The debate over the nature of the English revolution has been one of the most contested of all historical issues from the beginning of modern English historiography, and it remains so today. Scholars are unable to agree on what caused it, when precisely it happened, how significant it was in terms of political, social, economic, and intellectual impact, or even whether it merits being described as a ‘revolution’ at all. In the two decades since John Morrill published a volume of his essays reflecting on these themes the debate has only become more complex. Leading historians have grappled with the problem of what is the appropriate geographical context within which to explain English events: England alone, the British Isles, or European post-reformation politics. They have also argued with renewed vigour about the best time frame for a ‘revolutionary’ experience: a martial and republican decade stretching from the outbreak of English conflict in 1642 to Cromwell's acceptance of the title lord protector in 1653; a longer mid-century upheaval running from Scottish rebellion in the late 1630s to the Restoration ‘settlement’ of 1660-2; or a return to older notions of a ‘century of revolution’ spanning the 1600s as a whole.