Continuing the series on the turmoil of 1659-1660, which saw a retreat from radicalism and political experiment, Dr Vivienne Larminie, assistant editor of the Commons 1640-1660 section, looks at the manoeuvrings of politicians and army officers in a period of great tension and uncertainty…
By late January 1660 the English republic had entered its last days – although its imminent extinction was probably not inevitable, and certainly not apparent to all contemporary observers. The ‘interruption’ of Parliament forced by dissident army officers in October 1659 had ended when their alliance crumbled from within and was assailed from without. In early December forces led by Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Harbert Morley, who weeks earlier had mounted unsuccessful resistance to the military coup in Whitehall, captured strategically significant Portsmouth. On 14 December they issued a strongly-worded condemnation of coup leader Charles Fleetwood and his colleagues, asserting that the army…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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