Oliver Cromwell was not a king by technical title but craved the power of the king. Cromwell wanted the power to rule over the country. He called himself the “Lord Protector.” Although by the end of he rule over the country he accomplished many things he was hated by the end of his reign. He was called the “Chief of Men” or the “Brave Bad Man” either way, the title king becomes insignificant when he was one of the key people in turning the country around after some of the most devastating events in history.
During Charles I reign, 1625-1649, there were increasing tensions in England. Social tensions resulting from a rapidly expanding population, which caused worsening unemployment, poverty and disorder; class-based tensions caused by the increasing affluence of the middle classes or the declining position of the old aristocracy; constitutional tensions between a crown which was anxious to retain and extend its powers and a parliament which wanted more power for itself and greater rights and liberties for the people; political tensions, caused especially by the failure of royal income to keep up with expenditure and by the attempts of various monarchs to raise extra money; and religious tensions, resulting from the desire for an active monarchy within the state church, the church of England and the Protestant church. (Spievogel 2000)
There were also complications from a political standpoint involving Charles I rule. The political errors and in-fighting of the 1620s and 1630s, especially the mistakes and incompetence of Charles I, who stirred up opposition by his tactless handling of parliaments, by ruling throughout the 1630s without calling a parliament, by taking an authoritarian line and exploiting to the full the fiscal and other powers of the crown, and by seeking to impose upon the Church of England a more elaborate and ceremonial form of religion. (Kishlansky n.d.) When in the late 1630s Scotland rose up against the King's religious policies and...