Fifth Monarchy Men

American  

noun

English History.

1. (during the Commonwealth in the 17th century) a militant sect of Puritans who identified the fifth monarchy with the millennial reign of Christ and who believed they should help to inaugurate that reign by force.

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Example Sentences

Says Riesman: "There aren't many people who have enough knowledge of the Fifth Monarchy Men of the 1640s and of demographics to advance those two thoughts."

From Time Magazine Archive

But even the French Revolution had its humors; and as the English Puritan Revolution gathered head and the extremer sectaries pressed to the front—Quakers, New Lights, Fifth Monarchy Men, Ranters, etc.—its grotesque sides came uppermost.

From Brief History of English and American Literature by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

Calvert was suspected of having provided the funds for one of the later risings of the Fifth Monarchy Men.

From The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer by Berens, Lewis Henry

Emerson bore about the same relation to the absurder outcroppings of transcendentalism that Milton bore to the New Lights, Ranters, Fifth Monarchy Men, etc., of his time.

From Brief History of English and American Literature by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)

The "Fifth Monarchy Men" of Cromwell's time were millenarians of the most exaggerated and dangerous sort.

From Bible Myths and their Parallels in other Religions Being a Comparison of the Old and New Testament Myths and Miracles with those of the Heathen Nations of Antiquity Considering also their Origin and Meaning by Doane, T. W.