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Originally published in 1987, this book compares and contrasts the characters and careers of two great protagonists in the English Civil War and its aftermath. The book shows how Charles I and Oliver Cromwell were confronted with the same problems and therefore, to a surprisingly large extent, were obliged to deal with them in much the same kind of way. The book re-examines their military methods, their approaches to religion, their diplomatic manoeuvres, their domestic policies and the manner in which they handled their parliaments. Above all, it considers how their vastly different personalities determined their actions. Finally it debates how far a revolution, of which Cromwell was the instrument and Charles the victim, can be said to have taken place in the mid-seventeenth century or whether what occurred was simply a political rebellion sparked off by religious passion.
'A compelling and wry narrative of one of the most intellectually thrilling eras of British history' Guardian. ***************** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart king Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World. When an amphibious assault on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1655 proves a disaster, a shaken Cromwell is convinced that God is punishing England for its sinfulness. But the imposition of the rule of the Major-Generals – bureaucrats with a penchant for closing alehouses – backfires spectacularly. Sectarianism and fundamentalism run riot. Radicals and royalists join together in conspiracy. The only way out seems to be a return to a Parliament presided over by a king. But will Cromwell accept the crown? Paul Lay narrates in entertaining but always rigorous fashion the story of England's first and only experiment with republican government: he brings the febrile world of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate to life, providing vivid portraits of the extraordinary individuals who inhabited it and capturing its dissonant cacophony of political and religious voices. ***************** Reviews: 'Briskly paced and elegantly written, Providence Lost provides us with a first-class ticket to this Cromwellian world of achievement, paradox and contradiction. Few guides take us so directly, or so sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous decade' John Adamson, The Times. 'Providence Lost is a learned, lucid, wry and compelling narrative of the 1650s as well as a sensitive portrayal of a man unravelled by providence' Jessie Childs, Guardian.
For all the myth surrounding Oliver Cromwell and King Charles I, there is no detailed account of any meeting between them. Yet they were almost exact contemporaries, embodying virtually everything for which politicians, bishops, preachers and generals contended. The paths of these two men gradually converged until a frosty morning in 1649, when the executioner's axe ended one man's life and raised the other to the brink of absolute power in England. In his moving history The King and the Gentleman, Derek Wilson brings to life the politics and the personalities that once shook an empire. "Wilson does an admirable job of covering the complex religious and political schism that rocked England and Scotland, and summarizes for general readers the wealth of extant material on both men’s lives." - Kirkus Reviews