1. J. Stoughton, Ecclesiastical History of England from the Opening of the Long Parliament to the Death of Oliver Cromwell, 2 vols (1867) is old-fashioned, but readable and contains ideas still worth developing. Shaw, A History of the English Church is invaluable as a work of reference but somewhat indigestible as a narrative; he concentrated almost exclusively on the national church, and hardly considered the separatist churches at all.
2. Among the many books on the growth of Puritanism in seventeenth-century England the most illuminating are W. Haller, The Rise of Puritanism (New York 1938) and Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution (New York 1955); and Hill, Puritanism and Revolution (1958) and Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (1964). Three other books contain valuable detail on religious thought from 1640 to 1660: W. K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England from the Convention of the Long Parliament to the Restoration 1640–1660, 2 vols (Boston, Mass. and London 1938–40) — much wider in scope than the title may suggest; on the chaplains of the New Model Army see L. F. Solt, Saints in Arms, Puritanism and Democracy in Cromwell’s Army (1959); for the idea of the millennium in the first half of the seventeenth century see Lamont, Godly Rule. Among biographies of Cromwell note especially R. S. Paul, The Lord Protector: Religion and Politics in the Life of Oliver Cromwell (1955).
3. G. F. Nuttall, in his pioneering studies, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (Oxford 1946) and Visible Saints: the Congregational Way, 1640–1660 (Oxford 1957) successfully transcends denominationalism. R. W. Dale, History of English Congregationalism (1907), gives a more traditional account of Independency. A. C. Underwood, A History of English Baptists (1947) is a more readable account of Baptist history than W. T. Whitley, History of British Baptists (1923), although the latter is still useful. W. C. Braithwaite, Beginnings of Quakerism (2nd edn, Cambridge 1955) is the standard work, but see the vigorous, recent study by H. Barbour, The Quakers in Puritan England (New Haven 1964). For the prelatical Anglicans who refused to compromise see R. S. Bosher, The Making of the Restoration Settlement: the Influence of the Laudians 1649–1662 (1951). G. B. Tatham, The Puritans in Power (Cambridge 1913), is limited to the effect of the Puritan Revolution on the Church of England. G. R. Abernathy, ‘The English Presbyterians and the Stuart Restoration 1648–1663’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, vol. lv, part II (1965) concentrates on the period 1659 to 1663. All who work on church history between 1642 and 1662 are indebted to A. G. Matthews for his biographical reference books on the clergy of both sides who were ejected from their livings: Calamy Revised: being a revision of Edmund Calamy’s Account of the ministers and others ejected and silenced 1660–2 (Oxford 1934), and Walker Revised: being a revision of John Walker’s Sufferings of the clergy during the Grand Rebellion 1642–60 (Oxford 1948). There are numerous articles in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Church History and such denominational journals as Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society, Transactions of the Baptist Historical Society (now continued in the Baptist Quarterly), Journal of the Presbyterian Historical Society of England and the Journal of the Friends Historical Society.
4. For the localities see Howell, Newcastle and Everitt, Kent. H. Smith, The Ecclesiastical History of Essex under the Long Parliament and Commonwealth (Colchester 1933) is a source book rather than a coherent narrative but it is useful as a guide to what material may be available nationally and locally.
5. Lastly there are the primary records. The period abounds in diaries: among some of perhaps the most enjoyable and easily accessible diaries and personal narratives are R. Baxter, Autobiography (1931); L. Hutchinson, Memoirs of Col. Hutchinson (1965); Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. De Beer, 6 vols (Oxford 1955); The Diary of the Rev. Ralph Josselin 1616–1683, ed. E. Hockcliffe, (Camden Society, 3rd ser. xv, 1908). The records of the national and the gathered churches are well worth sampling. Presbyterian classes can be seen in action in Register-Booke of the Fourth London Classis in the Province of London, ed. C. E. Surman, (Harleian Society, nos. 82 and 83, 1953), or W. A. Shaw, Minutes of Bury Presbyterian Classis (Chetham Society, 150, 1896). The minute book of the London provincial assembly is in Syon College, London: MS.L.40. 2/E17 (t.s. version by C. E. Surman, Dr Williams’s Library). The Directory of Worship is printed in full in Reliquiae Liturgicae, ed. P. Hall, iii (Bath 1847). The separatist churches spring excitingly to life in Records of a Church of Christ meeting in Broadmead, Bristol, 1640–1687, ed. E. B. Underhill (Hanserd Knollys Society, 1847), an account of the founding of a church written by a member a generation later, and Records of the Church of Christ gathered at Fenstanton, Warboys and Hexham, 1644–1720, ed. E. B. Underhill (Hanserd Knollys Society, 1851), the minute books of three different Baptist churches.