ABSTRACT
The assumption that the civil wars irrevocably changed England is often linked to the claim that they were the products of long-term structural weaknesses in English society. The perception that civil war was profoundly unlikely in seventeenth-century England can be supported by recent studies of social relationships and of the workings of English government and law. Another recent body of historical work examines the impact of the ideological divisions of the civil wars on the reign of Charles II. Disillusionment set in, exacerbated by humiliating defeat in the Dutch War of 1665-67. There are several ways of explaining this disillusionment. One would be that Charles inherited the malevolent intentions of his father. Another would be that Parliament, having tasted power in the civil wars, was determined to impose its will on a feckless king. On the other, the political and religious divisions bequeathed by civil war tended to divide communities, Parliament and the nation itself.
