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 br