Wales

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’. Letters and Speeches ed. Carlyle, Lomas, ii. 282-3; iii. 440. 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’. Original Letters ed. Nickolls, 120. 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. Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, 177, 179, 183.

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

I presume Brother [Vavasor] Powell acquainted you [of] our thoughts as to the persons most in them, to serve on behalf the saints in north Wales; that we propound three for north, three for south Wales. Hugh Courtney, John Browne, Richard Price out of your parts; wherein I wish the help of yourself and others if we have erred in the men, or to confirm us therein if approved by the most spiritual, or that you would send up two or three names of the most polished, in case there be cause of any addition or alteration, though it were by lot. ‘Inedited Letters’ ed. Mayer, 226-7.

While there is no evidence of any casting of lots to determine membership of the projected assembly, nor even that the churches of Wales were consulted, it is evident from Harrison’s letter to Jones that Powell and Harrison had settled upon the north Wales representatives by mid-May. Hugh Courtney had been a commissary and quarter-master-general and was de facto governor of Anglesey. He was an associate both of Powell and Llwyd. Browne was an elder of Llwyd’s church at Wrexham, though he was unknown to John Jones I in 1653. ‘Inedited Letters’ ed. Mayer, 237. Captain Richard Price was ‘elder and pillar’ in the church which Powell gathered in Montgomeryshire. Records of a Church in Broadmead, 517. Another member chosen for Wales, Captain John Williams, was also an elder in Powell’s church, with an abiding loyalty to his pastor. Vavasoris Examen (1654), epistle dedicatory (E.732.12). Bussy Mansell, a Glamorgan man, had been an enthusiast for the propagation commission, and may have owed more to Colonel Philip Jones* than to Harrison for his summons to the Assembly. Like Mansell, James Philipps, of Cardigan, had served on the high court of justice to try the rebels of Cardiganshire in June 1651.

The advent of the Nominated Assembly encouraged some of the gathered churches to consider the potentialities of associating with like minded congregations across the British nations. The Baptist church at Glasshouse, London in July 1653 and in the name of ‘the several churches of Christ in London’, expressed to the Welsh Baptists their wish ‘to obtain a full knowledge of all the churches in England, Scotland and Wales’. The Ilston Bk. ed. B.G. Owens (Aberystwyth, 1996), 64, 67, 68. However, for all the hopes vested in the Welsh Saints by Cromwell, Harrison and the gathered church of Wrexham, the performance of the Assembly was disappointing, and the Welsh Members seem to have become very quickly disillusioned. Five of the six seem to have lost interest in it by August, and Price, Browne and Mansell were named to no committees after July, the first month of the Parliament, was out. Only Hugh Courtney, who was named to the council of state, could be said to have participated fully. The loss of faith in the Parliament by the Welsh Members mirrored that of their most important patron, Thomas Harrison I.