This is a much-needed study of a short-lived regime—the restored Commonwealth that governed Britain and Ireland between the collapse of the Cromwellian protectorate in May and the onset of military rule in October 1659. Traditionally, this revival of government based on the Long (or “Rump”) Parliament has been treated as no more than the fag end of the Interregnum or the birth pangs of the Restoration. Ruth Mayers emphatically rejects both these approaches, presenting instead a government full of “creativity and vitality” (184), which had a real chance of establishing a lasting republic. In the first chapter, Mayers evaluates criticism of the Commonwealth, old and new, and rebuffs suggestions that it was either illegitimate or insignificant. She then provides detailed studies of government policies and objectives, relations between Parliament and the army, the state of London, the English provinces and “Greater Britain,” the conduct of foreign policy, and the creation and defense of the republican regime through print. In each case, the overall conclusion is the same. The republicans, led by such experienced politicians as Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Sir Henry Vane, worked hard to preserve unity within Parliament and the Council of State and to maintain a “working alliance” (71) with the army. The resulting polity was quietly successful, with “solid, if unspectacular” (148) popular support across Britain and Ireland, and it provided a platform from which radical ideas could be launched in the future. It was only in the weeks after the abortive royalist rebellion led by Sir George Booth in August that tensions began to appear in the government, and it was not until the beginning of October that the dominant faction, led by Hesilrige, created the crisis that provoked a military coup. This crisis was not created by any natural animosity between Parliament and the army but was rather the result of overconfidence on the part of Hesilrige and his friends, who gambled that the high command could themselves be ousted. The Commonwealth failed through “a series of misunderstandings” (252), not through any inherent weakness.

Mayers's clear and convincing account of the Commonwealth belies the difficulty of the source material that survives. She warns of the problems with many of the most accessible diaries and memoirs, which have been edited, and corrupted, by later generations. Yet the potential problems with apparently more reliable sources are not discussed, and this undermines some of the conclusions drawn from them. The committee lists provided in the Commons Journals have to be used with care, as they are not infallible guides to attendance in the House. Equally, the surviving records of the Council of State show the orders passed therein, and not the debates which led to them, and thus tend to give a false impression of unity among the council members. A similar problem exists with the use of printed petitions to suggest the popularity of a particular government, as the way in which signatures were collected and collated is rarely clear. It is also a moot point how far ideas (especially those in print) are able “to shape opinions, and hence events” (184), and some discussion of this would have been welcome, as many of Mayers's most important arguments depend on such sources.

The main criticism of the book is one of lack of context. There are many benefits of a focused study, but if the ultimate claim is that the period—in this case, the five months—in question constitutes “a major turning point in Britain's history” (7), more discussion of the wider picture is surely necessary. Of crucial importance is Mayers's dismissive attitude to the Cromwellian Protectorate, which immediately preceded the new Commonwealth regime, and which she characterizes as “increasingly monarchical” (273) and “dynastic,” with a conservative, anglocentric attitude toward Ireland and Scotland. Such an assumption does not fit with recent historiographical trends, which have emphasized the vibrancy of the Cromwellian governments and the solidity of their support not only in England but in Ireland and Scotland as well. Indeed, Oliver's last months as protector (under the new constitution, the Humble Petition and Advice) and the rule of his son, Richard, saw a marked increase in the stability of the regime. It may be argued, therefore, that the early success of the Commonwealth was largely the result of a strong inherited position. A vigorous Cromwellian foreign policy allowed the new regime to negotiate peace from a position of strength; the stability of Scotland was thanks to the continuation of the Cromwellian commander there, General Monck; and the tacit acceptance of the new regime in the localities and in London reflected the success of measures to “heal and settle” the nations in an inclusive state, established in earlier years. These would all benefit the new Commonwealth and provide it with an essential breathing space, even if in the longer term the ideology of the new regime was radically different from that of its predecessor. There was also a more sinister legacy: the unresolved problem of the army. It may be no coincidence that the Commonwealth was wrecked by a military coup just as the protectorate had been and that the ringleaders in each case were a group of discontented senior officers led by the ambitious John Lambert.

Despite such criticisms, this book must be seen as a considerable achievement. By highlighting the vitality of the republican regime that emerged in May 1659, Mayers has more than succeeded in her stated aim, to rescue the Commonwealth from “the historical rubbish-heap” (4). The “Rump” may not have succeeded, but it did have the potential to succeed. And if it eventually proved a failure, it can now be acknowledged as a heroic failure.