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Hello, before the French Revolution, before the American Declaration of Independence,

before Russo, Thomas Payne and Marx, there was the English Revolution.

In 1649, England executed its king, Charles Stewart, and declared itself a republic.

But was republicanism a reaction to the fact of the dead absolutist king, a pragmatic response

to an absence of ruler, as many historians have thought or was there a

Republicanism already embedded as a sentiment deep within the culture of England and

where is it now? One of my guests Dr Sarah, has challenged some of the received opinions on English

Republicanism by arguing for an established English Republican tradition in her book,

Regicide and Republicanism. Also with me to discuss the place of Republicanism in the history of

England is the historian Andrew Roberts whose latest book is a massive and

successful biography of Lord Salisbury. So we're talking about the 17th

century, the mid-17th century, those two civil

wars kicking off on those four years of a republic 1640, 953, followed by the Cromwellian

protectorate and then back came Charles II, Sarah Obama.

Why do you think that Republican ideas were embedded,

were deep in the British people's thinking

when they seem to have erupted mid-late 40s, 1640s.

They erupted in the mid-1640s because of the context of the English Civil War and I think

it's impossible not to suggest that both

regicide and Republicans emerge from a context in which suddenly there's the

...