George Yule has provided in this book the results of his study of the Independent Members of Parliament during the Civil War and Interregnum; who they were, where they came from, what was their policy, and what were their relations with the Independent divines in the Westminster Assembly and after.
He establishes that their ecclesiastical policy was not separatist, but aimed at maintaining the traditional relationship of Church and State with Independents, and Presbyterian or Anglican-Puritan parish priests. He finds that the Independent M.P. 's came from the gentry; but that the Civil War cannot be interpreted in simple terms either as a class struggle, or as a religious one.
The appendixes give in biographical sketches all that Mr Yule has discovered about the religious and political affiliations of the Independent M.P.'s.