The triumph of Worcester, ending for the foreseeable future the danger of a successful royalist invasion or uprising, left the army officers free at last to concentrate on problems of social reformation and political settlement. Cromwell and his colleagues were repeatedly to recall the hopes they had entertained of the Rump on their return to London after the battle, and the disappointments which it had held in store for them. Initially, victory produced a glow of goodwill. Hugh Peter urged the militia regiments which had fought at Worcester ‘to think well of the present government who was so watchful for the whole’, and Harrison wrote that God had ‘owned and honoured the House in the eyes of all the world’. Cromwell, now devoting himself principally to civilian politics, came from Worcester to Westminster with three aims in mind. First, he wanted the Rump to dissolve and to hand over power to a new representative. Secondly, he hoped to broaden the base of the Commonwealth's support, principally through an act of oblivion. Thirdly, urging the Rump to ‘encourage and countenance God's people, reform the law, and administer justice impartially’, he called for ‘the fruits of a just and righteous reformation’. Over all three aspects of his programme Cromwell was to be at least partially frustrated.

At first, all went well enough. He received an appropriately heroic reception in London, and was immediately added to the Council of State's most important standing committees.