Dissolution of the Rump Parliament

(‘ye longe parlament shoulde bee broaken vppe & ye speaker shoulde bee pluckt out of his chaire’: fol. 75v):
(‘when ye longe parlament was turned out’: fol. 94v)

On 20 April 1653, the Rump Parliament (the remnants of the Long Parliament after Pride's Purge of December 1648), was forcibly dissolved by Cromwell. He entered the Commons, is said to have listened to a few speeches, and then according to tradition, declared, ‘You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’. A company of musketeers led by Major-General Thomas Harrison then cleared the Chamber; again, according to report, he pulled the Speaker, William Lenthall, out of his chair.

Unfortunately we do not know which of the ‘newsbooks’ Judge Fell and Colonel Benson were reading when Fox made his prediction (fol. 73v). It seems likely to have been the Mercurius Britannicus, but the issues for this period are missing from the standard colllections. It seems to have been a complete surprise to the Mercurius Politicus , which merely records on its final page for 14-21 April 1653 (no 149):

April 20: The Lord General deliver’d in Parliament divers Reasons wherefore a present [i.e. immediate] Period should be put to the sitting of this Parliament; and it was accordingly done, the Speaker and the Members all departing. The grounds of which Proceedings will (its probable) be shortly made publick.

This does not however appear to have been done: at least, the Mercurius Politicus is silent about it.
This event helps us roughly to date Fox's departure for Cumberland.