Seeking background information on 1600s English history
During the drive home from a doctor's appointment (about which I'll write more later), I listened to the podcast of a BBC In Our Time show about 17th-century print culture in England and how the rise of literacy and printed material affected the (English) Civil War. segnbora will probably enjoy listening to the show, which is available here in mp3 format
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When the king was impeached and it was determined that the country would henceforth be a republic, the "Kingdom of England" was renamed the "Commonwealth of England". There were two periods where England had this name; the first was '49-'53. "Commonwealth" at that time was roughly synonymous with "republic" or "democracy", and was meant to suggest rule whose ultimate justification was the benefit of the people, not the benefit of the Crown.
As Cromwell consolidated his power, he started asserting more and more authority. Finally England was effectively a military dictatorship. In 1653 they passed a new constitution that made him absolute ruler, with the title Lord Protector. (It's alleged that, later in his career, the public offered him the title of King, which he refused.) He passed England on to his son Richard in this state. This lasted roughly from '53-'59, and was called the Protectorate.
Richard Cromwell wasn't as effective a leader as Oliver had been; he abdicated, precipitating a leadership crisis. The Protectorate reverted to being a Commonwealth again, and then when security and stability problems persisted, the English invited Charles Stuart, son of the executed King Charles, to become Charles II. Charles accepted, and in May of 1660, he was crowned and the English monarchy was restored. The transition period that followed is called the Restoration.
Can't comment on how organized religion factored in, except to say: The Crown had been Anglican, but there were movements (both domestically, and in France and Spain) to put a Catholic on the throne. Parliament was largely supported by the Presbyterian churches, and the Army was full of Dissenters (Protestants of many stripes) and a hotbed of Puritan radicalism.
Political parties as we know them came later, in the 18th century.
The rest of the world generally looked on in horror as one of the leading countries of Christendom descended into civil war the likes of which no European country had ever experienced, slaughtered their sovereign under questionable charges, and descended into military control. Keep in mind that Cromwell basically invented the professional army as we know it. Before the Civil War there had been no professional citizen armies with uniforms and drills and all that. Cromwell called it the New Model Army. In effect, Cromwell created a whole new institution, which then destroyed the government and absorbed its powers. Feudal Europe basically shit their pants.
I couldn't say how the Civil War affected the man on the street, but this period in history is regarded as transformative for the West. It created the dream of secular democratic government with universal franchise; it also created the nightmare of a totalitarian society run like a drill camp. It was the first war fought for secular political ideas, rather than religion or aristocratic bickerings. It's part of a time when literacy rates were on the rise, and so a greater portion of the population was taking sides in a way they'd never done in any conflict between feudal houses. And it was a time when small arms were proliferating on a mass scale for the first time in history.
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were involved when Cromwell decided to occupy them. His new kind of army made that possible. The Civil War also affected what was going on in the Carribean at the time.
Don't know about Dryden's role in particular, but many of the literateurs of the time were involved in the politics of it all. In particular, John Milton was an unflinching republican.
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And... wow! Thanks! Do you have any books to recommend? (Maybe you should write one, if you haven't already!)
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No, I don't have any particular books. What I know comes from long-forgotten snippets of history classes, from picking up incidental stuff from prefaces and footnotes of contemporary stuff (I have a professional interest in 17th century political philosophy), from combing Wikipedia and from picking [Noung]'s brain.
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