Editing Commonwealth of England (section)

==== Structure ====
In [[Pride's Purge]], all members of parliament (including most of the political [[Presbyterianism|Presbyterians]]) who would not accept the need to bring the King to trial had been removed. Thus the Rump never had more than two hundred members (less than half the number of the Commons in the original Long Parliament). They included: supporters of religious independents who did not want an established church and some of whom had sympathies with the [[Levellers]]; Presbyterians who were willing to countenance the trial and execution of the King; and later admissions, such as formerly excluded MPs who were prepared to denounce the Newport Treaty negotiations with the King.

Most Rumpers were [[gentry]], though there was a higher proportion of lesser gentry and lawyers than in previous parliaments.  Less than one-quarter of them were [[regicide]]s. This left the Rump as basically a conservative body whose vested interests in the existing land ownership and legal systems made it unlikely to want to reform them.