The History of England

Nelson was a military genius and fierce patriot, idolised by his men and the British public - and held up to ridicule too, for his affair with Emma and his treatment of Fanny. In his book for children, 'Nelson, Hero of the Seas', historian, author and Rest is History podcaster Dominic Sandbrook, brings out his charisma and genius - and his complexity and flaws. And Dominic also had time to sp...

In 1649 the English parliament proudly declared that freedom had been restored and that King and Lords had been rejected. But in other ways, the new Commonwealth failed to bring about a new world. True there were difficult problems to resolve with war in Ireland, Scotland and against the Dutch. And naval and commercial achievement was significant. But the English people did not feel they were adva...

In 1646, Charles secretly left Oxford, not sure whether to appeal to the English in London, or the Scots at Newark. It was the start of a long process of three years, which would see torturous negotiations - and the rise of extraordinary ideas about the rights of the people and religious toleration, and how to make all the blood worthwhile in a new world. It was a journey that would lead to the sc...

In his haste to expel the Rump which had failed so badly, Cromwell and the Army officers came up with a temporary expedient. The Nominated assembly would be chosen from the most sober, Godly and intelligent of society, they would do the job of reform the Rump had failed to do, set up proper elections, and then retire once more, their job done. The Commonwealth would be restored and set on the righ...

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.co...

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Council of State were convinced that only General Cromwell could deliver victory in Ireland; and Cromwell used this to negotiate the best possible supply of men, money and material. From August 1649 to May 1650 Cromwell's campaign brought the Confederacy close to defeat, and he visited two infamous atrocities on the towns of Drogheda and Wexford. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more...

Part two, about 30 questions I think; Religion, the public Sphere, culture - and a couple of 'What Ifs' which were really good fun Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We had a vast number of brilliant quesrtions. Sam (Pax Britannica) and David (of this parish) had a lovely time - but went on a bit, there's no denying it. So this is part I, about 25 questions, mostly about politics and the civil wars themselves Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In April 1649 the new Commonwealth was under siege, enemies with and without. The Levelers saw the new Commonwealth as a betrayal of the revolution, and set out to raise rebellion against the Rump and the Grandees, to set soldiers against their officers and people against their parliament. Meanwhile, Gerald Winstanley started writing furious pamphelts, demanding social reform - and a True Leveling...

On 30th January, Charles I went to the scaffold, the first king to be publicly tried and executed by his people. He died with enormous dignity - and was duly proclaimed a martyr. With the king gone, a new state was proclaimed in his place - based on the sovereignty of the people, and ruled by a House of Commons that representated it, with the executive Council of State. As the Commonwealth's...

I am about to start a new series for Shedcast members, called Birth of Britain. It takes British history from the year dot to somewhere around 600. So I am starting the series off with an interview with friend and archaeologist Dr Richard Grove, to give us a bit of an overview. This episode is an extract from that interview. I thought that (a) you would find it interesting and that (b) it might pe...

Once the decision was taken to put Charles on trial, the Commissiobners agonised about the detail at Westminster; the trial must be seen to be fair. But few can have doubted its outcome. The theatre of the trial was almost a gladatorial contest between representatives of the two sides, in the form of President Bradshaw, and King Charles Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The New Model, Levellers and Radical MPs reacted with steely determination to the adoption of the Newport treaty. It was probably Ireton that inspired Pride's Purge. Ireton it was also that drove the development of the constitutional proposal that followed, forged in the Whitehall Debates - the Agreement of the People. That would have to wait though, because more immediate questions were at hand....

In July. Hamilton launched his army of Scots across the border, in confident expectation that his 14,000 would be swelled by enthusiastic English royalists. England would know it's fate at Preston, when the opposimg commanders, Hamilton and Cromwell, threw the dice. While parliament would receive two proposals for a lasting peace; the Remonstranbce of the Army, penned by Ireton, Radical MPs a...

If the people of England had gone to war to build a better world, by January 1648 they were seriously unimpressed with what Utopia looked like. The issues that distressed the people were legion - taxes, religion, sequestration, omne daft ideas about equality, county committees - even Christmas! And when news of the King's Engagement with the Scots got out, well, some people saw that as an opp...

In November 1647 at Corkbush field near Ware, Fairfax faced a dangerous threat to army unity - the work of the Leveller Agitators had incited some regiments to mutiny, in support of the Agreeent of the People. Meanwhile Charles had fled Hampton Court; he would find his new home even less to his liking. Until he had a strictly private discussion with the Scots... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priv...

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 o...

In July, England had the prospect of king, Fairfax and Army triumphantly entering London with a new, open and tolerant constitution and a bright future. But Charles had killed that. So, in the face of the hostility of parliament, and fortified by their Solemn Engagement, the New Model Army decided to take England's future into their own hands. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for m...

With the king under their control, the determination of Fairfax's Army made Presbyterian parliamentarians buckle. And when Ireton presented the carefully worked Heads of Proposals to the Officers and Agitators at the Army General Council at Reading, it seemed that at last a peace agreement was within grasp. Once agreed, Fairfax and the Army could march into London with King Charles at its head, an...

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 ac...

In June 1646 Charles' path had taken him to the Scots, on the hope he could persuade them to put him back on the English throne. But he was not prepared to pay their price, and in England Holles and the Presbyterian party saw a way to break the power of the New Model Amy and the Independents once and for all. And achieving the departure of the Scottish army was the key. Hosted on Acast. See acast....