Metropolitan Puritans and the Varieties of Godly Reform in Monmouth

Oliver Cromwell's opening speech to the Assembly of Saints (Barebones

Parliament) on 4 July 1653 has been singled out as 'the high-water mark

of radicalism' because his millenarian and reformist language revealed the

influence of London-based Fifth Monarchists. 1 But Cromwell began his

speech not with biblical references but with 'that case ofWales, which I

must confess for my own part I set myself upon, if I should inform you

what discountenance that business of the poor people of God there had' by

the Rump's refusal to renew the Propagation Act 'to the discountenancing

of the honest people there', despite the seemingly obvious proof 'that

God kindles a seed there . . . hardly to be paralleled since the primitive

times'.2 In other words, Cromwell brought in the Saints because the

Rump had refused to renew the 1650 Act for the Better Propagation and

Preaching of the Gospel in Wales. The connection between Westminster

politics and Welsh religion was certainly uppermost in Cromwell's mind

in 1653, even if this was not his main motivation.3 Indeed, metropolitan

Puritans had a surprisingly intimate connection with Wales.