As early as 1649 two Bills had been brought in to settle questions urgently demanded by the people, an act for a general amnesty, and for the termination of the present Parliament. On his return from the battle of Worcester, Cromwell reminded Parliament that these essential measures had not been completed. He carried the amnesty, so that all acts of hostility against the present Government previous to the battle of Worcester were pardoned, and the Royalists relieved from the fear of fresh forfeitures. The termination of Parliament was fixed for the 3rd of November, 1654, and the interval of three years was to be zealously employed in framing a scheme for the election of a new Parliament on the safest principles. At the same time Cromwell was living at Whitehall, in the house of the beheaded king, and with almost the state and power of a sovereign. He summoned, therefore, the council of the army, and discussed amongst them what they deemed necessary to be done.
In this council it was agitated as to the best form of government for England, whether a pure republic, or a government with something of monarchy in it. The officers were for a republic, the lawyers for a limited monarchy. Cromwell agreed that the government must have something of monarchy in it, and asked who they would choose if that were decided? The lawyers said Charles Stuart, or if they found him too much bent on power, his brother the Duke of Gloucester. There can be little doubt but that this was a feeler on the part of Cromwell, and as he was never likely to acquiesce in the restoration of a family which they had put down at so much cost, it would have the effect of causing him to proceed with caution. He had ascertained that the army was opposed to a king; the lawyers thought of no king but one from the old royal line. These were facts to be pondered.
Meanwhile the Parliament, without proceeding to lay a platform for its successor, evidenced a jealousy of the ascendency of the army; it voted a reduction of one-fourth of the army, and of the monthly assessment for its support from one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to ninety thousand pounds. In June, 1652, it proposed a fresh reduction, but this was opposed by the military council, and in August the officers appeared at the bar of the House with a petition, calling the attention of the Parliament to the great question of the qualifications of future parliaments, to reform of the law and religious abuses, to the dismissal of disaffected and scandalous persons from office, to the arrears due to the army, and to reform of malpractices in the Excise and the Treasury.