ALICE HUNT, an academic authority on monarchical coronations, has written for the general reader a chronological account of the mid-17th-century republican era. Each chapter focuses on one year, albeit with much more space given to some (1649, 1657) than others (1651, 1654). She believes that this period has been neglected, thanks to an intellectually lazy but pervasive sense that republicanism was doomed to fail because monarchy was simply the natural order of things for the English.

To counter this, we are given a picaresque narrative full of vivid vignettes, long on anecdote, but shorter on argument. It would be hard to say what Hunt’s particular thesis is, other than that there was an immense amount going on, prompting many contemporaries to be conscious of living in exceptional and extraordinary times.

It is certainly refreshing to find more attention given to some fascinating episodes than is usual in general histories of the period. Cromwell’s ill-fated “Western Design” in the Caribbean and the Lord Protector’s decision to readmit the Jews both more than merit the space that Hunt gives to them. Her good eye for arresting quotations culled from contemporary authors and politicians is also evident throughout. Her occasional present-centredness will divide readers.

Some will enjoy the knowing references to Brexit and its consequences when noting the Rump Parliament’s pursuit of union with the Dutch Republic, or to scepticism about monarchy in modern Jamaica. Others will merely find them rather irritating. But it is delightful to learn that the horse that Charles II rode to his coronation in 1661 was a foal of that ridden at the Battle of Naseby by Thomas Fairfax, commander of the New Model Army. Historical coincidences do not come much better than that.

Hunt is significantly better when discussing literature and culture than when analysing political and constitutional affairs. A particular deficiency is her discussion of the first written constitution of the period, the Instrument of Government (1653), which undermines her account of several significant political episodes.

More generally, Hunt’s desire to emphasise what was radical and novel about the period leads her seriously to understate the scale and significance of more conservative religious and political tendencies. In essence, we see things through the eyes of the revolutionary minority kept in power by the swords of the New Model Army. In that sense, her account is more traditional and less surprising than she seems to think.
 

Dr Grant Tapsell is a Fellow and Tutor in History at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

Republic: Britain’s revolutionary decade 1649-1660
Alice Hunt
Faber & Faber £25
(978-0-571-30319-9)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50