Talk:Commonwealth of England

I am going to partially revert this edit by Aanderson@amherst.edu, because two of the thee facts are correct. If there is repetition then edits elsewhere may be needed.

Source for the sequence of events:

• Harris, Tim (2014). Rebellion: Britain's First Stuart Kings, 1567-1642. Oxford University Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780191668869.

From List of Ordinances and Acts of the Parliament of England, 1642–60

• 9 October 1646 Ordinance for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops in England and Wales and for settling their lands and possessions upon Trustees for the use of the Commonwealth.

---

• 6 January 1648/9 Act erecting a High Court of Justice for the trial of the King.
• 30 January 1648/9 Act prohibiting the proclaiming any person to be King of England or Ireland or the Dominions thereof.

30 January 1648/49 execution of Charles I

• 17 March 1648/9 Act for abolishing the kingly office in England, Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging
• 19 March 1648/9 Act abolishing the House of Peers.
• 19 May 1649 Act Declaring and Constituting the People of England to be a Commonwealth and Free-State
• 27 September 1650 Act for the relief of the religious and peaceable from the Rigour of former Acts of Parliament, in matters of Religion.

-- PBS (talk) 01:06, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

PBS, the text reads:

Just before and after the execution of King Charles I on 30 January 1649, the Rump passed a number of acts of Parliament creating the legal basis for the republic. With the abolition of the monarchy, Privy Council and the House of Lords, it had unchecked executive, as well as legislative, power. […two sentences…] After the Execution of Charles I, the House of Commons abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords.

The last sentence is redundant and within the same paragraph, so no other edits are necessary.

— AA— Preceding unsigned comment added by Aanderson@amherst.edu (talk • contribs) 01:19, 23 February 2015‎

Actually while it may be a duplication it is more accurate than the part you have highlighted "Just before and after the execution of King Charles ..." All of the acts mentioned were passed after the execution and not just after (which would imply days, possibly weeks) but more than a month and a half later. As I said If there is repetition then edits elsewhere may be needed. -- PBS (talk) 01:33, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

PBS, while I agree that is better, it is a small matter and I would prefer that you edit this first sentence to your liking instead of restoring this last sentence, which I find to be a distraction since it makes me stop and think to myself “didn’t I just read this?”. — AA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aanderson@amherst.edu (talk • contribs) 02:02, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

As you highlight, with this instance, Wikipedia is a camel (a horse designed by a committee). My point is that the whole paragraph needs rewriting, and deleting the more accurate sentence does not help fix he problem. I am willing to do it by I am not sure when as I have several other pressing issues I am dealing with, in the mean time I do not think that your initial solution fixes the problem. So yes if you do not make the changes I will do so, but I am not sure when. -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I may be doing some addition, I do not see any comments from the past five years, but please correct anything I add that may be erroneous. Notarealperson2 (talk) 19:17, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Over the course of 2024, the country infobox for the commonwealth has been added and removed 9 times. I feel as if there should be a discussion about whether to include it rather than having a very protracted edit war if it is such a contentious issue- the current state of affairs doesn't appear very constructive. Harry Hinderson (talk) 18:31, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I would agree there would need to be discussion before it is included - at the moment I'm not seeing any rationale as to why it ought to be. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:37, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

First of all, this is a dispute about removing an infobox that was already there which had presumed consensus, as it remained in place for years before this conflict began.

Also, consistency with the rest of Wikipedia, mostly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_First_Republic this article has two infoboxes in it, one of which is a country infobox.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granadine_Confederation here's another example.

Additionally I can recall several articles that had sections with their own country infoboxes, as is the case with this article. I can't seem to find any as of right now, however.

Harry Hinderson (talk) 00:33, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

See WP:OTHERCONTENT - there's no reason to believe those articles are a better model to follow than the dozens of others that do not do this. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:40, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm really not getting why the country infobox on this article is less informative than any other country infobox. Please explain why you are removing it. Harry Hinderson (talk) 21:58, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

We already have one, where it's meant to be; I'm not seeing a reason to throw in an extra elsewhere. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:57, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I suppose I agree that the redundancy is inelegant. The top infobox contains more generalized information about the period while the second and third infoboxes only cover specific parts of the regime to account for there only being a standalone article on the protectorate period. If you're adamant on there only being one infobox for the whole of the article perhaps the information could be combined into one infobox somehow? I feel like this would decrease how useful they are as a whole, however. I suppose its mainly a matter of whether the sections should come at the expense of the style of the article. At minimum there should probably be an attempt to remove the more egregious redundancies. Harry Hinderson (talk) 14:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

What is this article actually for? It presents itself as an article for the period of time that is better-known as the Interregnum, but that already has an article. This is seen with the {{Infobox historical era}} here pointing to the next era being the Stuart Restoration, but that article pointing back to British Interregnum. It could be for the Interregnum in England, but that too has its own article.

The article makes the assertion that it is for “the political structure [when Britain was] governed as a republic”. But even then, how is that not better served by an article for the state itself in the style of The Protectorate. Indeed, the article instead appears to be simply about the events in Britain during the Interregnum. Would that purpose not be better served merged into British Interregnum?

Let's look at how other articles use it. The Protectorate, an article similar to this one, but instead framing its subject as a state/form of nation instead of historical era, uses it for Preceded by and Succeeded by in its infobox and in its body for the purpose to represent the Commonwealth of England as a state.

I understand there was a previous debate over specifically the infobox, to which I do {{ping}} @Harry Hinderson and @Nikkimaria.

That, to me, seems to be the “correct” purpose of this article, and what I propose. It should represent the Commonwealth of England as a state, as in the republic in Britain 30 January 1649–16 December 1653 and 25 May 1659–May 1660 without the dictatorship of the Cromwell's, for the purpose it currently tries to fill is already filled by The Protectorate and British Interregnum. Coleisforeditor (talk) 18:41, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

I think you make an excellent case for there being more articles here than there need to be - I've merged the contents of this article into Interregnum_(England). Nikkimaria (talk) 00:03, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria I fear you misunderstood me — I was saying that parts of it should be merged into the Interregnum page(s) and this article should focus on the specific historical state "Commonwealth of England".

I have reverted your edit. Coleisforeditor (talk) 16:02, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I came across this article as its temporary redirection caused some categories to empty but I note that it was created in November 2001 so it's one of our oldest articles still existing on the project. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:01, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Okay. I've reverted back to the last stable version for now, because it looks like this is going to need some further discussion. I don't agree that it makes sense to have two-plus different articles covering the same place and time. Given the length of the various articles, it looks like we're over-subdividing. I'd suggest we talk through one or more merges to help rationalize this content. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:51, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

This entire system of articles does seem incredibly confusing. I don't think the status quo should persist, because if I'm being honest I just spent 30 minutes trying to mull it over and exited it more confused. Harry Hinderson (talk) 20:11, 17 October 2025 (UTC)