Book Title: The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 Author: Jonathan Healey Headline: The Restoration of Charles II and Its Aftermath Following Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658 and a period of political chaos, George Monk led t
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Following Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658 and a period of political chaos, George Monk led the army to London, eventually inviting Charles II back to restore stability in 1660. Reforms like banning Ship Money remained, and Parliament's financial power significantly increased. The Anglican Church reasserted control, leading to the repression and emigration of dissenters. Royalist revenge included the grotesque public hanging of Cromwell's corpse.
1649
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Building a coffee business? |
| 0:01.9 | Serving the best Americano in town is up to you. |
| 0:04.1 | But winning back time and growing your business, leave that to sum-up. Take orders and payments anywhere with the new SumUp terminal. Turn occasional customers into regulars with a free loyalty program. And with the SumUp point-of-sale system, you'll always know when you're running low on your best-selling blends. Visit sumup.co.uk to learn more. I'm John Batchewitt, Professor Jonathan Healy, Oxford University. His new book is The Blazing |
| 0:26.4 | World, a new history of Revolutionary England, 1603 to 1689. The themes, the arguments, the statements, |
| 0:33.7 | the risks, all here in the 17th century that will be echoed by the founding |
| 0:38.8 | fathers in the 18th century in America. |
| 0:42.9 | And much of the contest today between the people and their representatives, and in America, |
| 0:50.5 | the president, we can see very much consistent with the doubts and the dreams |
| 0:57.0 | of the men who led to a regicide, the cutting off of the head of Charles I. |
| 1:03.0 | And then to the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, a farmer from East Anglia, who dies |
| 1:09.0 | in September of 1659, 58, I believe, 1658. |
| 1:15.6 | And the question of succession is not present. |
| 1:21.6 | At some point they figured maybe his eldest son Richard, that didn't work out |
| 1:25.6 | because Richard turned out to be a very friendly, popular person, but no Lord Protector. So now we turn to Parliament. Who is |
| 1:33.6 | to be next? And Jonathan, this is a fascination, because everything that was enforced during |
| 1:42.0 | Parliament's time, during Oliver Cromwell's time, and before by the Puritans, |
| 1:47.5 | now is to be tossed out with the bathwater. Everything is to go out again. And Charles II, |
| 1:54.9 | who's been living in exile, comes back. The first thought I have is, why did they invite him back? Did they know the risk they were taking? |
| 2:03.3 | Was it more important to them to take that risk than it was to come up with a new form of government? |
| 2:09.5 | I think what had happened, basically, was that after Cromwell died, as you say, there is this sort of period of a year and a half of political |
| 2:19.5 | chaos where you have one, you know, the army, you have parliament, you have different factions within |
| 2:24.9 | parliament, you have different types of parliament, and then eventually it's a faction within the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.