The British Republic

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2020

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Paul Lay, editor of History Today, has written a great book about the rise and fall of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate (1653–1659), England's sole experiment in republican government – and one of the most extraordinary but neglected periods in British history. Having won two civil wars, conquered Ireland and Scotland and seen off Charles II, in 1653 Oliver Cromwell assumed the title of 'Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. But, as Paul explained to Dan, crafting a lasting, stable and legitimate alternative to monarchy was a lot more complicated....

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello History Hit listeners, as you are listening to this right now at this exact second I am
0:05.8	currently on an epic cross-country road trip of England. 600 miles and 1 million years of history
0:14.4	from the first humans through to Stonehenge, Dovercastle, Hastings up to Ironbridge in the
0:19.3	Black Country and to the northeast where I'm visiting a Cold War bunker in York.
0:25.0	I want to hear from you. I want to do more stops. Tell me when I should stop. Any local tips or
0:29.8	hints that you want to share or you want to see me report on on my social media channels and Twitter
0:34.1	and Instagram etc. just send me a message ds.hh at historyhit.com. That's delta Sierra.
0:41.4	. hotel hotel at historyhit.com or tweet me at the History Guy. You can keep up with the road trip
0:47.4	this week on Instagram and Twitter at the History Guy on both and then you can hear the whole thing as a
0:52.1	podcast series next week. Thanks and enjoy this episode.
1:02.5	Hello everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. It's a funny thing. I spend a lot of time
1:08.6	my life reading, studying, thinking about the 18th century, about the late 17th which is we like
1:15.7	to annex into the 18th century. The birth of the scientific revolution, the glorious revolution,
1:21.8	the financial revolution that comes at the end of the 17th century. I spend a lot of time thinking
1:25.5	about the tutors in the 16th and the early stewards of the early 17th century. There's been a
1:31.5	blind spot in my education and that is the extraordinary experiment with republicanism that England
1:38.9	that Britain saw in the middle of the 17th century. It's not forget that during the Civil War
1:44.5	the 17th century King Charles was beheaded. The first crowned head of state to go through a legal
1:51.2	process and be executed anywhere in the world. I think, correct me if I'm wrong on that one, but I think
1:56.6	it was. And the challenge to replace him with a stable legitimate republic was a significant one,
2:03.8	particularly because Cromwell, the protector who assumed to go to dictatorial power shortly after
2:10.3	was killed, launched incredibly ambitious series of reforms, moral reforms and imperial projects
	...

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