Page "Fifth Monarchists" Paragraph 3

Government through the King's Privy Council was replaced with a new body called the Council of State.

Due to fundamental disagreements within a weakened Parliament, this new body was dominated by the Army.

There was a considerable political ferment in the country, much of it religiously conditioned, and no lack of proposals for alternative forms of government to replace the old order.

These ranged from Royalists who wished to place King Charles II on the throne, to men like Oliver Cromwell, who wished to govern with a Parliament voted in by an electorate determined by property ownership, similar to that enfranchised before the civil war, to the Levellers, influenced by the writings of John Lilburne, who wanted parliamentary government based on an electorate constituted of every head of household ( normally though not necessarily male as was acknowledged in the Putney Debates ), through to other groups with smaller followings like the Fifth Monarchists, Gerrard Winstanley and the Diggers, the Ranters, and the Society of Friends ( Quakers ).