The “broken landscape of the 1650s is the central territory of this collection of essays, which gives particular attention to the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell” (1). All but two of the essays have appeared in print before, but the versions presented in this volume are mostly revised, sometimes extensively. A number of the essays are classics in the field, and all are superbly researched and lucidly expressed. The book deserves a wide readership among scholars and students — from undergraduate level upward — who are interested in the history and literature of England in the mid-seventeenth century.

The first four of the ten essays were written in the 1980s. Three of them were published then, and the fourth in 1997. Despite their age, all four hold up well, and remain fundamental discussions of their subjects. The opening pair are “Cromwell and the Sin of Achan” and “Providence and Politics.” They deal with the ways in which Puritan beliefs — especially about Divine Providence — affected their actions, and include important analyses of such matters as Cromwell’s acceptance of the title of Lord Protector in 1653, his refusal of the kingship in 1657, among much else. The third essay is “Toleration and the Protectorate.” It argues convincingly that Cromwell was far less tolerant in religious matters than is often supposed, and that his main concern was not for any hypothetical religious rights of the population at large, but for the spiritual welfare of the godly few, namely, Cromwell’s fellow Puritans (4). The fourth essay, easily the longest in the book, is “Politics, Piety, and Learning: Cromwellian Oxford.” It concludes “that the Puritans made a profound impact on Oxford; and that the more they changed it, the more it remained the same” (193).

The last six essays date from 2007 onward. Two — “Kingship, the Commonwealth, and Single Rule” and “Clarendon: History, Religion, Politics” — are here printed for the first time. “Cromwell and his Councillors” shows that Oliver was in charge. The Council “never offered him collective advice that contradicted his own known wishes” (224). As a locus of power, it mattered “only because the generals sat on it” (229). “Cromwell and the Protectorate” underlines the “provisional and temporary spirit” of the Humble Petition and Advice, and notes that it “said nothing about the succession on the deaths of future rulers” (235n44). “Kingship, the Commonwealth, and Single Rule” argues that the change of government from monarchy to republic in 1649 was “improvised, confused, and at moments perhaps panic-stricken” (273) and insists that the revolution of 1649 was not animated by “‘republican’ aims” (312). “Much of what is often described as the republican thought of the 1650s,” says Worden, “is better thought of as anti-Cromwellianism” (295). He eschews the term “republicanism” altogether, on the grounds that “the promiscuity of its recent usage” has destroyed whatever usefulness it may once have had in early modern studies (8n33). “Civil and Religious Liberty” documents how the two types of liberty came commonly to be coupled in the mid-seventeenth century and thereafter. Liberty is a theme that crops up in many of the essays, and the word could perhaps have been included in the title. The same goes for the terms “religion” and “ideas”: the book is about ideas as much as conduct, and about religion as much as politics.

The final two essays provide lucid, brief introductions to the careers and thought of John Milton and Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. Hyde is one of the few royalists to receive much attention in these essays, which concentrate on Puritans and parliamentarians. There is nothing here on Sir Robert Filmer, nor much on Thomas Hobbes. Though they are generally very well informed on recent historiography, the essays say little about the thesis of Richard Tuck and Jeffrey Collins that Hobbes entered into an alliance with the Independents — the group of Puritans that Cromwell supported — during the 1650s. The book lacks a bibliography, and the index, though extensive, is not error-free (Samuel Bradford becomes William in the index). But these are minor quibbles about an excellent, highly readable, and important work