In London, and towns like Oxford, the Protectorate saw the return of stability, economic change and a revived social scene - and the arrival of the Coffee house, and the penny university. Stability and old rythmns re-established themslves around the country, and royalists reacted in different ways. Some like the L'Estrange family in North Norfolk preserved the old ways and accepted the new, though rattled by the Decimation tax. Others found artistic responses - like Katherine Philips, Izaak Walt...
Mar 02, 2025•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Cromwell's court struck a balance between the status required of a head of state, and the Cromwell's own openbness and informality. It was a court full of music, as was the supposedly joyless puritan state. There was little of the London theatre, though popular performance at fairs went on as before - but Britain saw its first Opera and John Playford's Dancing Master was all the rage. And in 1657, the first openly Jewish place of worship opened in Creechurch Lane Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/p...
Feb 16, 2025•37 min•Ep 69•Transcript available on Metacast After a year of the rule of the major generals, there was no money to support their militia. Now, the obvious solution was to repeat and continue the decimation tax; but the Council of State felt that parliament must be consulted. The opponents of the miliary regime gathered their strength - this was their opportunity to mount a coup of their own. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Feb 02, 2025•54 min•Ep 68•Transcript available on Metacast There was much about Cromwell that was Elizabethan. He was fiercely patriotic, he dreamed of building as trading nation, and laying low the Spanish Empire with a Protestant Alliance. The Western Design against the Spanish Caribbean was part of that plan. It's outcome was to be a crisis for me; and in the face of security threats from within and without, and the withdrawal of God's approval a bold experiment was needed - enter the Major Generals Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more inf...
Jan 18, 2025•40 min•Ep 67•Transcript available on Metacast Cromwell might have felt that the first 9 months went rather well, from his perspective - the Council of State was working well, getting things done, the settlement of the Commonwealth was proceeding and rebellions suppressed - and the first Protectorate parliament would surely be populated with serious, hard working men who would help heal and settle the nation. He was to find out that his nation was as yet far from settled or healed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jan 12, 2025•39 min•Ep 66•Transcript available on Metacast This year we go to York and West Yorkshire, from 8th to 17th September. We'll stay in the Spa town of Harrogate, and in glorious York, Capital of the North with its Cathedral, the Minster, the medieval shopping street of the Shambles and loads of other sights too. We'll go to the Dales, and visit castles, sturdy limestone villages, fortified manor houses, grand stately homes. And the inspiration of artists and poets, Fountains Abbey. Plus there'll be breweries and folk music. Fun, laughter and h...
Jan 06, 2025•7 min•Ep 65•Transcript available on Metacast Between 1654 and 1657, the the Tender of Union with Scotland and the Act of Settlement of Ireland were played out. They were very different in character. Over the following centuries, the former was largely consigned to a historical footnote. The second remains a source of anger and division. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 22, 2024•40 min•Ep 64•Transcript available on Metacast I am very pleased that Dirk Hoffman-Becking, of the History of the Germans podcast, has put together this episode about a very favourite event - the capture and hostage of Richard the Lionheart. Why Henry VI did it - and how in the end, Richard had his revenge. Sort of. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 15, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Whether or not Cromwell knew about John Lambert's 'coup' of December 1653, by the end of the month England had a new constitution and a new Head of State - the Lord Protector. Cromwell was installed in Whitehall and Hampton court, new seals designed that drew on Cromwell's Welsh ancestry, and rthe Council of State started work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 08, 2024•43 min•Ep 63•Transcript available on Metacast Contemporary poets found it difficult to deal with Cromwell, both before and after his death. Margaret Oakes talks about how the approach they took, and what they chose to reflect of the man and his career Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 01, 2024•44 min•Ep 62•Transcript available on Metacast "Never man was highlier extolled, and never man baselier reported of and vilified” write Richard Baxter - a contemporary of Oliver Cromwell, who was not a fan. In this he was closer to the truth than Samuel Johnson, who wearily wrote in the 18th century that "all that can be told of him is already in print.” Cromwell is makes a subject extraordinarily divisive, and extraordinarily rich, partly because, as some other clever person remarked, people find in him what they are looking for. Hoste...
Nov 24, 2024•45 min•Ep 61•Transcript available on Metacast Nelson was a military genius and fierce patriot, idolised by his men and the British public - and held up to ridicule too, for his affair with Emma and his treatment of Fanny. In his book for children, 'Nelson, Hero of the Seas', historian, author and Rest is History podcaster Dominic Sandbrook, brings out his charisma and genius - and his complexity and flaws. And Dominic also had time to speak to me about the challenges and glories of writing for young people - and about Nelson. Hosted on...
Nov 17, 2024•55 min•Ep 60•Transcript available on Metacast In 1649 the English parliament proudly declared that freedom had been restored and that King and Lords had been rejected. But in other ways, the new Commonwealth failed to bring about a new world. True there were difficult problems to resolve with war in Ireland, Scotland and against the Dutch. And naval and commercial achievement was significant. But the English people did not feel they were advancing to a new, better world, and the Rump became deeply unpopular. In the end - there would be a cr...
Nov 10, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep 59•Transcript available on Metacast In 1646, Charles secretly left Oxford, not sure whether to appeal to the English in London, or the Scots at Newark. It was the start of a long process of three years, which would see torturous negotiations - and the rise of extraordinary ideas about the rights of the people and religious toleration, and how to make all the blood worthwhile in a new world. It was a journey that would lead to the scaffold on a cold morning in January 1649. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informatio...
Nov 03, 2024•1 hr 4 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast In his haste to expel the Rump which had failed so badly, Cromwell and the Army officers came up with a temporary expedient. The Nominated assembly would be chosen from the most sober, Godly and intelligent of society, they would do the job of reform the Rump had failed to do, set up proper elections, and then retire once more, their job done. The Commonwealth would be restored and set on the right path. Well; that was the idea. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 20, 2024•42 min•Ep 57•Transcript available on Metacast The promised land looked for so longingly by so many seemed in 1653 to be stubbornly remote. Legal reform blocked, religious programmes cancelled, an apparently corrupt parliament, high taxes, and still no fresh elections - rulers seemingly interested only in war and exploting power foir their own advantage. In the Army Council of Officers the resentment was mounting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 13, 2024•39 min•Ep 56•Transcript available on Metacast John Milton and Marchamont Nedham were unlikely bedfellows; and yet they became friends, worked closely together and in their very different ways sought to promote the English Republic to the country and outside world. Anthony Bromley talks about their careers in the Republic and how they sought to promote it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 06, 2024•46 min•Ep 55•Transcript available on Metacast The English Commonwealth took a very different approach to settling the threats which had faced it in 1649, and the future of the three kingdoms. In Ireland, the guiding principle was retribution; in Scotland some effort at least of collaboration. To a new threat the response was uncompromising - it was war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 22, 2024•44 min•Ep 54•Transcript available on Metacast So, while the army was away, August 1649 to September 1651 what had the Rump parliament been doing to build the promised new world of Liberty? We find out that social reform takes a back seat to moral reform - the Garland of the Sea - and picking fights with friends. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 15, 2024•39 min•Ep 53•Transcript available on Metacast The deal struck between the Covenanters and Charles brought an invasion from the Commonwealth that faced annihalation at Dunbar in September 1650. Exactly a year later, the end game of Charles' attempt to detroy the Republic came to a head outside Worcester - which John Adams wouild call the 'Ground of Liberty'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 01, 2024•43 min•Ep 52•Transcript available on Metacast The Council of State were convinced that only General Cromwell could deliver victory in Ireland; and Cromwell used this to negotiate the best possible supply of men, money and material. From August 1649 to May 1650 Cromwell's campaign brought the Confederacy close to defeat, and he visited two infamous atrocities on the towns of Drogheda and Wexford. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Aug 25, 2024•38 min•Ep 51•Transcript available on Metacast Part two, about 30 questions I think; Religion, the public Sphere, culture - and a couple of 'What Ifs' which were really good fun Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 11, 2024•54 min•Ep 50•Transcript available on Metacast We had a vast number of brilliant quesrtions. Sam (Pax Britannica) and David (of this parish) had a lovely time - but went on a bit, there's no denying it. So this is part I, about 25 questions, mostly about politics and the civil wars themselves Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Aug 04, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep 49•Transcript available on Metacast In April 1649 the new Commonwealth was under siege, enemies with and without. The Levelers saw the new Commonwealth as a betrayal of the revolution, and set out to raise rebellion against the Rump and the Grandees, to set soldiers against their officers and people against their parliament. Meanwhile, Gerald Winstanley started writing furious pamphelts, demanding social reform - and a True Leveling. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jul 28, 2024•37 min•Ep 48•Transcript available on Metacast On 30th January, Charles I went to the scaffold, the first king to be publicly tried and executed by his people. He died with enormous dignity - and was duly proclaimed a martyr. With the king gone, a new state was proclaimed in his place - based on the sovereignty of the people, and ruled by a House of Commons that representated it, with the executive Council of State. As the Commonwealth's servants, John Milton and Marchamont Nedham worked to proclaim it's legitimacy, enemies both interna...
Jul 21, 2024•46 min•Ep 47•Transcript available on Metacast I am about to start a new series for Shedcast members, called Birth of Britain. It takes British history from the year dot to somewhere around 600. So I am starting the series off with an interview with friend and archaeologist Dr Richard Grove, to give us a bit of an overview. This episode is an extract from that interview. I thought that (a) you would find it interesting and that (b) it might persuade you might sign up to be a member at The History of England Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/pri...
Jul 14, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Once the decision was taken to put Charles on trial, the Commissiobners agonised about the detail at Westminster; the trial must be seen to be fair. But few can have doubted its outcome. The theatre of the trial was almost a gladatorial contest between representatives of the two sides, in the form of President Bradshaw, and King Charles Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 30, 2024•54 min•Ep 46•Transcript available on Metacast The New Model, Levellers and Radical MPs reacted with steely determination to the adoption of the Newport treaty. It was probably Ireton that inspired Pride's Purge. Ireton it was also that drove the development of the constitutional proposal that followed, forged in the Whitehall Debates - the Agreement of the People. That would have to wait though, because more immediate questions were at hand. What now to do with this incorrigible king? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...
Jun 23, 2024•47 min•Ep 45•Transcript available on Metacast In July. Hamilton launched his army of Scots across the border, in confident expectation that his 14,000 would be swelled by enthusiastic English royalists. England would know it's fate at Preston, when the opposimg commanders, Hamilton and Cromwell, threw the dice. While parliament would receive two proposals for a lasting peace; the Remonstranbce of the Army, penned by Ireton, Radical MPs and Levellers; and the Newport Treaty from their commissioners and the king. Which way would the bone...
Jun 09, 2024•48 min•Ep 44•Transcript available on Metacast If the people of England had gone to war to build a better world, by January 1648 they were seriously unimpressed with what Utopia looked like. The issues that distressed the people were legion - taxes, religion, sequestration, omne daft ideas about equality, county committees - even Christmas! And when news of the King's Engagement with the Scots got out, well, some people saw that as an opportunity to restore the right order of things. Which would surely only come well the World was turne...
Jun 02, 2024•47 min•Ep 43•Transcript available on Metacast 
