Settling the Hearts and Quieting the Minds of All Good People’

In 1655 Cromwell dispatched the major‐generals to the provinces with the aims of improving security and bringing about a moral reformation. Commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth were appointed to work with them in every county. While a few of these commissioners were career politicians, most were zealous Puritans who welcomed the major‐generals with open arms and embraced their work with enthusiasm. They imposed the decimation tax on their royalist neighbours with vigour, frequently expressing disappointment if the government exempted any individual from the exaction. In some counties they also participated eagerly in efforts to remove suspect clergymen from the ministry and to suppress immorality by closing down unlicensed alehouses and rounding up the idle and dissolute. While some of them believed that their work was paying dividends, during the election campaign of August 1656 their enemies united against them and returned to parliament members who were deeply hostile to them. In January 1657 the rule of the major‐generals came to an abrupt end and the local influence of the Puritan commissioners waned. Their activities between November 1655 and September 1656 had, however, re‐opened the wounds of the 1640s and deepened the nation’s antipathy to Puritan rule

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