40 • The Fifth Monarchists Channels 2022 Charles II, and it is likely that would have stayed the same. They also may have become more deeply involved in continental warfare, as the Fifth Monarchists advocated for aggression and the expansion of the Fifth Kingdom. Whether English wars against France, Holland, Spain, and other nations would succeed is a subject for another time. However, aggressive foreign policy would hurt English relations with their neighbors and risk isolating England from the rest of Europe for decades. England, already weakened and exhausted from civil war, may have found itself stuck in cycles of warfare that would drain it and slow its development as a modern nation. Perhaps the most significant implication of their success, however, would have been the relationship between church and state. The Fifth Monarchists sought to establish a state that was completely run and controlled by the Church (or the “Saints,” as they called it), where the state itself would have significant influence over the personal moral decisions of its citizens, as well as churches themselves. It is difficult to see what influence this would have longterm in the development of England, but their ideas may have become more mainstream in English culture and politics, enabling future rulers to exercise greater control over the state. With the numerous possibilities, it is significant that the Fifth Monarchists failed. Had they maintained their alliance with Cromwell, had they taken a slower approach to achieving their goals, or had individuals such as Cromwell actually sympathized with their doctrine, things could have ended differently. While it is difficult, if not outright impossible, to determine what exactly may have happened, it seems certain that victory on the part of the Fifth Monarchists would have had drastic effects on Parliament and England as a whole. What would have happened once the time had passed and Christ had still not returned? That much cannot be said, though the Fifth Monarchists may have been able to adapt, as they did in redetermining who the Antichrist was over and over. Cults throughout history have often been able to do this. Perhaps they would have died out anyway, though any damage done during their time in power may have had long-lasting impacts on England. While we will never know what the future would have held, the Fifth Monarchists present an invaluable opportunity to reevaluate our perception of history and the past. As historians, we must take care to avoid deterministic interpretations of the past that minimize or ignore the impact that smaller groups of individuals can have on the course of human history. The mistakes the Fifth Monarchists made were not unavoidable, and it was the decisions they and those around them made that led the English people to where they are today. Success is often not determined by the actions of the victors, but by those of the defeated. While much attention in the field of history is given to men whose ideas eventually succeeded, such as the
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