In fact, however, this blindness was not confined to one party.

Anthony Wood, a Royalist, writing thirty years afterwards, speaks of the Restoration as an event which no man expected in September, 1659.

The Commonwealth was no doubt dead as a Republic.

"Pride's Purge," the execution of Charles, and Cromwell's expulsion of the remnant of the Commons, had long ago given it mortal wounds.

It was not necessarily defunct as a Protectorate, or a renovated Monarchy: the history of England might have been very different if Oliver had bequeathed his power to Henry instead of to Richard.