Anthony Ascham

Ascham's reward for his support of the republican Commonwealth was to be appointed as a trade representative to the Hanseatic League in Hamburg in 1649.

In 1650, he was appointed to represent the Commonwealth of England in Spain, but he never presented his credentials to the Court as he was murdered by a group of six Royalists émigrés in an Inn in Madrid on 27 May.

Parliament's ultimate victory and the establishment of the Commonwealth posed a problem for those who felt unable to accept the legality of the new government but were now being required to give it their allegiance, and also for those who regarded their oath of allegiance to King Charles I Charles I of England as a solemn oath to God that could not be broken.

The debate was initiated by Francis Rous who published a brief pamphlet in April 1649[7] in which he argued that allegiance could be given to the Commonwealth even though it were acknowledged to be an illegal power.

In the debate that followed Ascham played a major part in developing a theory of political obligation to the de facto power.

A. his book of the Confusions and revolution of Government (sic), which was published on 9 January 1650, was directed as much as against Edward Gee's Exercitation concerning usurped powers as against Sanderson's work.

The Presbyterian Richard Baxter held that he "could not judge it seemly for him that believed there is a God to play fast and loose with a dreadful oath".

[10] In contrast, Ascham argued that all oaths involved tacit conditions, of which the ability of the government to protect the people was the main one.