The Protectorate

Abstract

The Commonwealth was technically to last for an important eight months after the expulsion of the Purged Parliament. Yet there are good reasons for treating the period from April 1653 until September 1658 as a unit. During that time the army, having failed to obtain satisfaction from the body which it had installed in 1648, embarked upon a series of briefer experiments intended to bring about better results. Furthermore, at the moment that he ordered the MPs from the House, Cromwell turned his already considerable importance in British politics into an absolute dominance which was to last until his death. It is appropriate, therefore, to make at this point an assessment of this remarkable personality, by far the most important and influential in the British Isles during his final decade of life.