ABSTRACT
With the king dead, the army and its political allies wasted no time in pushing through further unprecedented legislation in order to give effect to the revolution. On 6 February, the Rump voted to abolish the House of Lords and, on the following day, the monarchy, having first ordered the seclusion of all MPs who had voted on 5 December 1648 in favour of continued negotiations with the king. On 13 February, the executive functions of the monarchy were vested for a period of one year in a 40-member Council of State. A process of removing references to the monarchy from institutions and official documents was set in train and, finally, on 19 May 1649, an Act of the new unicameral Parliament declared England to be ‘a Commonwealth or Free State’.
