The knell of the Puritan Commonwealth was rung when Oliver Cromwell died. The causes of its dissolution may easily be discovered. Some of them had been in operation for a long time, and had prepared for the change which now took place. Puritanism never won a majority of the English people. By some of the greatest in the nation it was espoused, and their name, example, and influence, gave it for a time a position which defied assault; but the multitude stood ranged on the opposite side. Forced to succumb, and stricken with silence, the disaffected nevertheless abated not a jot of their bitter antipathy to the party in power. 

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