A History of England

Who could imagine that England could ever be a republic? And yet for eleven years it became one. Still, it would be a serious mistake to confuse 'republic' with 'democracy'. It swiftly became clear, as Oliver Cromwell rose to the summit of power - a power he never sought for personal satisfaction but saw as a necessary chore to take the country in a godly direction - that it was going to become so...

We start with Charles I's son mounting a throne in Scotland as Charles II, and end with him hiding up an oak tree, throneless once more. In between, lots of exciting battles, all rather boringly won by the same Cromwell with the same army, and the even more thrilling betrayal and execution of the Marquess of Montrose. Betrayed by the 'master fiend Argyll' or perhaps betrayed to Argyll by the very...

This is the chapter where we reach the Third English Civil War. We've seen that though their concerns may have been mainly English, the civil wars were by no means limited to England. They were, indeed, wrapped up in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. So far, I've tended to ignore Ireland a bit, and this episode will put that right. Especially as Cromwell's actions in Ireland are a major element of h...

When the Scots began to worry about the increasing power of the New Model Army, and even whether it might be a bigger threat to them than the king, they decided to open negotiations with him. The result was a strange alliance between former enemies. Charles escaped and joined them, launching the Second English Civil War. Which he lost, just like the First. This time, though, his enemies had run ou...

The First Civil War had ended. King Charles I had lost, which wasn't just a military or political problem, but a religious one too: after all, if God had made him king, and God also determined who won wars, who could make sense of what was going on? Had God sided with Parliament against the king he'd set on his throne in the first place. In practical terms, Charles was in captivity, a prisoner of...

Parliament getting serious about the Civil War, getting its act together on military matters - above all by launching its New Model Army - and starting to win some key battles. Against that context, and helping Parliament on its way to success, there's the meteoric rise of Oliver Cromwell, a man whose military ability hadn't been suspected before. Not that this will be the end of his surprises for...

Oh dear, oh dear. Charles I pushed and pushed. Eventually, the other side pushed back. First it was the Scots, who turned out to be a lot better at fighting than Charles had imagined, and gave him a considerable black eye. Then, when he turned to Parliament in London, after eleven years without calling one, far from getting the funds he needed to fight the Scots, he found himself at loggerheads wi...

Charles I, like his father, proved extremely good at not being at all good at getting on with people he really needed to be really good at getting on side. Just like with his Dad, that mainly meant Parliamentarians. People like John Hampden, one of the great warriors against royal overreach, and a certain Oliver Cromwell who - and I don't think this is a spoiler - would have a pretty big role to p...

Charles I started his reign in just the way he'd go on with it, and in just the way his father James I/VI had ended his: by getting right up the noses of most of his subjects in Scotland as well as England, and falling apart big time with the Westminster Parliament. Having failed with one attempt at a marriage with a Catholic Princess from Spain, he just organised himself a different one, with a C...

The end of James Stuart's reign over Scotland and England was no more impressive than the earlier part. One of the wonderful, crazy and ultimately futile episodes was the 'Spanish Match', involving the future Charles I and his father's favourite, the future Duke of Buckingham, travelling to Madrid to try and grab a bride for Charles. An attempt which involved a bit of stalking, understandably reje...

The marriage of James VI of Scotland, later James I of England, to Anne of Denmark started off with some romanticism, including a dangerous sea crossing to fetch her home, and it certainly produced a lot of pregnancies (very much a royal couple's duty), though things then rather faded. That's possibly because James wasn't quite as interested in women as the initial gesture suggested. But there was...

James I of England (VI of Scotland) had clear ideas of what kingship meant. It meant he'd been chosen by God to run the show and Parliament wasn't going to get in his way. The trouble was, Parliament controlled the money. And James's attitude wasn't going to make any friends there. A fine scholar, he proved himself pretty useless as a politician. No wonder they called him "the wisest fool in Chris...

Boy, did it take a long time for James VI of Scotland to get from his proclamation as King of England, down to London to take the throne as James I. Partly that was because he had other things to do on the way down. A spot of hunting, for instance. And hanging a man without due process, not the English way of doing these things, but something of a sign of what was to come with the bright new Stuar...

With no children of her own, what had Elizabeth I done to guarantee a smooth succession after her death? The answer is precious little. Which meant there had to be some clever footwork by her Chief Minister Robert Cecil, son of the William Cecil who had served so ably before, to ensure that the transition went well, peacefully and the way he wanted it. You'll not be surprised to learn that part of...

Elizabeth was the virgin queen. And indeed she had no children, which would be a bit of a problem for when she finally popped her clogs and the survivors had to try to find a way to make the succession to the throne reasonably peaceful.  But was she really a virgin? And if she never married, was that down to careful international politics, equally careful national politics, or even the weird...

England loves stories about its great victory over the Spanish Armada. But it talks far less about its sequel. And, boy, was there a sequel: England's own Armada, against Spain.  From England's point of view, it didn't go anything like as well as Spain's attempted invasion. Which probably explains why it's talked about some much less in English schools. The illustration shows a turret from th...

Spain sent its Armada against Elizabethan England, and the expedition ended in disaster, though far more for its failures of planning and the lousy weather than for anything the English did.  Meanwhile, Elizabeth I had a great time when she went down to inspect the militia at Tilbury. Can you imagine? The only woman among 4000 admiring solders. She loved it. And gave an iconic speech to mark...

They may have been preying on ships, attacking them, stealing their cargoes and holding their crews to ransom, but they knew for sure that they weren't pirates. They were loyal English sailors in Queen Elizabeth I's service. After all, she was making money from their victories, and no Queen could possibly be profiting from piracy, could she? Well, the Spanish had no doubts. They were certainly pir...

You may have noticed that religion has been a pretty significant factor in the happenings of the first few chapters, as it will be in quite a few of the ones ahead. So it makes sense to pause a moment and take a look at the role of God in the evolution of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Illustration: The ceiling fresco Glory of Holy Trinity in church Santuario del Santissimo Cr...

An exciting moment! Anne Boleyn's daughter, bright as her mother, in sharpness of mind as well as redness of hair, has made it to the throne. She's sick of all those quarrels between Protestants and Catholics, and decides that there's no need to pick fights with any Catholic subject who's discreet about his beliefs and remains loyal to the throne. The trouble is that the Pope keeps making life dif...

A Bloody Mary may be a fine drink, but Bloody Mary was hardly the most desirable of Queens. As the nickname rather suggests. She was England's last Catholic monarch, and she set out to undo her brother's Protestant work (though without giving any of the money back). Apart from that, she lost England's last Continental possession, Calais, and she married the man who would become King Philip II of S...

At last, Henry VIII's wish could be fulfilled. He left the throne to his son. A male heir, just what he'd always wanted. Well, it wasn't that simple, First of all, Edward VI was only 9 when he came to the throne. Real power was exercised by a Regency Council that was - and this may shock you - not massively competent and rather more concerned with its own interests than with the nation's.  Wh...

We got to know Henry VIII a bit in chapter 1.  We also talked a little about his wives, and it seems only right that we think about them a bit more now, especially since having a lot of wives is what Henry's best known for. So chapter 2 takes a look at their stories, at why Henry married them (well, the other reasons, apart from his attraction to young women), and to what extent he hit his ob...

Welcome to A History of England. As well as the podcast, there's a series of accompanying booklets, available as a paperback or a Kindle download. The first, covering episodes 1-35, is available on Amazon now. Just look for David Beeson A History of England . We can't get started without taking a moment to acknowledge the Spanish journalist and novelist, Arturo Perez Reverte. It was his Un...