 1653; the failed Parliamentary Constitution (or ‘government bill’) of 1654–5; the monarchical Remonstrance introduced on 23 February 1657; the Humble Petition and Advice which replaced it on 31 March, and was itself turned into a Protectoral constitution on 25 May (which passed into law on 26 June); and finally the explanatory Additional Petition and Advice presented to Cromwell at the end of June, as a companion to the Humble Petition. Of these, only the Instrument has been thoroughly examined by modern historians, and the most detailed studies of the Parliamentary Constitution and the Humble Petition remain those of S. R. Gardiner and C. H. Firth, published over a century ago, as more recent students have concentrated on politics rather than constitutional affairs. Even the most basic requirement for a study of these constitutions – the availability of definitive printed texts of the original proposals – has not been met in two of the six cases: those of the Remonstrance and the monarchical version of the Humble Petition. The resolution of this textual ambiguity is the first task of this chapter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]