The English republic was a milestone in early modern British history. For the first time, the country was not ruled by a monarch. In its place, the country was governed by elected men who were solely in charge of the everyday running of political, religious, military, and social affairs. The House of Lords was abolished by the Commons in January 1649, though the Lords continued to obstinately sit until an act was passed confirming their absolute dismissal in March 1649. The Rump Parliament set about to radically reform religion, politics, and society. As we have seen in Chapter Two, the 1650s ushered in what some might have construed as something close to tolerance; some Catholics might have considered it as such, that is, in the form of the 1650 ‘Toleration Act’. A defining moment in the Commonwealth was when the Protectorate Parliament readmitted Jews into England in 1656, who had been expelled from the country in medieval times. Jews had already entered England earlier in the century after Charles I suspended recusancy laws against Spanish subjects (which resulted in a small population of Spanish crypto-Jews), yet this was a sign that the Commonwealth was willing and potentially open-minded to the forging of networks with other faiths to strengthen their political position in Europe.

However, the 1650s was a decade of divergent religious experiences. The Rump Parliament's original intent was to create a reformed national Church, while addressing liberty of conscience and Protestant pluralism. While dissenting Protestant groups could worship under the ‘Toleration Act’, universal religious toleration was not offered to all English subjects. The Book of Common Prayer had been abolished by the Long Parliament in 1645 and replaced with the Directory for Public Worship, although it was not universally endorsed by all Protestants. Papists, anti-Trinitarians and Protestants who continued to adhere to the Book of Common Prayer were specifically barred in the ‘Toleration Act’ and faced persecution for their religious beliefs if they refused to ‘diligently resort to some publique place where the Service and Worship of God’ was exercised, or attended ‘at some other place in the practice of some Religious Duty’. Former archbishops, bishops, and clergymen were forced to rely on the charity of sympathetic gentry families during the Interregnum after scores of clergymen were evicted from their livings.