Committee for Plundered Ministers

The Committee for Plundered Ministers was originally established in late 1642 by the Presbyterian faction in the Long Parliament following the start of the English Civil War. In December 1642 the committee was formalised as a parliamentary committee charged with the purpose of supporting the puritan ministers who had been removed from their livings by royalists. Its power was restricted to conducting preliminary investigations, before being forwarded to the House of Lords, who retained the power to actually deprive a minister of their living. However, as Parliament gained the upper hand in the war, so the work of the committees became less to do with supporting clerics who supported their cause and more to do with suppressing those who supported the monarchy.