'A World Turned Upside Down'? Revolutionary England from Civil War to Cromwell

We will explore one of the most turbulent periods in English history: the Civil War and Cromwellian era. This was a period which lives long in popular memory with its vivid imagery of pious roundheads and dashing cavaliers, of a defiant Charles I, and a puritanical Cromwell. Yet these images tell us only half the story. In these troubled times England not only lost a king, and gained a ‘Lord Protector’, but created the first modern republic - and the first modern dictatorship. In the process, it truly was a ‘world turned upside down’, as we will discover, as we seek to understand how the English people reacted to this first great modern revolt. Finally, we will examine the circumstances surrounding the collapse of ‘Godly Rule’, and discuss why England returned to the system of monarchy.