30 • The Fifth Monarchists Channels 2022 impact on the direction of English culture and government compared to other groups such as the Levellers. However, a thorough study of history often reveals that the decisions of relatively few individuals in key positions of influence can have massive impacts on the course of human history. Thus, a group such as the Fifth Monarchists may have been closer to having a disproportionate influence on the development of English culture and government than many assume. Two questions, therefore, come to mind: first, whether they had any realistic hope of implementing their vision on English society, and second, what effect on English society their movement would have had. In order to answer these questions, primary sources from the period were carefully examined. History Doctrine and Teachings Key to understanding the Fifth Monarchists (or the Fifth Monarchy Men, as they tended to call themselves) was the doctrine of millenarianism. A teaching strongly advocated by many preachers among Independent Puritans, millenarianism focused primarily on the idea that Jesus Christ was soon to return to set up his millennial reign on earth, as foretold in the biblical books of Daniel and Revelation. Key advocates (and Fifth Monarchists) included such influential fellows as John Archer, William Aspinwall, John Rogers, John 19 Daniel 2:44, KJV 20 Daniel 7:14, KJV Spittlehouse, and Christopher Feake. The doctrine featured a number of teachings that shaped their political and cultural aspirations. First was the concept of the “fifth monarchy,” the idea that Christ would return to set up a literal, physical kingdom. This idea (and the name itself) was derived from the biblical book of Daniel, in chapters two and seven. In chapter two, the book recounts a dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had about a statue of different materials representing four different kingdoms, which are then smashed by a rock that represents a fifth kingdom. The text then states, “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom… it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.”19 Later, in chapter seven, the book describes four beasts representing four kingdoms, which all are then overcome by the “Son of man,” to whom there was given “dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him.”20 These passages seemingly describe the rise of a “fifth” kingdom after the previous four, subduing all of the earth under the “Son,” whom most Christians held to be Jesus. The biblical book of Revelation also seems to support a future literal kingdom of Christ, at least to the advocates of Millenarianism. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no
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