Of course, during the Commonwealth, when Puritan principles were in the ascendancy, a great change came over the general manners and morals of the land. Republican simplicity prevailed in the banquets at Whitehall; Scotch collops, marrow puddings, and hog’s-liver sausages forming standing dishes of Lady Cromwell’s cookery. Religion was the language of the court, and also its garb; prayer and fasting were fashionable exercises; and a godly profession was the road to preferment. Not a play was acted in all England for many years, and from the prince to the peasant and common soldier, the features of Puritanism were almost universally exhibited. Many doubtless were fanatics and others designing knaves, whose whole religion consisted in the use of a religious vocabulary and hypocritical grimace; but making all due allowance for a large amount of unscriptural enthusiasm and pious fraud, there were unquestionably among those sickly dreamers and canting fanatics, thousands and tens of thousands of enlightened, sincere, and earnest Christians. Cromwell died in 1658. Immediately after his death, the Protectorate broke down under his son Richard, and confusion became worse confounded. The army was unsettled, the parliament divided, the republic was discouraged, trade decayed, and the exchequer empty. The majority of the nation were weary of change, and had no faith in ideal republics; and, by the spring of 1660, public feeling was strongly in favour of the restoration of Charles II. In the month of March, the Rump Parliament was finally dissolved. All the bells in London were set a ringing; and, as Pepys tells us, bonfires blazed on every side, there being not fewer than fourteen burning, at the same time, between St Dunstan’s and Temple Bar.