If republicanism had a long tradition on the European continent, rooted in the historical experience of Rome and some Italian cities, especially in the Renaissance period, in England its emergence can only be observed at the end of the sixteenth century, with the diffusion of humanist ideals. The rupture of institutions during the civil wars (1642-1648) stimulated a reassessment of political beliefs and practices, showing the possibility for new constitutional proposals, among them the republican regime. The republican ideas were slowly being incorporated into English political debate, in an intricate appropriation process of different expressions of republican thought and adaptation of its principles to the political and legal English tradition. During this process, certain principles were sustained, others modified, and some were completely abandoned. To comprehend this complicated incorporation and alteration process of republican thought in seventeenth-century England is to understand one of the pillars of modern republicanism.
