SOURCE: "Oliver Cromwell and English History," in God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, The Dial Press, 1970, pp. 251-76.

In the following excerpts, Hill observes that Cromwell's ideas have had lasting effects on the minds of the English people, influencing their subsequent behavior toward the monarchy and their beliefs regarding religion, the middle class, and liberty.

I

Twenty months after Oliver Cromwell's death Charles II sat once more on his father's throne. The intervening period had shown that no settlement was possible until the Army was disbanded. Richard Cromwell lacked the prestige with the soldiers necessary if he was to prolong his father's balancing trick; but after his fall no Army leader proved capable of restoring the old radical alliance, and nothing but social revolution could have thwarted the "natural rulers" determination to get rid of military rule. Taxes could be collected only by force: the men...