On Cromwell's death, and the failure of his son, Richard, the army declared for Charles II., and there was an end to the Commonwealth.
THE DEMOCRATIC PROTEST--LILBURNE In all these changes the great mass of the people had neither part nor lot; and the famous leaders of the Parliamentary Party, resolute to curtail the absolutism of the Crown, were no more concerned with the welfare of the labouring people than the barons were in the time of John.

The labouring people--generally--were equally indifferent to the fortunes of Roundheads and Cavaliers, though the townsmen in many places held strong enough opinions on the matters of religion that were in dispute.[56] That the common misery of the people was not in any way lightened by Cromwell's rule we have abundant evidence, and it cannot be supposed that the substitution of the Presbyterian discipline for episcopacy in the Church, and the displacement of Presbyterians by Independents, was likely to alleviate this misery.
Taxation was heavier than it had ever been before, and in Lancashire, Westmorland, and Cumberland the distress was appalling.
Whitelocke, writing in 1649,[57] notes "that many families in Lancashire were starved." "That many in Cumberland and Westmorland died in the highways for want of bread, and divers left their habitations, travelling with their wives and children to other parts to get relief, but could find none.

That the committees and Justices of the Peace of Cumberland signed a certificate, that there were 30,000 families that had neither seed nor bread-corn, nor money to buy either, and they desired a collection for them, which was made, but much too little to relieve so great a multitude." Cromwell, occupied with high affairs of State, had neither time nor inclination to attend to social reform.

Democracy had its witnesses; Lilburne and the Levellers made their protest against military rule, and were overpowered; Winstanley and his Diggers endeavoured to persuade the country that the common land should be occupied by dispossessed peasants, and were quickly suppressed.
Lilburne was concerned with the establishment of a political democracy, Winstanley with a social democracy, and in both cases the propaganda was offensive to the Protector.
Had Cromwell listened to Lilburne, and made concessions towards democracy, the reaction against Puritanism and the Commonwealth might have been averted.[58] John Lilburne had been a brave soldier in the army of the Parliament in the early years of the Civil War, and he left the army in 1645 with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel (and with L880 arrears of pay due to him) rather than take the covenant and subscribe to the requirements of the "new model." The monarchy having fallen, Lilburne saw the possibilities of tyranny in the Parliamentary government, and at once spoke out.

With considerable legal knowledge, a passion for liberty, clear views on democracy, an enormous capacity for work, and great skill as a pamphleteer, Lilburne was not to be ignored.