For many of those who lived through it, 1642–60 appeared to mark the zenith of Satan's activity in England, a time in which he appeared especially free to plague the nation and bring about unprecedented upheaval and change. War was inherently diabolic, a civil war doubly so. Its chaos and bloodshed were the Devil's hallmarks, a sign that he now walked the earth unfettered. Peace, noted one pamphleteer in 1643, was a ‘blessing’ and he who worked to maintain peace in the commonwealth was ‘a child of God’. By extension he who agitated for war to disrupt the godly nation was ‘little better than a childe of the deuill’. In 1644 a pamphlet entitled The Great Eclipse of the Sun noted how Charles I's belligerence could only be explained by his having fallen under the influence of Satan and his human agents. Even for a divine king, such a betrayal of godly duty tempted providence. ‘Though the Pope and all the Deuills in hell should encourage him to this bloudy war’, the author declared, ‘yet it is unnatural in the sight of God and man.’ ‘There is a hell and domesday, and damnation, as well for Kings as poor subjects’, he warned.

The gamut of recognised diabolic phenomena seemed especially congruent with the times. God's hangman was unusually active, dragging sinners, hypocritical parliamentarians, and drunken Cavaliers off to hell.