Early Stuart England

Wherein the podcast, like the English Republic, disappears from history.

Spring 1660After a long exile, the rightful King returns, to restore the line of his ancestors.

January 1660A broad movement for a free parliament unites royalists, Presbyterians, the apprentices of London, and the only coherent army left in England.

December 1659Assailed on multiple fronts, the Committee of Safety simply dissolves. Without any other immediate options, England (for the third time) turns to the Rump.

1659As the Committee of Safety struggles to establish itself as England's new government, London falls under the sway of different ruler - coffee.

1659Army officers and the Rump squabble over the remains of the increasingly irrelevant Commonwealth state

Summer 1659The new regime at Westminster is briefly united by the most dangerous royalist insurgency parliament has yet faced.

1659Having run out of ideas, England once again turns to the men of the Rump parliament, who Oliver Cromwell had banished from Westminster six years earlier.

Fall 1658With the death of Oliver Cromwell, the Protectorate seeks stability under a new, untested Lord Protector.

1658Just when Cromwell completes his dream of securing Dunkirk, England is drawn into a new war in Scandinavia.

January 1658Oliver Cromwell (who is the Lord Protector, definitely not the King) seeks to control the House of Commons through the new "Other House" (which is definitely not the House of Lords).

1657Outside of London and Westminster, the people of England adapt to a new normal.

1657Thirty years after the Duke of Buckingham's French alliance failed in spectacular fashion, Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate once again outdo their Stuart predecessors.

1657Rival Cromwellian factions in parliament (who had disagreed on just about everything so far) once again split on a final question - whether to make the Lord Protector a King.

1657The Second Protectorate Parliament gathers, but rather than heeding Cromwell's call to confirm the existing constitution, the men at Westminster re-open fundamental questions of religion and money.

1656A new radical religious group (the Quakers) suffers an internal power struggle, which threatens to de-stabilize the new parliament gathering at Westminster.

1656It's election season for the Second Protectorate Parliament, and English voters use the opportunity to contemplate the meaning of republicanism, and how to reconcile liberty in Britain with slavery in the New World.

1656England once again makes the capture of a Spanish treasure fleet the centre-piece of their war strategy. Only this time, it works!

1656While Oliver Cromwell and his friends re-make the English state, a collection of eccentric academics and amateur enthusiasts re-make the field of natural philosophy.

1656The Lord Protector, an Amsterdam Rabbi, and a merchant in the underground Jewish community of London seek to reverse a 350 year old ban on Jews in England.

1655Oliver Cromwell sends his son Henry to Ireland, for an apprenticeship in ruling a nation.

1655Stymied by traditional institutions like parliament, the Protectorate turns to the army to extend its rule into the provinces.

1655The New Model Army finds waging war on the other side of the world, and with little local intelligence, is harder than it looks.

1654-5The Protectorate state draws up plans for the most ambitious amphibious campaign in English history, and the first step in conquering a global empire.

Spring 1655An underground network of royalists seek to take advantage of instability within the Protectorate regime, but find that they are hampered by internal divisions of their own.

Fall 1654Lord Protector Cromwell opens his first parliament, and soon discovers what James or Charles could have told him - that managing the men at Westminster is no easy task.

Now Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell is forced to finally make some concrete decisions about England's spiritual life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his choices are as much political as religious.

1654Having seized control of the state, Cromwell immediately ends the war with the Dutch, and adopts a much more conventional foreign policy.

December 1653John Lambert, after orchestrating the demise of the latest attempt at a political settlement (the Nominated Assembly), produces his own solution - a written constitution.

1653With the Rump hastily dissolved, England turns to an ad hoc assembly to craft a new political order.

1654As social unrest in France takes a revolutionary turn, England sends out feelers to potential republican comrades.

1652-3With England distracted by the Dutch War, and turmoil at Westminster, a group of soldiers and administrators are left to determine Scotland's future on their own.

Spring 1653A long stand-off culminates in the forced dissolution of the Long Parliament, twelve and a half years after its initial elections.

1652-3Oliver Cromwell struggles to hold the disparate elements of the Commonwealth coalition together, but the mounting pressure seems to make a break all but inevitable.

1652Having pacified all organized resistance in Ireland, the Puritan Commonwealth regime contemplates how to rule a pre-dominantly Catholic nation.

1652The republics of England and the Netherlands test each other in battle, and in doing so act out a debate in naval tactics that had been brewing for a century.

1651-2As England prepares for a Dutch war, factions within the Commonwealth find that they have enemies at home.

1652Desperate to match the modernizing credit economy of the Dutch, the Commonwealth turns to a been enthusiast, an impoverished inventor, and England's spinsters.

1651-1652After decades of close co-operation, the Anglo-Dutch relationship falls apart due to heated economic competition.

1651Having pacified Scotland and Ireland, the Commonwealth regime looks to secure one last component of the old Stuart realms - the New World colonies.

1651Amid the soul searching after their defeat at Worcester, the royalists re-assess the philosophical underpinnings of their cause.

1650-1As Henry Ireton seeks to impose Commonwealth rule on Ireland, he finds his work obstructed by a persistent guerilla campaign.

1651When the Scots and Charles find themselves unable to defend Scotland, they turn the tables on Oliver Cromwell, and invade England.

1649-50In an effort to project the Commonwealth's military and economic power beyond the British Isles, the New Merchant faction re-organizes the navy.

Summer 1650Oliver Cromwell marches north to Scotland - and into a well laid trap.

1649-1650Charles II attempts to balance his desire for revenge on the men who killed his father, and the need to build allies in Europe.

1650The Commonwealth government searches for the words to define itself, and at the same time, bind the people of England to its rule.

1650A divided Commonwealth government institutes a pilot program in Wales that will determine the future of religion in England.

1649-50While Cromwell continues his campaign in Ireland, Scotland veers from theocracy to reconciliation with the Stuart monarchy.

Summer/Fall 1649Oliver Cromwell takes the New Model Army into Ireland, where it faces a renewed coalition of royalist forces.