plausability Charles I dies not by axe Charles II agrees with 'the people'

Yes, I just sort of glossed the Putney Debates as a Parliamentary Dispute, which as you point out is an oversimplification, to actually make the point that Charles II might not have even known they were happening or been able or allowed to attend.

He wouldn't have, they were too short and the news would have taken too long to travel to him. However, if, as a result of whatever PoD kills his father, Charles II is somewhere closer by, it's not impossible.

I don't disagree with your general points, but if Charles I does die before the Civil War enters its second, and as you rightly point out more hardline phase, CII's youth remains an issue. I'm not convinced that it could lead to something because [a] CII was very much, as I pointed out above, his father's son at this point. Why would/should he be more pragmatic or open to compromise? His relative youth means that CII would most likely be steered by those in around him in the Royalist Camp. Most likely, post 1642, his mother and the more dogmatic royalists rather than those willing to compromise.

I look at it less as him being more willing to compromise or more pragmatic and more just him being easier to manipulate, as a result of youth and inexperience.

As for the idea of CII and the Levellers teaming up in some way - that is pretty unlikely. I don't think the scenario you sketched out is ASB, by any means, but I can't see any compelling reason for either CII or the Levellers to work together [the two wanted very different and often opposing things]. Potential insurrection in the New Model Army would most likely end as they did OTL at Bambury and Corkbrush Field.

I don't think it's likely either. Our scenario is more likely to end up looking like the Independents/Charles I accord that Charles played with IOTL against the Presbyterians in Parliament, with the Grandees in the New Model more or less dictating an outcome to both parties in exchange for religious toleration and continued episcopacy for those who stayed members of the Anglican Church. It got thrown around occasionally IOTL and the Independents were less concerned about destroying Episcopacy entirely and more concerned about their ability to ignore it.

I'm wary about ideas of 'bringing the Glorious Revolution type of reform a half century earlier' because such a suggestion glosses over the significant developments of that half century in terms of power and political ideologies that made the changes of the Glorious Revolution possible. But as I say, nothing in your analysis goes beyond implausible.

Honestly, it very nearly happened. Had the movers and shakers in the late 1648 New Model gone for new elections instead of Pride's Purge, an early Glorious Revolution would have essentially been what ended up happening. Without Charles' recalcitrance and the growing desire to put him on trial as a result of the second Civil War, a settlement that went for a new parliament instead of a purge of the old one isn't out of the question. The radical thing about the Levellers wasn't their desire for frequent, regular Parliaments -- that was an almost universal demand on the Parliamentary side by the end of the first Civil War --, it was their desire for manhood suffrage, or something like it anyway. That isn't easy to see happening in the 1640's or 50's (probably not even in the 17th century), but it's something that you could see happening over time if a Glorious Revolution-esque outcome had been how things ended in 1648 instead of the regicide and the Rump Parliament.
 
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