Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum: KS3 History Explained

What was the Interregnum and why did it happen?

The word Interregnum is Latin for "between reigns." It describes the period from the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649 to the restoration of Charles II on 29 May 1660. England became, for the first and only time in its history, a republic — officially called the Commonwealth of England.

The execution of Charles I had not been the original plan of most Parliamentarians. What pushed events to that extreme was the Army, especially the New Model Army that had won the Civil War, and a group of radicals in Parliament known as Independents. In December 1648, Colonel Thomas Pride physically prevented over 140 Presbyterian MPs who favoured negotiating with the king from entering Parliament — an event known as "Pride's Purge." What remained was the "Rump Parliament," small enough to be dominated by those who wanted the king tried and condemned.

Charles I was tried for treason against his own people — a legal and conceptual novelty, since the whole theory of English kingship held that a king could not commit treason against himself. He refused to recognise the court's authority. Found guilty, he was beheaded outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall on a cold January morning. Even many who had fought against him were shocked.

How was England governed without a king?

In the years immediately after the execution, England was governed by the Rump Parliament and the Council of State. The House of Lords was abolished. The monarchy was abolished. England was declared a Commonwealth. In practice, real power lay with the Army, whose commander was Oliver Cromwell.

This created an unstable dynamic. Parliament wanted to control the Army; the Army — particularly its radical officers — had its own vision of godly reformation. Cromwell sat between the two, sometimes mediating, sometimes using force. In April 1653, frustrated by the Rump Parliament's failure to pass reforms and arrange fresh elections, Cromwell famously marched in with soldiers and dissolved Parliament, telling MPs: "You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you."

What kind of ruler was Cromwell as Lord Protector?

After the failure of the brief "Barebones Parliament" (a nominated assembly of godly men), a new constitutional settlement called the Instrument of Government was drawn up in December 1653. It made Cromwell Lord Protector — head of state for life, governing with a Council of State and a Parliament, but with executive powers that in practice exceeded those of many kings.

The Major-Generals period — when army officers controlled local government, closed alehouses, banned horse-racing and cock-fighting, and enforced Puritan morality — left a bitter legacy of resentment that shaped English attitudes to Puritanism and military rule for generations.

Why did Cromwell refuse the crown?

In April 1657, Parliament offered Cromwell the title of king. He agonised over the decision for weeks and ultimately refused, though he accepted a revised "Humble Petition and Advice" that gave him most of the powers of a king. His reasons were mixed.

Partly it was religious: Cromwell genuinely believed that Providence — God's will as expressed through events — had condemned kingship; accepting the crown might mean defying God. Partly it was political: his own Army officers, many of them radical republicans, would have been alienated. And partly it was personal: Cromwell had spent his career in the service of the Parliament, and however wide his authority had grown, calling himself a king felt like a step too far.

The paradox is acute. He dissolved Parliaments when they defied him, governed through military districts, and exercised personal power that Charles I had never possessed — yet he declined the title that would have made his position legitimate and hereditary.

Why did the monarchy return in 1660?

Cromwell died on 3 September 1658. His son Richard succeeded him as Lord Protector but lacked his father's authority and military reputation. Within months the Army and Parliament were deadlocked again. Richard resigned in May 1659. England faced a constitutional vacuum that no republican settlement could fill.

General George Monck, commander of the Army in Scotland, marched south and negotiated a return to something recognisable. Parliament recalled Charles II, who was in exile in the Spanish Netherlands. In the Declaration of Breda (April 1660), Charles II promised a general pardon, religious toleration, and arrears of soldiers' pay if he was invited back. On 29 May 1660 he entered London to popular celebration. The Interregnum was over.

Frequently asked questions

Was Oliver Cromwell a hero or a villain?

Cromwell divides historians more than almost any other figure in British history. To some, he was a military genius who guaranteed Parliament's authority against royal tyranny. To others — particularly the Irish, who suffered massacres at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 — he was a brutal imperialist. In England itself, the Puritan moral code of the Major-Generals period made him a symbol of joyless repression. A balanced assessment recognises genuine achievements in law, trade, and religious toleration alongside real cruelties and constitutional contradictions.

What happened to Cromwell's body at the Restoration?

In an act of symbolic revenge, Charles II ordered that Cromwell's body be exhumed from Westminster Abbey (where it had been buried in 1658) and subjected to a symbolic execution. The corpse was hanged in its shroud at Tyburn on 30 January 1661 — the twelfth anniversary of Charles I's execution — and then beheaded. Cromwell's head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall for over twenty years.

What were the Levellers and why did Cromwell suppress them?

The Levellers were a political movement within the New Model Army who argued for popular sovereignty, equal rights before the law, and annual Parliaments elected by most men. They published documents like the "Agreement of the People" (1647) setting out these demands. Cromwell suppressed the Levellers in 1649, imprisoning their leaders at Burford, because their radicalism threatened the social order and the property of the gentry on whose support the regime depended. The tension between a revolutionary army and a conservative ruling class ran through the whole Interregnum.

Why did England not become a republic permanently after 1649?

England's republican experiment failed for several reasons: it had no constitutional foundation that could outlast a single powerful personality (Cromwell), it never won genuine popular support, it relied on military force rather than consent, and it divided the country along religious and regional lines without healing those divisions. The Commonwealth's achievements in trade and empire were real, but ordinary English people associated the republic with Puritan repression, heavy taxation, and military rule. When the choice came in 1660, most welcomed the king back.

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