England has more often been faced with the claims of competing kings and queens than with a period of no monarch at all. The major exception to that rule came in the 11 years between 1649 and 1660, when England was a republic. Following the disastrous reign of Charles I and the civil wars that led to his execution, Parliament and the army ruled England. England’s republican experiment started out as a work of collaboration and compromise; lords, army officers, and members of Parliament (MPs) worked together to find a political settlement that did not include the despised royal House of Stuart. Nonetheless, religious and political division made collective rule unworkable, and ultimately, one man emerged from the chaos to rule the country. He had risen from a humble background to become the leading general of the Civil Wars, and as a man of staunch beliefs and ruthless pragmatism, he controlled England from 1653-1658 under the title of Lord Protector. In essence, he was a king in all but name.

That man was Oliver Cromwell, and in the popular imagination, Cromwell has overshadowed the rest of the leaders of the parliamentary cause and the New Model Army. His name is known by everyone in England, while parliamentary leaders like John Pym, constitutional reformers like John Lambert, and even Sir Thomas Fairfax, who led Parliament’s army through most of the wars, are known only to history buffs. But Cromwell has also been one of the most controversial figures in English history ever since. Viewed by some as a despot and others as a champion of liberty, Cromwell’s legacy is so diverse that while many Irish accuse him of genocide, others look at him as a social revolutionary.

Cromwell is one of the most important men in England’s history, but everything he struggled for collapsed within two decades of his death. The army, Parliament, and the citizens of London grappled with each other for control of the country, and even the army no longer remained a united political force. Civil war almost broke out again as a force under Lambert failed to prevent General Monck, the military governor of Scotland, from marching south and dissolving the Rump Parliament. Excluded MPs were restored on condition that they themselves dissolve Parliament, and following fresh elections without military intervention, a new Parliament met on April 25, 1660. Dominated by Presbyterians and Royalists, it accepted a settlement offered by the man titling himself Charles II, the son and heir of Charles I. On May 25, 1660, Charles II returned to England, and less than two years after Cromwell’s death, his work was undone by the Restoration. King Charles II heaped ignominy upon defeat by having Cromwell’s body dug up and posthumously executed. Cromwell’s body was then decapitated, as was Ireton’s, and their heads were placed on a pike above Westminster Hall, where Charles I had been tried, for several years.

Despite the Restoration, however, and despite the fact England’s republican experiment barely outlasted Cromwell, the Commonwealth and Restoration were hugely important in asserting the power of Parliament, and it permanently shifted England’s political balance firmly toward a constitutional monarchy limited by Parliament. The Stuart monarchy was restored on condition of compromise with Parliament and the army, and a precedent had been set for Parliament to replace the monarch, a precedent it would follow in the 1680s when James II was replaced by William and Mary in a settlement that set even more limits around the monarch. In that sense, Oliver Cromwell, who was king in all but name, helped prepare the way for monarchs who would become national leaders in name only.