ABSTRACT
This chapter covers the period of British history known as the Commonwealth, from 1649 to 1653, and explores the effects of civil war and regicide on political culture and the subsequent search for a lasting political settlement. In spite of repudiating the king’s trial and execution, Skippon committed himself to ensuring the security of the Commonwealth regime in London, as well as continuing to sit as an MP and serving on four of the five republican councils of state elected each year. This chapter uses Skippon’s religious writings and political activity to shed new light on attitudes to monarchy and regicide in this period. It investigates the Rump Parliament’s reform programmes, and the tensions between many MPs’ desire for constitutional propriety and the army’s demands for godly reformation. The spoils of war and redistribution of land and wealth also come under scrutiny in this chapter. Skippon himself acquired a vast estate as a result of the wars. Whilst it is hard to avoid distaste at the redistribution of royalist and especially of Irish land, the acquisition of wealth must be understood in the context of the contemporary belief that financial success was a mark of God’s favour.
