This study examines the varied and fascinating ways in which the series of non-monarchical regimes of England's civil wars and interregnum interacted with the unique locality and community of Westminster. Westminster (as opposed to London) was traditionally viewed as the 'royal' city - the site of Whitehall Palace and the royal courts of justice, its Abbey reputed to be the 'house of kings', and its inhabitants assumed to be instinctive followers of the monarch and the royal court. Westminster emerges in this study as a site of extraordinary ambiguities and juxtapositions.