Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the British Isles had no monarch for 11 years. In the history of the monarchy this period is known as the Interregnum ("between reigns"). Officially, the government was a republic, "The Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland."
The revolutionaries who won the Civil War not only killed the king. They abolished the monarchy itself, along with the House of Lords and the bishops. Nominally, power lay initially in the hands of the "Rump" of the Long Parliament, a minority of those elected in 1640.
It soon became clear, however, that real power had gravitated to the New Model Army. The top army commander, Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658), became de facto head of the Commonwealth. [Image: Cromwell by Samuel Cooper]
Cromwell was not a monarch, yet he ruled the British Isles as firmly as any king for several years. Prior to the Civil War, he had been a Cambridgeshire country gentleman living a generally unremarkable life. He became an MP in the late 1620s and served in the parliaments elected in 1640. During the war, he rose to high rank and eventually to overall commander.
After the execution of Charles I, which he had at first opposed and then supported, he served on the Council of State of the new republic and in the "Rump," the remnants of the Long Parliament.
By 1651, Cromwell had become thoroughly disillusioned with the behavior of the Rump MPs. He used his power as army commander to dissolve it, accusing its members of having become a corrupt and self-perpetuating oligarchy.
That left him with the problem of what should replace it. He wanted to establish a workable representative government for the Commonwealth. Despite several experiments, he never succeeded.
In effect, he ruled as a military dictator, dividing the British Isles into districts, each governed by a major general. Some of his supporters wanted him to take the title of king. He refused. Instead, he accepted the title of Lord Protector of the Commonwealth in 1653.
To many people in England during the following centuries, Cromwell was a hero who defended the liberty of the people. A statue of him was erected in 1899 outside the Parliament buildings in Westminster. [Image: Cromwell statue]
The statue was controversial. Sincere royalists detested it. Though hardly royalists, Irish Nationalist MPs protested vehemently against it. Most of the Irish reviled Cromwell. In 1649 he had suppressed a royalist revolt in Ireland with brutal ferocity. Rightly or wrongly, he was blamed for atrocities committed by his soldiers.
Cromwell's Irish campaign and the penal laws against Catholics that followed did more to poison Anglo-Irish relations than anything besides the Famine of the 1840s. Cromwell's name remains a byword among the Irish for English cruelty and tyranny. Winston Churchill called it "the curse of Cromwell."
Cromwell also suppressed a royalist rebellion in Scotland in 1650-51. That produced its own atrocities, but he treated the Scots more leniently than the Irish. Religion explains the difference.
The Scots were largely Protestant and had been allies against Charles I. Cromwell viewed them as a people "godly but deceived." The Catholic majority in Ireland was simply ungodly, enslaved to the mass and the Pope.
Cromwell's exact religious views and policies remain something of an enigma. He was a strong believer in Providence, the idea that God was actively engaged in world affairs. Not surprisingly, he considered himself a servant that God had "provided" to make Britain a more moral and godlier place.
As for the organization of religion, Cromwell was an "Independent." He opposed any central church hierarchy, whether bishops in England or presbyters in Scotland. Each congregation, he believed, should be left independent to run its own affairs.
Cromwell tolerated various interpretations of Protestantism. He also welcomed Jews back to England for the first time since Edward I had banished them in the 13th century. He continued to make life difficult for Catholics, and persecuted some radical Protestant fringe sects, especially the Quakers and Fifth Monarchists.
The breakdown of traditional authorities and institutions encouraged the spread of surprisingly radical ideas. Historian Christopher Hill entitled a book on the 1650s The World Turned Upside Down. A movement within the army, the Levellers, pushed for a democratic political system. Small groups of people known as Diggers even attempted to establish a communistic society.
In contrast to the film named after him, starring Richard Harris, Cromwell was not a democrat. He believed in a representative government, but one controlled by men of property. He presented his views at a series of meetings that took place at St. Mary's Church in Putney in 1647, pictured below.
The meetings became known as the Putney Debates. The Levellers demanded a political system of one man, one vote, and freedom of conscience. One of the most memorable statements came from the Leveller leader Colonel Thomas Rainsborough:
"For really I think that the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not at all bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under."
Cromwell and his allies rejected the Levellers' demands. When the Levellers continued to agitate for democratic reforms, he crushed them. Democracy would have to wait two more centuries.
Religious innovations also flourished during the Civil War and Republic. Some sects advanced positions embraced by the hippies of the 1960s, including nudity and free love. The "Ranters" argued that the best cure for temptation was to give in to it. For example, an urge to swear should be cured by swearing.
Several religious sects that "came out" in the 1650s did not last long, but a few are with us today, notably Congregationalists, "Quakers" (Society of Friends), and Baptists.
Cromwell died in 1658, probably of kidney disease complicated by malaria. He had nominated his son Richard to succeed him as Lord Protector, but Richard lacked his father's political and military skill. The major generals pushed him aside after a few months. he became known as "Tumble Down Dick."
Without a clear leader, Britain seemed destined to descend into chaos and Civil War once again. George Monck, one of Cromwell's major generals, marched his army from Scotland to London and recalled the remnants of the Long Parliament. They voted to restore the monarchy. In 1660, the eldest son of Charles I took the throne, inaugurating the period known as the Restoration.
PS. After Charles II became king, he moved to avenge his father's execution. The MPs who had signed Charles I's death warrant and remained alive were arrested and executed.
Cromwell's body was dug up and hanged in chains. It was then tossed into a pit, except for his head. It was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685. It passed through various hands until 1960, when it was buried beneath the floor of a chapel at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
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