So, there are a couple of misapprehensions involved in this question, but that's not to say it isn't worth answering, and they are based on what are completely reasonable assumptions from a modern perspective.

So firstly, the questions that need answering are: 'Was Cromwell's regime more 'representative', than that which went before it, and was it more 'conservative'?' In both cases, the short answer is, I think, 'sort of, but not really in the sense we understand those terms today'.

I would argue that it isn't really correct to describe the defeat of Charles I and rise of Cromwell as a more 'representative' government than that which went before it, necessarily.

It is certainly true that the Civil Wars which ultimately led to the death of Charles I involved (in a simplistic sense), parliamentarians fighting against what they viewed as pretensions of absolutism on Charles' party. Charles had ruled without parliament from 1629-40, which many viewed as tyranny, and while the English parliament at this point was not in any sense 'representative' of the population as a whole in the way we would understand it today, they were indeed elected, albeit by a very limited franchise, and were therefore arguably more representative than an absolute monarch.

However, while it had ultimately emerged from the parliamentarian faction in the Civil Wars, Cromwell's regime was not even of representative of parliament at the time, let alone the population as a whole. The parliament which gave Cromwell his power was the 'Rump Parliament', that is, the members of parliament left after 'Pride's Purge', which was, in effect, a military coup, in which Colonel Thomas Pride forced out members of parliament who opposed the execution of Charles I.

The members that were left, were, generally speaking, also more aligned with Cromwell's religious beliefs, which are commonly described as 'puritan', although this term is somewhat problematic for historians as it can be quite vague. Many of those who were expelled were Presbyterians, who had fought to restrain Charles I but did not want to kill or depose him. Instead, many Presbyterians had hoped that the king would abide by the terms of the 'Solemn League and Covenant', a document which would restrict the king's power and force him to agree to reforming the church, but would reaffirm his kingship. They viewed the prospect of Charles' execution as a breach of this covenant, which was among the reasons for the purge.

Therefore Cromwell's regime was, in modern terms, closer to a military dictatorship than to a democracy, with a particular religious flavour- one seen as fanatical by its detractors.

However, did this mean the regime was 'conservative'? By modern standards, it absolutely was, as seen in famous examples such as 'banning Christmas', and indeed, such moves were seen as oppressive by Cromwell's opponents.

In a lot of ways, though, modern ideas of 'liberal' and 'conservative' religion don't really map neatly onto 17th century attitudes. Instead, the big religious questions were that of 'toleration' (the extent to which Catholics and dissenting protestants should be persecuted, or not), and the relationship between church and state.

In some ways, Cromwell's regime was more overtly controlling over some aspects of the church (this is often referred to as an 'Erastian' approach) than the Stuart monarchy had been. However, at the same time, this actually meant greater leeway for religious heterodoxy in some respects, as Cromwell's regime was heavily influenced by 'Independents'- who advocated for the control of individual congregations of their church matters, without the interference of any hierarchy such as bishops.

Cromwell's regime, paradoxically to modern sensibilities, allowed for greater toleration of religious dissent in many respects than the regimes that came before or after it. The reasons for this are complex, but for our purposes here the main difference was that dissenting Protestants were seen as politically dangerous to the Stuart monarchy, but not so much to Cromwell's regime. Catholics, however, were still seen as dangerous, so were not tolerated.

Cromwell also allowed Jews to return to England and worship (although it was still dangerous to do so publicly in practice). This, clearly is not a move that modern people would expect of a religiously intolerant regime, but it also wasn't motivated by 'liberal' sensibilities in the way that we would understand them today, rather, it has been argued, it was motivated by a puritan respect for the idea of an ancient 'Hebrew Republic' that they sought to emulate.

​

​

'The Church Settlement of Oliver Cromwell' by Jeffrey R. Collins in History
Vol. 87, No. 285 (January 2002), pp. 18-40 is a nice short article which goes into some of these questions in more detail, if you would like to take a deeper dive.