ABSTRACT
The 1650s saw a constant tension between those who wanted a return to political and social normality and those who wanted to follow up the political revolution of 1648–9 with sweeping legal, social and religious changes. Alongside Oliver Cromwell's yearning for 'settlement' was a thrusting, intense zeal for 'reformation' which had two broad aspects. Yet the regimes of the 1650s ruled more successfully, pursued a more radical agenda, and came nearer to achieving a permanent political-constitutional framework which would comprehend revolutionary radicalism and conservative traditionalism than is generally recognized. Perhaps the most notable achievement of the Rump was not its foreign, 'British' and commercial policies, but that, despite high odds against it, it made republican government tolerable to many. For many in the army, what was uppermost in their minds were not the achievements, but the Rump's failure to carry out the army's hoped-for godly reformation.
