Talk:Commonwealth of England

Reorganisation (again)

Sorry if I’m ploughing up ground that others thought settled, but I think there are some issues with titles and scopes of articles related to this one. Not, I should say, with the title of this article—I won’t dare to touch that issue—but as the preceding archive link suggests, this Talk page has been something of a rallying point for edits on the whole inter-article matter in the past, so I’ve chosen to make my observations here.

• Interregnum (England) seems, by its own lead, to intend to be about life and events in England during the Interregnum, not about the Interregnum itself. Great—can the title reflect that? Something like “England during the Interregnum”?
• I’m sure the title Interregnum (1649–1660) has been carefully chosen (over such predecessors as Interregnum (British Isles)) for good and inclusive reasons, but for someone only passingly familiar with the topic, it’s very confusing. It suggests that (a) I (should) know the Interregnum by its dates, and/or that (b) that there was another Interregnum in England or Britain, rendering “(British Isles)” insufficient as a distinguisher.
• The scopes of articles on the topic need to be clarified (and the articles themselves interlinked more consistently), so that someone like me can come in fresh and know which articles are going to cover what facets—and I can go away feeling that I’ve got a decent idea of how matters relate to each other.

Far be it from me to tell the hard-working editors who’ve carefully hammered out consensus that they’re wrong and they have to do this or that, but… well, the danger everyone faces, writing in their own areas of expertise, is losing perspective on how non-experts will come to the topic, isn’t it? -- Perey (talk) 04:26, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Point of fact there was an article called English Interregnum which was moved to Interregnum (England) this was briefly moved to Interregnum (British Isles) and then moved back to Interregnum (England). Interregnum (1649–1660) was a summary style article created immediately after the move back from Interregnum (British Isles) which was then redirected to that new summary style article.

British Isles is a very bad disambiguator because it is a politically loaded term and not (just) a geographic one. For example what defines the British Isles to include the Shetland Islands but exclude the Faroe Islands if it is not political possession? Similarly with the Channel Islands (it needed a ICJ ruling in 1953 to decide whether Écréhous was French or British territory and hence part of the British Isles). Using the term British Isles while not thought much of a issue in Britain, as politically controversial in Ireland so best avoided if there is a suitable alternative . Also there are lots of other interregnums for the constituent parts of the British Isles at other times which makes it less than ideal:

Who was king of England after Harold was killed at Hastings? The idea of "The King is dead. Long live the King" is Norman medieval concept which did not exist in Saxon Englandm, and often notable in its absence during things like the War of the Roses -- before the Battle of Bosworth Richard III was King, but Parliament passed legislation after the fact that made Henry VII King the day before the battle (making those who fought against him traitors after the fact). In 1660 after the events of 1649 it became a political figleaf, particularly after James II fled into exile and the later choice of George I as king by act of Parliament. King Henry VIII was the first modern King of Ireland (before that his and previous English Kings were Lords of Ireland). Wales did not have a king (or at least it was debatable) before Edward I imposed himself on the principality, also at times Scotland was without a monarch (eg Braveheart and all that). So "interregnum (British Isles)" is not only politically inexpedient it also brings complexity the current disambiguation avoids.

As to your questions over "Interregnum (England)" I am against changing the title and in the long term it may be better to merge its contents in here and redirect it to this article, but until its content is fully cited I would be against doing that. Besides there are many other things that need work before we need worry about that (like turning Interregnum (1649–1660) into a much better article along with the articles to which it links). -- PBS (talk) 16:38, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Sequence of events

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)

Possible revisions and additions to come...?

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)

Commonwealth Country Infobox Conflict

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)