Fifth Monarchy Men

Adherents of an extreme Puritan sect that flourished in England during the 1650s, after the English Civil War, when Cromwell dominated the government.
The Fifth Monarchy doctrine was based on the vision of four successive kingdoms in Daniel, chapters 2 and 7, combined with the prophecy of the reign of Christ in Revelation 20:4–6. The four kingdoms were made out to have been the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, and Roman. These were all past, and a fifth, foreshadowed in Daniel after the rest, was close at hand. Some spoke of the year 1666. It would be the earthly kingdom of Christ himself, who would return and reign with his saints for a thousand years.
At first, the Fifth Monarchy preachers believed that Cromwell was preparing the way. They welcomed the parliament that he set up in 1653, and two leaders of the sect, Thomas Harrison and Robert Overton, held important posts in his regional system of government. However, his assumption of semidictatorial powers as lord protector turned many Fifth Monarchy Men against him. Harrison, Overton, and others were arrested.
In 1657, a leader who was still at large, Thomas Venner, attempted a rebellion. A maker of barrels, he had emigrated to Massachusetts, then returned to England. He issued a manifesto with a picture of a red lion lying down and the motto “Who shall rouse them up?” Since public support was negligible, it appears that Venner and his fellow plotters thought the fulfillment of prophecy could be forced: even a very minor action could precipitate the millennium. The rising was abortive, and he was imprisoned for two years in the Tower of London.
After his release, he resumed preaching. The restoration of Charles II did not put a stop to his activities, even though the king was far more popular and secure than Cromwell had ever been. He assembled fifty followers and staged a demonstration in London—it could hardly count as a revolt—in January 1661. The watchword was “King Jesus, and the heads upon the gates” (presumably the heads of decapitated enemies). The group skirmished with the city militia, withdrew to Highgate, returned, and fought the king’s guards. Some were killed, some taken into custody. Venner was executed with several others.
The Fifth Monarchy prophecy with its pathetic outcome was a parallel, on a very small scale, to the messianic error in the first century a.d. that helped to inspire the Jewish revolt against Rome. That made no military sense, but extremists imagined that they could, so to speak, force God’s hand: if they took action, however recklessly, he would be bound to send the promised leader.