WHEN THE ENGLISH TAUGHT REGICIDE: 5/8: The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 by Jonathan Healey (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 21 July 2024
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
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.
1658 OLIVER CROWELL
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a |
| 0:05.0 | is CBS I on the world with John Bachelor. |
| 0:09.0 | Here's John Bachelor. |
| 0:12.0 | Continuing with the Associate Professor of Social History at Oxford University, Jonathan Healy, |
| 0:18.0 | his new book, The Blazing World, is a new history of Revolutionary England 1603 to 1689. It is now 1646. Charles the first, the |
| 0:29.1 | region of England and Ireland. This is everything we understand the power of the king, |
| 0:35.0 | surrenders to the Scots called the Covenantors because he's being pursued by the |
| 0:40.3 | new model army led by Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. |
| 0:45.3 | Jonathan, we go immediately to the personalities of these leaders of the new model army |
| 0:51.9 | because that will be determinative of this regicide upon us. |
| 0:57.6 | What is the new model army and what is Fairfax to it? |
| 1:00.4 | What is Cromwell to it at this point, thank you. |
| 1:03.0 | Well, the new model army was the attempt by parliament to reorganize their forces |
| 1:10.0 | because they had found themselves in a sort of winning position in the Civil War that had taken place and then they'd blown it, they'd made a mess of it and they decided that part of the problem was that the commanders, particularly the Earl of |
| 1:24.9 | Essex and the Earl of Manchester, were not sufficiently committed to full |
| 1:29.5 | victory. They wanted to sort of, you know, win the battles against the king and then go back to |
| 1:33.4 | the negotiating table where is actually what's what what needed to be done was the king |
| 1:36.8 | needs to be beaten completely in the battlefield and Essex and Manchester |
| 1:41.5 | was seen as being too wet if you like. |
| 1:44.0 | So Parliament basically had them fired and put in their place |
| 1:50.0 | commanders who were felt to be more effective and more committed and more dynamic. |
| 1:57.0 | And they settled up upon a sort of minor Yorkshire gentleman called Sir Thomas Fairfax, |
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