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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Fifth Monarchy Men

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)

An almost indefinite number of such religious bodies arose during the middle years of the seventeenth century—Millenarians or Fifth Monarchy Men, Baptists or Anabaptists, Quakers, Ranters, Notionists, Familists, Perfectists, and others.

From American Nation: a history — Volume 1: European Background of American History, 1300-1600 by Cheyney, Edward Potts

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.

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

From Initial Studies in American Letters by Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)