Fifth Monarchy Men

A radical Puritan sect, believing that the coming of the fifth monarchy (with Christ as monarch, ruling together with the saints, i.e. the elect, i.e. the believers in the true faith, i.e. the Puritans) was about to come (the other four monarchies which went before were: the Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman monarchies) (all of this was supposedly foretold in Daniel 2). In other words, they were a chiliastic (from Greek chilioi, thousand) or millennarian movement (see: Millennium), believing in the return of Christ and his rule on earth which will last for 1000 years and will only involve people of the right faith. Christ’s Second Coming became almost synonymous with a state of utopian ideal government during the Commonwealth. Disappointed with the development of the Commonwealth and, after 1660, the Restoration, the Fifth Monarchists wanted to help introducing the reign of Christ by military revolts. Eyewitness Pepys notes in his diary: “Their word was ‘King Jesus, and the heads upon the gates [meaning: the heads of the executed regicides]!” Few of them would receive any Quarter but such as were taken by force and kept alive, expecting Jesus to come and reign here in the world presently, and will not believe yet but their work will be carried on, though they do die” (January 10, 1661). After the last rising in 1661, their leader Thomas Venner was executed and Puritan sects in general were persecuted under the Clarendon Code.

Sources: Kenyon, Dictionary of British History. London: Wordsworth, 1989. Hill, Christopher. The Century of Revolution. 1603-1714. London: Nelson, 1980.