[1] The play follows important members of the Committee of Safety (a Puritan body that governed England in 1659 before the restoration of Charles II), who Behn portrays as variously inept, greedy or lecherous.
Lambert is imprisoned in the Tower of London and Lady Desbro's older husband dies of fright, freeing both women to reunite with their lovers.
Critics have often interpreted The Roundheads as 'straightforward Tory romp', but some scholars suggest that Behn's portrayal of the warring political factions is more nuanced than it first seems.
[2] Melissa Mowry notes that Behn sometimes "allows characters associated with republicanism more dignity than we might expect, or at least fails to condemn them as stridently as a royalist might".
[2] Kimberley Latta argues that Behn's version of Cromwell's widow "stands as a rational, intellectually autonomous woman speaking the truth about current affairs in an effort to bring the world in tune with her own understanding of providence".