The promised land looked for so longingly by so many seemed in 1653 to be stubbornly remote. Legal reform blocked, religious programmes cancelled, an apparently corrupt parliament, high taxes, and still no fresh elections - rulers seemingly interested only in war and exploting power foir their own advantage. In the Army Council of Officers the resentment was mounting. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

John Milton and Marchamont Nedham were unlikely bedfellows; and yet they became friends, worked closely together and in their very different ways sought to promote the English Republic to the country and outside world. Anthony Bromley talks about their careers in the Republic and how they sought to promote it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

Following the attenpt by parliament to close the army down without pay, and the resulting August 1647 coup, the army was a seething mass of worries and resentments. Thrown into the mix were the radical political ideas of the Levellers. Together, all of this threatened chaos and even mutiny. So Cromwell and Fairfax invited representatives of their brothers in arms to thrash all of this out in the open forum of the General Council of the Army, at the church of Sy Mary's in Putney, in October 1647. The resulting discusson is the earliest example of demands for genuine democratic reform in English ..read more

In 1647 The New Model Army became a battleground between Independant and Presbyterian factions. Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell were caught in the middle. As Holles came closer and closer to destroying the New Model, Fairfax might be forced to choose between the parliament whose rights he had fought to uphold, and justice for the soldiers with whom he'd lived and fought. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

In an atmosphere of panic caused by news of a massive Irish uprising, the struggle for reform met it’s greatest challenge in the attempt to pass the Grand Remonstrance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

The English Commonwealth took a very different approach to settling the threats which had faced it in 1649, and the future of the three kingdoms. In Ireland, the guiding principle was retribution; in Scotland some effort at least of collaboration. To a new threat the response was uncompromising - it was war. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

So, while the army was away, August 1649 to September 1651 what had the Rump parliament been doing to build the promised new world of Liberty? We find out that social reform takes a back seat to moral reform - the Garland of the Sea - and picking fights with friends. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

Between a quarter and a third of adult males up to 50 will fight in the first civil war. Most families will be affected in some way. Here is the story of those great marching armies, what kept them together, what made them effective, and how they fought Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

From his return to London in November 1641, Charles and his courtiers built a party in parliament; moderates believed enough was enough, and feared the growing radicalism and social upheaval. Six days would define England's future.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more

The deal struck between the Covenanters and Charles brought an invasion from the Commonwealth that faced annihalation at Dunbar in September 1650. Exactly a year later, the end game of Charles' attempt to detroy the Republic came to a head outside Worcester - which John Adams wouild call the 'Ground of Liberty'. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information ..read more