The Rule of the Major-Generals, was a period of direct military government from August 1655 to January 1657,^[1] during Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate.^[2] England and Wales were divided into ten regions,^[3] each governed by a major-general who answered to the Lord Protector.

The period quickly "became a convenient and powerful symbol of the military nature of the unpopular Interregnum state".^[4]

The Rule of the Major-Generals was set up by Cromwell by his orders to the army, and was not supported by Parliamentary legislation. His goal was threefold: to identify, tax, disarm and weaken the Royalists, whom he saw as conspirators against his rule. The system was also an economical measure because the military budget had been cut. The major generals would take control of incumbent civilian administrations, which would not require an expansion of local military forces. As well, he sought "a reformation of manners" or moral regeneration through the suppression of vice and the encouragement of virtue, which he considered much too neglected.^{[citation needed]} The historian Austin Woolrych, using 21st-century terminology, said that the Puritans did not consider it inappropriate to "employ senior military officers as vice squad chiefs".^[5]

In March 1655, there were ineffectual-but-concerted Royalist uprisings in England.^[6] In late July, news of the defeat of the expedition to Hispaniola, commanded by William Penn and Robert Venables, reached London in 1655. Cromwell felt that the defeat was his punishment from God for not trying to make England a more religious, godly place.^[7][8]

In August, a scheme was proposed to introduce the Rule of the Major-Generals, but prevarication and other delays delayed its introduction to October.^[6]

Like Cromwell, the major-generals were committed Puritans, Congregationalist reformers with Calvinist leanings. Part of their job was to try to make England more godly. They clamped down on what they considered to be rowdy behaviour like heavy drinking, music, dancing and fairs. They also tried to stop Christmas celebrations. Their rule was unpopular.^[7]

The Second Protectorate Parliament voted down Major-General John Desborough's "Militia Bill" on 29 January 1657 by 124 votes to 88. This bill would have perpetuated the Decimation Tax that funded the mounted militia, which was collected by Cromwell's major-generals; the failure of the bill caused the so-called Rule of the Major-Generals in the counties to end.

The Rule of the Major-Generals is regarded by a large number of authors as a military dictatorship,^[9] with the exception of Austin Woolrych. The argument of Woolrych against such definition is that the major-generals remained within the boundaries of the law, they had minimal or no long-term influence in local government and their authority only lasted for less than two years.^[10]

Patrick Little wrote an article on the Major-General (2012) in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

The religious zeal of the major-generals, coupled with their attempt to impose godly rule on England and Wales, has given them a lasting reputation as po-faced puritans and killjoys, and this reputation has attached itself to the Cromwellian regime as a whole. Few have addressed the subject without emotion.... Others have traced back to this period the English love of freedom and hatred of standing armies and military rule. Modern historians tend to portray the major-generals either as the gauleiters of the Cromwellian military state or as misguided religious zealots.^[6]

There were ten regional associations covering England and Wales administered by major-generals. Ireland, under Major-General Henry Cromwell,^[a] and Scotland, under Major-General George Monck, were in administrations that had already been agreed upon and were not part of the scheme.^[11]

• Barnard, T. C. (2014), The English Republic 1649–1660, Routledge, ISBN 978-1317897262
• Bremer, Francis J.; Webster, Tom (2006), "Major-Generals", Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America, ABC-CLIO, p. 452, ISBN 978-1-57607-678-1
• Durston, Christopher (2001), Cromwell's Major-Generals: Godly Government During the English Revolution, Manchester University Press, p. 21, ISBN 978-0-7190-6065-6
• Hill, Christopher (1985), The Collected Essays of Christopher Hill, Harvester Press, ISBN 0710805128
• Little, Paterick (1 January 2007), "Putting the Protector back into the Protectorate", BBC History Magazine, 8 (1): 15
• Little, Patrick (2012), "Major-generals (act. 1655–1657)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.), Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/95468 (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Royle, Trevor (2006) [2004], Civil War: The Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1638–1660, Pub Abacus, ISBN 978-0-349-11564-1
• Smith, David Lee (2008), Cromwell and the Interregnum: The Essential Readings, John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 978-1405143141
• Smith, Laceyey Baldwin (2006), English History Made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable, Chicago Review Press, ISBN 0897336305
• Wolf, John Baptiste (1962), The Emergence of European Civilization: From the Middle Ages to the Opening of the Nineteenth Century, Harper
• Woolrych, Austin (2004), Britain in Revolution: 1625–1660, Oxford University Press

Attribution:

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Firth, Charles (1900). "Worsley, Charles". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 63. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 32–33.
• This article incorporates text from a publication under version 3.0 of the British Open Government Licence which is a Wikipedia compatible copyleft licence: "Civil War – What kind of ruler was Oliver Cromwell? – Cromwell in his own words – Source 3", The National Archives, retrieved 11 September 2015