DEFENCE AND INTERNAL SECURITY

In accounting for the Rump's failure to develop imaginative domestic policies, Professor Underdown has succinctly summarized its main casues:

Much of the government's involvement in the provinces was now concerned with defence and security. Even when the Council of State turned its attention to poverty, it is not hard to detect a concern for internal security motivating the initiatives it took. In July 1651, the Council of State wrote to the mayor and aldermen of Portsmouth, ordering them to relieve and find employment for the growing number of poor in the town. But this was not part of a coherent social policy. The Council made no attempt to conceal the fact that its concern arose solely from the potential threat which growing poverty posed to the security of the garrison.

Though its enemies changed slightly, the government's main concerns did not greatly alter under the Protectorate. Even spectacular initiatives, like the major-generals' experiment, were primarily concerned with internal security. The major-generals' militia was part of a retrenchment scheme designed to sustain the reduction of the tax burden on at least those members of the landowning classes who had not fought against Parliament.