On 5 December 1648, the Commons determined by 129 votes to 83 that the king’s response to the propositions of both Houses, part of the negotiations during the Treaty of Newport, was sufficient grounds for further discussion of a settlement. This vote provoked the army into its purge of Parliament the following day. On 13 December, the purged House of Commons established a committee to view the orders recorded in the Journal, resolved that the 5 December vote was null and void, and ordered another committee, chaired by John Lisle, ‘to bring in something’ consequent upon the debate. On 18 December, as second business of the day, Lisle’s committee was augmented, with a brief to prepare a Declaration of Dissent to the 5 December vote. Members were required to assent to this Declaration before sitting further in the House. The speed with which Members assented has been taken as a measure of their enthusiasm for the revolution, with the king’s trial and subsequent execution on 30 January 1649 intensifying the pressure on them to determine their stance. On 5 March 1649, a committee was appointed to receive ‘satisfaction’ from those members who had not yet entered their dissents. Whether this test involved a formal tendering of the Declaration of Dissent to such members, or a less formal interview discussion, remains unclear.

On 21 February 1660, the Commons ordered that the various votes concerning the Dissent were to be made void and ‘obliterated’, which included the expunging of the record in the Journal by heavy overscoring. The following list of those known to have taken the Dissent down to 5 March 1649 is based on the draft Journal, in which traces of the obliterated material may still be discerned, the printed Journal, [W. Prynne], A Full Declaration of the True State of the Secluded Members Case (1660, E.1013.22) and Underdown, Pride’s Purge.