[1][2][3][4] The Army and the Independents conducted "Pride's Purge" of the House of Commons removing their ill-wishers, and created a court for the trial and sentence of King Charles I.

[5] At the end of the trial the 59 Commissioners (judges) found Charles I guilty of high treason, as a "tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy".

The interregnum has been referred to as "the Cromwellian ascendancy and military occupation of Scotland" in the Oxford Companion to Scottish History under the heading 'Restoration'.

Under the terms of the union the Scots gained 30 members of parliament in the Protectorate (the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland), but many posts were not filled, or fell to English agents of the government, and had very little say at Westminster.

Initially the government was run by eight commissioners and adopted a policy of undermining the political power of the nobility in favour of the "meaner sort".

[attribution needed] From 1655 it was replaced by a new Council of Scotland, headed by Irish peer Lord Broghill, and began to attempt to win over the traditional landholders.