Lands of more than 700 Royalists, including church lands, were confiscated and sold or leased by county committees. Many Royalists put their lands into trusts or turned them over to relatives or sold them outright to prevent confiscation. It was an upheaval comparable to the dissolution of the monasteries. Also, specified Papists who had taken up arms against the realm lost their lands, goods, money, rents, and two-thirds of their personal estates. But allowance was made for the maintenance of their wives and children.
The Book of Common Prayer was abolished because of its burdensome ceremonies. It was replaced by a Directory for Public Worship. According to this, the Sunday service was to include reading of the Scriptures, prayer, and a sermon, ordinarily on some text of scripture which would be explained with reasons therefore and applied to peoples' lives so they could see if they had sinned or not. The ending of episcopal patronage gave some parishes the right to elect their own ministers.
All festivals and holy days were abolished, e.g. Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide. Instead, scholars, apprentices, and servants were to have recreation and stores were to be closed every second Tuesday of the month. The usual merry-making, music, dancing, and sports after the Sunday service were discontinued.
A day for fasting: the last Wednesday of every month, was declared by statute. This day was to be "kept with the more solemn humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory of Christ into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to carnal and sensual delights, being contrary to the life which Christ himself led here upon earth, …". This statute lasted for only five years from 1644 because observance of it was not consistent throughout the country.
Educational opportunities such as in grammar schools were more
widespread and stronger than ever before or since until the 1800s.
About 78% of men in London were literate, and 30% of men nationwide.
About half the women in London were literate by 1700.
In 1645, the marshalls of the admiralty and five major ports were ordered to search all ships for stolen children since it had been a problem in London.
The elderships of the church were given power in 1645 to suspend from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper all ignorant and scandalous persons. Ignorance was lack of knowledge that there is a God and this is the one true God we worship, that this God is one, yet three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that God created man in his own image, that all have sinned and therefore shall die, that there is one mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to save men from their sins, that he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of God, and intercedes for us, that Christ and his benefits are applied only by faith, that the souls of the faithful live with Christ in blessedness, that non-believers and non-repenters shall perish eternally, that the sacraments are baptism and communion, and that there is a judgment day on which the righteous will be given life eternal and the wicked shall receive everlasting punishment. Scandalous persons are those who blasphemously speak or write anything of God, his holy work or the sacraments; an incestuous person; an adulterer; a fornicator; a drunkard; a profane swearer or cursor; a murderer; a worshipper of images, crosses, crucifixes, relics, saints, or angels; makers of images of the trinity; one who professes not to be in charity with his neighbor; any challenging another to fight or accepting such challenge; on the Lord's day, dancing, dicing, cards, masking, wake, shooting, bowling, football, wrestling, plays, interludes, fencing, bullbaiting, bearbaiting, hawking, hunting, coursing [hunting with hounds], fishing, fowling, selling wares, travel without reasonable cause; a brothel-house keeper; one who solicits the chastity of another; one who marries a Papist or consents to the marriage of his child to a Papist; own who goes for advice to a witch, wizard, or fortune-teller; one who assaults his parents, or any magistrate, minister, or elder in the execution of his office; and one attainted of barratry [purchase or sale of office or preferment], forgery, extortion, or bribery. If such a person persists, he shall be excommunicated.
Cromwell did not disapprove of activities prohibited because of the recreation they provided, but thought that they had become too central to people's lives. He did not close the taverns or ale houses.
In 1653 it was required that public preachers be approved by a commission nominated by the Lord Protector and Parliament because there had been too many "weak, scandalous, popish, and ill- affected" ones. In 1654 named persons were ejected as scandalous, ignorant and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters.
Because the poorer parishes of London were having problems supporting their poor, a Corporation for the poor of London was established in 1647 with authority to erect workhouses and houses of correction.