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Henry Reece

The Fall, by Henry Reece

The Fall, by Henry Reece

A realistic account of very human chaos shaped by individual agency and contingency.

The final months of England’s only republic, from 1658 to 1660, may be the most consequential yet least understood in its past. For a nation obsessed with the long history of its monarchy this is no coincidence. The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 cast the...

Henry Reece on The Fall

Henry Reece on The Fall

The academic and historian discusses the dying days of the Protectorate.
Henry Reece

When one looks at the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland under Oliver Cromwell in August 1658, would it have been fanciful to imagine a Republic for the foreseeable future, yet within two years the Stuarts were back on the throne? By August 1658, the...

Richard Cromwell

Richard Cromwell

Before Her Majesty's death, Richard Cromwell was England's longest living head of state.
Henry Reece

Richard Cromwell had one of the strangest and saddest public lives in English history. An obscure country gentleman until he was 30, he then underwent a brief schooling in politics and government, before ruling as the second Protector for eight months. Vulnerable to...