ABSTRACT
Debate about the 'military revolution' of early modern Europe has swirled since Michael Roberts announced the concept in 1955. Few historians now doubt that such a transition took place, but controversy over its chronology, range, and impact continue.Roberts's original paper focused on the revolution's manifestations in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Germany from 1560 to 1660. This chapter examines the transformation of England's naval administrative and fiscal system from 1649 to 1651 and the impact of this transformation on the operational success of the navy during the English Commonwealth's greatest crisis. This situation changed dramatically in 1648 as the parliamentary fleet mutinied, the Second Civil War erupted, and the victorious parliamentarians fell out amongst themselves, giving royalists their last opportunity for victory. This blow ended the Second Civil War and made the army supreme in England, thus ending forever Charles I's hopes of exploiting the fissures in the parliamentary cause.
