A biography of a daring and an unprecedented decade: the 1650s

Events moved fast in the 1650s. Something cataclysmic happened every year, something that would thrust the newly formed republic, its people, and its eventual ‘Lord Protector’ Oliver Cromwell, in an entirely new direction. It was a time of bewildering change and uncertainty, but it was also a time of innovation and opportunity. And, for the men and women who lived through these years, this period was certainly not an ‘interregnum’. The restoration of Charles II in 1660 was not inevitable, nor was it welcomed by everyone.

England's unique republican experiment ­– imposed on Scotland and Ireland, too - may have been shortlived, but it has had a lasting impact on British monarchy, politics, religion and culture, and on the story the British continue to tell about themselves. It is a period that, for a long time, history chose to forget, or recalled as a failure. Here, in thrilling detail, Alice Hunt brings the republic and its extraordinary cast of characters, from politicians to poets and prophets, back to life.