Although he styled himself 'His Highness', adopted the court ritual of his royal predecessors, and lived in the former royal palaces of Whitehall and Hampton Court, Oliver Cromwell was not a king - in spite of the best efforts of his supporters to crown him. Yet, as David Horspool shows in this illuminating new portrait of England's Lord Protector, Cromwell, the Puritan son of Cambridgeshire gentry, wielded such influence that it would be a pretence to say that power really lay with the collective. The years of Cromwell's rise to power, shaped by a decade-long civil war, saw a sustained attempt at the collective government of England; the first attempts at a real Union of Britain; the beginnings of empire; a radically new solution to the idea of a national religion; atrocities in Ireland; and the readmission to England of the Jews, a people officially banned for over three and a half centuries. At the end of it, Oliver Cromwell had emerged as the country's sole ruler: to his enemies, and probably to most of his countrymen, his legacy looked as likely to last as that of the Stuart dynasty he had replaced.

A re-evaluation of the career of Cromwell's trusted lieutenant Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill.

This book provides the first major analysis of the covenanted interest from an integrated three kingdoms perspective. It examines the reaction of the covenanted interest to the actions and policies of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, drawing particular attention to links, similarities and differences in and between the covenanted interest in all three kingdoms. It also follows the fortunes of the covenanted interest and Presbyterian Church government as it built and changed in response to the Royalists and the Independents during the 1650s.

'A compelling and wry narrative of one of the most intellectually thrilling eras of British history' Guardian. ***************** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart king Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World. When an amphibious assault on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1655 proves a disaster, a shaken Cromwell is convinced that God is punishing England for its sinfulness. But the imposition of the rule of the Major-Generals – bureaucrats with a penchant for closing alehouses – backfires spectacularly. Sectarianism and fundamentalism run riot. Radicals and royalists join together in conspiracy. The only way out seems to be a return to a Parliament presided over by a king. But will Cromwell accept the crown? Paul Lay narrates in entertaining but always rigorous fashion the story of England's first and only experiment with republican government: he brings the febrile world of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate to life, providing vivid portraits of the extraordinary individuals who inhabited it and capturing its dissonant cacophony of political and religious voices. ***************** Reviews: 'Briskly paced and elegantly written, Providence Lost provides us with a first-class ticket to this Cromwellian world of achievement, paradox and contradiction. Few guides take us so directly, or so sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous decade' John Adamson, The Times. 'Providence Lost is a learned, lucid, wry and compelling narrative of the 1650s as well as a sensitive portrayal of a man unravelled by providence' Jessie Childs, Guardian.

Now available in paperback, Cromwell's Legacy is an exciting collection of essays by scholars who are well-known in their fields of research, most of whom have a proven track record of making their scholarship accessible to a wide student and general readership. This study examines different ways in which Cromwell's life and work impacted on Britain and the rest of the world after his death. Each contributor examines Cromwell's legacy, including not only the important central question of Cromwell's impact on the religious, military and political life of Britain after his death but also Britain's relations with Europe and future developments in both North and South America. The structure of this book has been designed to give as wide a coverage of time and place as possible. This book not only sheds light on an aspect of Cromwellian studies that has been comparatively neglected, it will also stimulate further work on this topic.

A major undertaking in its own right, this Second Edition of The Stuart Age (revised throughout, and reset in a more generous format) is fully worthy of the immensely successful First Edition. It provides clear and accessible interpretations of the many changes that took place in these crowded years -- still the centre of the most lively and intellectually exciting debates of any period of British history -- but its aim is not to persuade readers to accept these interpretations uncritically, but to help them take part in the ongoing debate themselves.

The first volume in a pioneering account of Oliver Cromwell--providing a major new interpretation of one of the greatest figures in history Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)--the only English commoner to become the overall head of state--is one of the great figures of history, but his character was very complex. He was at once courageous and devout, devious and self-serving; as a parliamentarian, he was devoted to his cause; as a soldier, he was ruthless. Cromwell's speeches and writings surpass in quantity those of any other ruler of England before Victoria and, for those seeking to understand him, he has usually been taken at his word. In this remarkable new work, Ronald Hutton untangles the facts from the fiction. Cromwell, pursuing his devotion to God and cementing his Puritan support base, quickly transformed from obscure provincial to military victor. At the end of the first English Civil War, he was poised to take power. Hutton reveals a man who was both genuine in his faith and deliberate in his dishonesty--and uncovers the inner workings of the man who has puzzled biographers for centuries.

The classic, bestselling biography of one of the most controversial figures in British history from 'One of the finest historians of the age' The Times Literary Supplement From Fenland farmer and humble backbencher to stalwart of the good old cause and the New Model Army, Oliver Cromwell became the key figure of the Commonwealth, and ultimately Lord Protector. In this fascinating and insightful biography, Christopher Hill reveals Cromwell's life from his beginnings in Huntingdonshire to his brutal end. Hill brings all his considerable knowledge of the period to bear on the relationships God's Englishman had with God and England, giving an unprecedented insight vital to understanding Cromwell.

The Cromwellian Protectorate examines the nature of the first regime ever to have had effective control of the British Isles and the impact that it had on England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and on Britain’s international reputation. Few previous studies of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell and his son, Richard, have given sufficient emphasis to its achievements. Instead they have characterized it either as "a military dictatorship" or a reactionary regime that after the revolutionary events of 1649 put Britain on a road that led inevitably to the restoration of the monarchy. This book presents an alternative view of the Cromwellian Protectorate.

John Buchan sets out to redress many misconceived popular opinions of this English soldier and statesman. Born in 1599, Cromwell joined Parliament in the Civil War. He fought many battles and was instrumental in bringing Charles I to trial. He then suppressed the Levellers, Ireland and the Scots under the Commonwealth and later Protectorate.