7/8: The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 Hardcover – Deckle Edge, April 11, 2023. by Jonathan Healey (Author)
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John Batchelor
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🗓️ 12 August 2023
⏱️ 13 minutes
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7/8: The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 Hardcover – Deckle Edge, April 11, 2023. by Jonathan Healey (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Blazing-World-History-Revolutionary-1603-1689/dp/0593318358
The seventeenth century was a revolutionary age for the English. It started as they suddenly found themselves ruled by a Scotsman, and it ended in the shadow of an invasion by the Dutch. Under James I, England suffered terrorism and witch panics. Under his son Charles, state and society collapsed into civil war, to be followed by an army coup and regicide. For a short time—for the only time in history—England was a republic. There were bitter struggles over faith and Parliament asserted itself like never before. There were no boundaries to politics. In fiery, plague-ridden London, in coffee shops and alehouses, new ideas were forged that were angry, populist, and almost impossible for monarchs to control.
But the story of this century is less well known than it should be. Myths have grown around key figures. People may know about the Gunpowder Plot and the Great Fire of London, but the Civil War is a half-remembered mystery to many. And yet the seventeenth century has never seemed more relevant. The British constitution is once again being bent and contorted, and there is a clash of ideologies reminiscent of when Roundhead fought Cavalier.
The Blazing World is the story of this strange, twisting, fascinating century. It shows a society in sparkling detail. It was a new world of wealth, creativity, and daring curiosity, but also of greed, pugnacious arrogance, and colonial violence.
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Matthew with Professor Jonathan Healey, Oxford University. His new book is The Blazing World, |
| 0:07.1 | a new history of revolutionary England, 1603 to 1689. The themes, the arguments, the statements, |
| 0:13.6 | the risks all here in the 17th century that will be echoed by the founding fathers in the 18th |
| 0:20.4 | century in America and much of the contest today between the people and their representatives |
| 0:29.0 | and in America, the president. We can see very much consistent with the doubts and the dreams |
| 0:36.6 | of the men who led to a reticide, the cutting off of the head of Charles I, and then to the Lord |
| 0:44.0 | protector, Oliver Cromwell, a farmer from East Anglia, who dies in September of 1659, 58, I believe, |
| 0:54.2 | 1658. And the question of succession is not present. At some point they figured maybe his eldest son |
| 1:04.2 | Richard, that didn't work out because Richard turned out to be a very friendly, popular person, |
| 1:09.4 | but no Lord protector. So now we turn to Parliament, who is to be next. And Jonathan, this is a |
| 1:17.3 | fascination because everything that was enforced during Parliament's time, during Oliver Cromwell's |
| 1:24.8 | time and before by the Puritans now is to be tossed out with the bathwater. Everything is to go out |
| 1:31.8 | again. And Charles the second who's been living in exile comes back. And the first thought I have is |
| 1:39.6 | why did they invite him back? Did they know the risks they were taking? Was it more important to |
| 1:44.8 | them to take that risk than it was to come up with the new form of government? |
| 1:49.5 | I think what has happened, basically, was that the after Cromwell died, as you say, there is this |
| 1:56.1 | sort of period of a year and a half of political chaos where you have one, you know, the army, |
| 2:03.2 | a Parliament, you have different factions within Parliament, you have different types of Parliament, |
| 2:06.5 | and then eventually it's a faction within the army led by a guy called George Monk, |
| 2:11.6 | who marches down from Scotland from cold stream on the Scottish borders to London. And even |
| 2:17.6 | when he gets to London, nobody quite knows which way he's going to go. And eventually it becomes |
| 2:23.0 | as almost as I can last resort, really, is to say to the exiled Prince Charles or Charles Stewart, |
... |
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