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In 1653, after learning that Parliament was attempting to stay in session despite an agreement to dissolve, and having failed to come up with a working constitution, Cromwell's patience ran out. On 20 April he attended a sitting of Parliament and listened to one or two speeches.
The Naylor case had showed that the members of Parliament were less religiously tolerant than the constitution allowed, and the assumption of judicial powers by the House, worried many in the House, the Grandees in the Army, and Cromwell. So encouraged, Cromwell with the support of the Grandees, pressed the house for a second chamber. [3]
A second Parliament was called later the same year and became known as the Long Parliament. Cromwell was again returned as member for Cambridge. As with the Parliament of 1628–29, it is likely that he owed his position to the patronage of others, which might explain why in the first week of the Parliament he was in charge of presenting a ...
Cromwell eventually gave in to their demands and on 22 April, Parliament was dissolved and the Rump Parliament recalled on 7 May 1659. In the subsequent month, Cromwell did not resist and refused an offer of armed assistance from the French ambassador, although it is possible he was being kept under house arrest by the army.
The Parliament was freely elected (as free as such elections could be in the 17th century) and as such, the Parliament was filled with a wide range of political interests, and as such did not accomplish any of its goals. Having passed none of Cromwell's proposed bills, he dissolved it as soon as law would allow.
Cromwell died in September 1658 and was succeeded by his son Richard Cromwell. Richard resigned in May 1659 due to his inability to control either the Army or Parliament. He was replaced by the English Committee of Safety, which dissolved the Third Protectorate Parliament, and reseated the Rump Parliament dismissed by his father in April 1653.
D. L. Smith, ‘Oliver Cromwell, the first Protectorate Parliament and religious reform’ in Parliamentary History 19 (2000); T.A. Wilson & F.J. Merli, 'Naylor's case and the dilemma of the Protectorate' in University of Birmingham Historical Journal 10 (1965-6); and C.H. Firth, 'Cromwell and the crown' in English Historical Review 17 & 18 ...
But accepting that the Commonwealthsmen were in the ascendency in Parliament, Desborough and Fleetwood forced a reluctant Richard Cromwell to use his powers as Lord Protector to dissolve Parliament on 22 April 1659. The Grandees intended to keep Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector under Army control, without calling another parliament.