The earl of Derby, Sir Timothy Featherstone, Bemboe, being taken prisoners after the battle of Worcester, were put to death by sentence of a court martial; a method of proceeding declared illegal by that very petition of right, for which a former parliament had so strenuously contended, and which, after great efforts, they had extorted from the king.
Excepting their principles of toleration, the maxims by which the republicans regulated ecclesiastical affairs no more prognosticated any durable settlement, than those by which they conducted their civil concerns.

The Presbyterian model of congregations, classes, and assemblies was not allowed to be finished: it seemed even the intention of many leaders in the parliament to admit of no established church, and to leave every one, without any guidance of the magistrate, to embrace whatever sect and to support whatever clergy were most agreeable to him.
The parliament went so far as to make some approaches, in one province, to their Independent model.

Almost all the clergy of Wales being ejected as malignants, itinerant preachers with small salaries were settled, not above four or five in each county; and these, being furnished with horses at the public expense, hurried from place to place, and carried, as they expressed themselves, the glad tidings of the gospel.[*] They were all of them men of the lowest birth and education, who had deserted mechanical trades, in order to follow this new profession.

And in this particular, as well as in their wandering life, they pretended to be more truly apostolical.
* Dr.John Walker's Attempt, p.

147, et seq.
The republicans, both by the turn of their disposition, and by the nature of the instruments which they employed, were better qualified for acts of force and vigor, than for the slow and deliberate work of legislation.