text: England might have become a more `` Puritan absolute monarchy '' , as `` existed in Sweden , Denmark , Saxony , and Prussia in the seventeenth century '' , rather than following the path of parliamentary and civil reform that it did .
simplified: England could very well have become a more `` Puritan absolute monarchy '' , as `` existed in Sweden , Denmark , Saxony , and Prussia in the seventeenth century '' , rather than follow the path of parliamentary and civil reform that it did .