Stories of the World

The Seventeenth Century tried to govern England. Cromwell tried to set up a republic, but he could never get a parliament to suit him, and all the time he was really ruling like an absolute king. There were no more bishops, and the Puritans had things all their own way.

Cromwell was a very earnest Protestant. He thought all the time that he was doing God’s work. He had many wise plans for the government of England, but many of the people felt that he was really more of a tyrant than Charles I had been. When he died his son was made ‘Lord Protector,’ but England was tired of the new ways, and a message was sent to Prince Charles, asking him to come back and govern the country.

There was great rejoicing when King Charles II rode into London, on the 29th May 1660. The bishops were brought back, and there began a very merry time in the history of England.

After the Restoration, as the return of Charles was called, the Puritans had a very hard time, although Charles the ‘Merry Monarch’ had promised to give them ‘liberty of conscience.’

He could not have been kind to them, even if he had wished, for the new parliaments, full of love for the king, and angry at the memory of the sorrows of his father, were determined to have their revenge. The bodies of Cromwell and two of his friends were taken from their graves in Westminster Abbey and hanged on the scaffold. They were buried again, but of course not in the Abbey.

Charles II was always very careful not to interfere with the rights of parliament, and so England was the one country whose government left some power to the people. Later, when the peoples of other countries rose up and fought for power, 389