Excerpt from The Barbone Parliament (First Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, 1653) Hume describes the Parliament as containing some persons of the rank of gentlemen: but the far greater part were low mechanics, F ifth-monarchy men, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Inde pendents, the very dregs of the fanatics. Of all the extraordinary schemes adopted by these legislators, they had not leisure to finish any, except that which established the legis lation of marriage by civil magistrate alone, without interposition of clergy. They found themselves exposed to the derision of the public. Macaulay is curt. He (cromwell) convoked a Council partly composed of persons on whom he could depend and partly of persons whose Opposition he might safely defy. This assembly, which he called a Parliament, and which the populace named from one of its most conspicuous mem bers Barebone's Parliament, after exposing itself a short time to the public contempt, surrendered back to the General the powers it had received from him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.