On 20 April 1653, when Oliver Cromwell ousted the Rump and then intervened to shut down the Council of State as well, Marchamont Nedham's old patron John Bradshaw administered to the Commonwealth's Lord General a verbal slap in the face. “Sir,” he said, “we have heard what you did in the House in the morning, and before many hours all England will hear it: but, Sir, you are mistaken to think that the parliament is dissolved; for no power under heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore take you notice of that.” Similar sentiments were expressed by Sir Arthur Haselrig and Thomas Scot.

Bradshaw, Haselrig, and Scot were not the first to breathe defiance. Nor would they be the last. Parliament had entered the Civil War intent on preserving its prerogatives from encroachment by the king. It was inconceivable that any substantial number of those who so prided themselves on being its members would acquiesce in its dissolution at the hands of one of their own servants. Henry Marten spoke for the great majority of his colleagues when, in an open letter to Cromwell that he prudently refrained from dispatching to the printer, he accused the Lord General of having accomplished that fateful morning “the same thing which the last King and his Father did so long designe.” Such was the considered opinion of those preeminent among his colleagues.