WALES

Returned six members to the Nominated Assembly of 1653

The refusal of the Rump Parliament on 1 April 1653 to renew the commission set up in February 1650 for the propagation of the gospel in Wales was not least among the factors which provoked Oliver Cromwell’s* dissolution of it on 20 April. Five days later, in the absence of any supreme authority save that of the army, he urged the propagation commissioners to ‘go on cheerfully as formerly’. The gathered church at Wrexham, led by Morgan Llwyd, called upon Cromwell and the army officers to allow ‘the saints of God’ to recommend persons ‘such as God shall choose’ to ‘unlatch the door of the everlasting gospel, and break the yoke which the nation cannot bear, establish mercy, justice and equity with peace, cause to shine the lamp of reason, and law of nature, for the light of men’. It is unsurprising, therefore, that when invitations to attend a new assembly were despatched in Cromwell’s name, they were in the case of Wales sent to six who had been commissioners for propagating the gospel there. A dozen other propagators were included among the 140 Members of the Nominated Assembly. The principle fixed upon for selection was that most of the English counties, including Monmouthshire, would have identifiable representation, although the four northernmost counties would be treated as a single entity but have four representatives. Scotland was to have five Members, in the event reduced to four, Ireland six and Wales six.

Pre-eminent among the army officers in Wales was Thomas Harrison I*, who played a major role in the election of the six representatives allocated to Wales in the Nominated Assembly so dear to his heart. On 17 May 1653 Harrison wrote to John Jones I* in Ireland