20. Interlude

The First Civil War had ended. King Charles I had lost, which wasn't just a military or political problem, but a religious one too: after all, if God had made him king, and God also determined who won wars, who could make sense of what was going on? Had God sided with Parliament against the king he'd set on his throne in the first place.

In practical terms, Charles was in captivity, a prisoner of Parliament. In the country at large, normal politics could have restarted, if politics had been anything like normal. There were tensions between Parliament and Parliament's army, which was beginning to do some of its own political soul-searching. Which was particularly interesting, since it was the most powerful organisation in the country. And, within the army itself, there were tensions too, as new trends appeared, among common people, wondering whether, what will all the fighting they were doing, and all the sacrifices they had made, they shouldn't be given a bit more of a say in the running of the state.

Fascinating debates. Sadly cut short. Because Charles may have been down, but he wasn't yet out. And he could still do something destructive and self-destructive.

The illustration is the front page of one of the versions of the Leveller document, 'An Agreement of the People', laying out demands for wider political rights.
Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License