Following the execution of Charles I in the years between 1649 and 1660, England was at first governed as a republic or commonwealth under a Council of State appointed by Parliament. The power behind this new government was the army, led by Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. When Ireland declared for Charles II, the heir to the English throne, Cromwell led his troops in a thorough and brutal defeat of that nation. Later, in 1650, Scotland also acknowledged Prince Charles, and when Fairfax refused to act against them, Cromwell was made supreme commander.
Oliver Cromwell was a brilliant commander, a man of culture and refinement and, in his own eyes, a humble servant of God. Personally, he was a man of prayer, and he was thoroughly familiar with the Bible. He chose as chaplains some of the most godly Puritan divines in the land, Richard Baxter for example. But first and foremost he was a military man, and in combat or in a punitive campaign as against the Irish he was utterly ruthless.
In two actions Cromwell also smashed the Scottish armies, and by September 1651, armed resistance anywhere in the British Isles was no longer possible. In 1653 Cromwell, now the most powerful man in Britain, dissolved Parliament. A small ‘nominated Parliament’ met for a while, but this assembly put all their authority into the hands of Cromwell in December 1653, giving him the title of Lord Protector. It was a time of strange extremes—brilliant military campaigns and treaties abroad and a general breakdown of all the old religious traditions at home, with radical movements starting off in all directions. Opposition to the military government and to the ascetic religious practices of the ruling powers grew apace, and when Oliver Cromwell suddenly died in 1658 London and most of the rest of the country was as ready for a change as it had been when it rose against Charles I.
The final two years of the Commonwealth were an anti-climax. The office of Lord Protector fell to Oliver Cromwell’s son Richard, who soon proved inadequate for this high position. The army invited the former members of Parliament to meet again, but before long this body was dissolved and a new Parliament freely elected in its place. Everyone knew that the monarchy would soon be restored.