After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Oliver Cromwell's Decapitated Head & Charles II's Revenge

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

***Warning: today's episode contains graphic description of violence***In 1661 Oliver Cromwell was hung and beheaded...the only problem was he'd been dead two years already. Charles II had returned an...d revenge was in the air. It took many strange and gruesome forms.Anthony and Maddy are joined again today by Ronald Hutton - one of Britain's foremost historians who is working on a three volume biography of Oliver Cromwell. They hear about the strange after life of Cromwell's head and the incredible story of the execution of regicide Thomas Harrison.Produced and edited by Freddy Chick. Senior producer is Charlotte Long.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to True Spies, the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time. Something out of the dark that's appeared in love. You'll meet the people who live life undercover. What do they know? What are their skills? And what would you do in their position? Vengeance felt good. Seeing these people pay for what they've done felt righteous. True Spies from Spyscape Studios. Wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, it's Anthony here.
Starting point is 00:00:34 Before we get started, this is just a warning that this episode contains graphic discussions of violence. There can be no more fitting an opening to an episode of After Dark than the foreboding silhouette of the gallows at Tyburn, on the edge of London rising bleak and black against a winter sky. That is what we see on the morning of the 30th of January 1661. But things are about to take a weird turn. Coming towards us is a raucous crowd dragging three wooden sledges. Upon each sledge is an open coffin and inside each coffin is a corpse. The first belongs to Henry Ireton who had been a senior officer in the new model army. Dead almost a decade his body now shriveled and dry.
Starting point is 00:01:49 Next is John Bradshaw, who had been a judge. He's only been dead a year, and his body still leaks fluids. Last of all comes the body of a man whose name we all know, Oliver Cromwell. Rolling up in a somewhat flashier coffin with gold studs he's two years dead having passed away in a peace that is now disturbed the three corpses have nooses put around their necks and are strung up on the gallows for the crowd to see
Starting point is 00:02:22 as the sun sets they are taken down and beheaded. It takes eight blows of the axe to sever Cromwell's head, somehow typical for a very stubborn man. Their bodies are dumped into a pit at the foot of the gallows. Their heads are put on tall poles 20 feet high and taken to Westminster Hall. And now the reason for all this macabre spectacle becomes plain, because this hall is where Charles I was condemned to death. Today is 12 years to the day since he was beheaded there,
Starting point is 00:03:13 and these three corpses, their heads now wobbling in the breeze above London, were all regicides, king killers. What we have just witnessed is the cold hand of revenge reaching deep into the grave. Oh, I love it. That has set the scene so perfectly for this episode. Hello and welcome to After Dark. My name is Anthony. And I'm Maddy. And today we are joined once again by Professor Ronald Hutton, who you should know by now, but I'll give you a reminder, he is one of the UK's leading and best loved historians. He's joined us on After Dark before. He has written about magic and paganism and of course, witchcraft. And he is currently writing a three part biography of the of perhaps the man
Starting point is 00:04:21 who is best known in this time period. that of course being Oliver Cromwell. Now, last week, we spoke with Ronald about the execution of Charles I and his trial. But today, we're going to talk about Charles II's revenge. And you may recognize Ronald as well from his contribution to the recent Sky TV series on this subject, which was called Royal Kill List. Ronald, thank you so much for joining us again. It's a pleasure, as always. So before we dive into discussing the revenge of Charles II, Ronald, can you just tell us, first of all, who exactly he is? I think it's fair to say that most people, at least for me growing up and going to school in England, I learned all about
Starting point is 00:05:05 Charles I and his execution and the end of the civil wars. But I wasn't necessarily say that we were taught about Charles II in school in the same way. The restoration of the monarchy didn't really feature in my time at school. So could you just give us a sense of who he is, what he's doing in England, and what his relationship is to the chaos that's unfolded at the first half of the century? Charles II is the eldest son and heir of Charles I. He's been Prince of Wales, literally from his birth. He's born in 1630, so he's a young teenager in the English Civil War and still expects that somehow or other his dad will come good and he, young Charles, will become king in due course until the huge shock of 1649 when his father is put to death and the monarchy abolished. Charles II fights back, first trying to get to Ireland and then actually getting to Scotland and the monarchy abolished. Charles II fights back, first trying to get to Ireland
Starting point is 00:06:05 and then actually getting to Scotland and England to oppose militarily the new republic. And he's catastrophically defeated and driven into exile on the continent, where he spends a truly uncomfortable nine years living in poverty, scheming to get back. And to everybody's surprise, including his, actually is brought back unexpectedly and successfully in 1660 by a lot of people who had fought against himself and his father. And he then spends a bumpy quarter of a century as king of England, Scotland and Ireland, never managing to stabilize the nation. And with having a numbskull brother who's converted to the wrong religion, Roman Catholicism, as his heir. the fact that he's somebody who God wants to rule three kingdoms for some reason, that is forever politically skating on dodgy ice. So in terms of our story today, then, the story that Maddy set the scene for at the beginning of this episode, Charles II has come back to England triumphantly.
Starting point is 00:07:20 And this is where we find ourselves with all these corpses coming up from the ground. Revenge is very much in the air. What is going on here, Ronald? Why have these bodies been dug up and why are they being executed even though they're dead? In many ways, the fact that three corpses are given this kind of very public treatment is a sign of frustration that the people orchestrating revenge on the leaders of the now fallen republic cannot actually get their hands on more living victims. And this is partly because, contrary to popular impression, Charles II is not actually personally driving on a hunt for revenge on his father's killers. There's no doubt that when he comes back, he's happy to see people who signed his father's death warrant perish.
Starting point is 00:08:19 But Charles II is a much more self-centred man than that. He's got a vicious streak in him. He can be extremely vindictive and remorseless, but really against people who've opposed him personally. His father's judges are a bit numerous and abstract. And there's also an embarrassment in that before he arrives in England, a proclamation is put out on his behalf by the Parliament that's welcoming him back, inviting the people who signed Charles's death warrant to surrender themselves freely.
Starting point is 00:09:01 Now, no promises are made as to what would happen if they did. But there is a general opinion that those who turn themselves in should get better treatment than those who don't. And so for immediate revenge, they're left with those who sign the warrant and try and get away and get apprehended, or those who refuse to give themselves up, but refuse to run, who just wait to be taken in and killed fatalistically. And in the end, out of above 30 prospective people, that yields 11 who can be put to death. And that isn't enough to satisfy those in Parliament who want blood. And so they're pushed back to having to dig up dead villains and behead them and string them up instead and throw the bodies in pits where Marble Arch now is. And that's why you get this astonishing macabre spectacle of three corpses being lifted
Starting point is 00:10:08 up into public view at the end of Oxford Street, and their heads dumped on top of Westminster Hall thereafter. Ronald, is there any precedent for this in the 17th century in terms of bringing up bodies from the earth to enact further violence on them? Or is this a new phenomenon? Is this just a rare moment, an anomaly for all intents and purposes? An anomaly in politics. There is a precedent of the different kinds in religion, in that in the late Middle Ages, defenders of the Orthodox Church had taken occasionally to digging up people who'd been heretics and had died safely and incinerating their bodies. But this is something only done by Catholics striking back against Protestant or proto-Protestant heretics. It's not something that Protestants have done. So the idea that you hang, draw and quarter dead bodies is tacky.
Starting point is 00:11:16 And it's really a sign of how much bloodlust there still is in Parliament that people are prepared to go to this extent. there still is in Parliament, that people are prepared to go to this extent. And who is it for? Is Charles II present at these post-mortem executions? Is this a performance for the people of England to set the tone of his return? What's the point of it? It's for performance to edify the people, to entertain them, and also show that you can't escape justice even after death, physical justice. Charles II doesn't show any interest in it, and he certainly isn't around for it. But then it's supposed to be beneath the dignity of kings and indeed people in charge to attend executions themselves. One more detail just to ramp up the Hammer horror stakes,
Starting point is 00:12:07 and that is the stringing up of Cromwell and Co. is popular. And the lads, the London apprentices, the late teenagers, the skinheads of the day, get immense pleasure cutting off the toes of the bodies as souvenirs and indeed to sell them on as souvenirs. Wow. We're talking about dismembering these corpses, but one of the most famous parts of that dismemberment, I suppose, is Cromwell's head, right? That hug around for quite a while after it had been placed in Westminster. Can you give us a little bit of the immediate history
Starting point is 00:12:44 of this severed head? I'll give you the whole history because it's not very long. And that is that it stays on Westminster Hall until it's blown down in a storm just over 30 years later. And then it disappears. And the head that we actually think is Cromwell's eventually surfaces generations later and it's now beneath the flagstones of Sydney Sussex College Chapel in Cambridge, which was Cromwell's old chapel. And it has been extensively studied and it seems to be Oliver Cromwell's head.
Starting point is 00:13:22 It fits all the known details. And it becomes a curiosity in the centuries in between his post-death execution and beheading, and it's interment in his old college, doesn't it? It becomes something that's traded, put on display, something of a, I suppose, yes, a curiosity, a piece of entertainment for people looking back at that turbulent period. It becomes a fairground attraction. And why not? Absolutely. And I think you talk there about the teenagers taking the toes. And I suppose that has so many parallels to medieval Catholicism and the idea of relics as well. And the head in particular, though, seems to me to give, I mean, it brings you, for all
Starting point is 00:14:05 intents and purposes, face to face with Oliver Cromwell, albeit his face somewhat disappeared or degraded. But there's a strange intimacy there about looking into the empty eye sockets of a man who is, I suppose, the flagship figure in tearing England apart in the 17th century. Yeah, there are a couple of things. One is the macabre delight of seeing the mighty fallen, of seeing somebody who held supreme power by military force reduced to that. But the second thing is that this is a very brutal society until the early 19th century. It's a society which really enjoys public executions. It tortures animals for entertainment in cock pelting, bull baiting, bear baiting.
Starting point is 00:14:58 And it loves exhibiting freaks, human freaks, disabled and unfortunate people as attractions, as spectacles. So a severed head fits right in here as entertainment. And you mentioned earlier, Ronald, that Charles II's revenge list, shall we say, is slightly different than potentially England's revenge list. But who exactly would have been on Charles II? And why? What was it that set those people apart from the likes of the people who had signed the death warrant of his father, for instance? Well, Charles shows no personal interest in the people who signed the death warrant. He instead wants to destroy people who've annoyed him personally, instead wants to destroy people who've annoyed him personally, like those who carry on rebelling against him. About six months after he comes home, there's an actual rising against him by
Starting point is 00:15:53 Republicans in London, which takes everybody completely by surprise. And only the fact they're only about 30 to 35 of them, and they have no feasible plan, means they're rounded up and executed. But Charles is rattled by that and is very happy to send their heads to decorate a collection now rotting on London Bridge. Of more exalted people, there's an English politician called Sir Henry Vane, who shouldn't be vulnerable because he abstained from the trial of Charles I. But he's annoyed Charles II by saying, I just don't believe in monarchy. I won't do anything now to disrupt it, but I'm not going to apologize and I'm not going to say that it's God's will that this guy has come back. Charles II
Starting point is 00:16:46 has him put on trial for treason and pushes a scribbled note to his Lord Chancellor, the boss of the legal system, across the table, which says, I don't care how you kill this man, just get it done. And it's done by keeping the jury without food or water till they bring in the right verdict. And Henry Vane is executed on Tower Hill on the anniversary of the Battle of Naseby, the great defeat of Charles's father, Charles I, with royal trumpeters placed underneath the scaffold to give a rousing fanfare every time Sir Henry tries to say anything on the scaffold. A worse case, final case, is that of a Scottish bigot called Archibald Johnson, Sir Archibald Johnson, who'd really got on Charles's wick, young Charles's wick,
Starting point is 00:17:40 when Charles II had been in Scotland trying to fight back against the English Republic. And Johnson had preached at him about his own sins, those of his father and those of his mother, in ascending order of magnitude. So when Charles gets back, he immediately orders Johnson's arrest. Johnson flees to Europe, where he goes into hiding. But Charles has him hunted down relentlessly. And after three years, Johnson is discovered hiding in Normandy. And he's extradited to England, where it turns out that Johnson's gone mad in the interim. He really has lost his mind because of the shock of defeat.
Starting point is 00:18:22 And so they can't put him on trial. And Charles's counsellors say, look, this is embarrassing. He doesn't know what's going on. Just lock him up somewhere with a keeper and forget about him. No, Charles has him shipped home to Scotland, where they can't kill him legally because he can't plead. So Charles forces the Scottish Parliament can't plead. So Charles forces the Scottish Parliament to put him in trial in front of them under a special statute, which means they can kill him. And the Scottish Parliament writes to the King saying, this is really tacky. He doesn't know we're here. He's completely out of his mind. Nobody is going to be impressed by what you're asking us to do. And Charles writes back saying, tough, kill him. And Charles is not satisfied
Starting point is 00:19:12 until Johnson's skull is rammed onto a spike over the main gate of Edinburgh. Thank you. Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr. Six wives, six lives. I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII, who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Well, these skulls are mounting and these bodies are mounting somewhat too. And Maddy, I believe you have an insight into Thomas Harrison was the first of the regicides, living or dead, to be executed. He was a man who had lived in the hope of seeing radical change.
Starting point is 00:20:59 He lived believing that the end of the world was near and that killing King Charles had helped hasten the return of Jesus. As he was being pulled through London towards his death, someone jeered, Where is your good old cause? To which Harrison, cheerfully smiled, clapped his hand on his breast and said, Here it is, and I am going to seal it with my blood. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys witnessed what happened next. He wrote, Went to see Major General Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered, which was done there,
Starting point is 00:21:42 he looking as cheerful as any man could do it in that condition he was presently cut down and his head and heart shown to the people at which there were great shouts of joy thus it was my chance to see the king beheaded at whitehall and to see the first bloodshed in revenge for the blood of the king at charing cross from thence to my lords and took captain cuttance and mr shepley to the sun tavern and did give them some oysters what else would you need after seeing all of that except oysters exactly nothing works up an appetite like seeing an execution so just to come back to this is this is thomas harrison who as we had there was i think the first regicide to be killed so we've gone a little bit
Starting point is 00:22:31 back before this exhumation of oliver cromwell and the head on the spike so ronald who is thomas harrison and why is he the first to be performatively killed in this way under Charles II? Thomas Harrison had been one of the leading soldiers of the army which carried out the English Revolution. I'm one of the most enthusiastic about that revolution. that revolution. He has, as you said, been put forward as a classic apocalyptic evangelical Christian, somebody who looked forward to God's reign on earth coming within a few years. If Christians like him behaved properly and proved themselves worthy of it. He is somebody living only partly in this reality. He's a very simple man. He's risen from the ranks.
Starting point is 00:23:30 He came from a prosperous family, but he isn't going to inherit the fortune. So he's apprenticed to a London tradesman in his youth. He's gone into the army and the Civil War and fought his way to the top. He's incredibly physically brave, a good soldier, a good leader, and had become a favourite of Oliver Cromwell, and then turned against Oliver when Harrison accused Oliver of wanting too much power and ended up being locked up for a large part of Oliver Cromwell's rule as a dratted nuisance.
Starting point is 00:24:07 locked up for a large part of Oliver Cromwell's rule as a dratted nuisance. He's let out of jail at the fall of Cromwell's family and rule. And when the time comes to round up the people who signed the death warrant, he's a classic case of somebody who neither surrenders himself nor gets out of the country. He simply waits to be put on trial. And when he's put on trial, he says, I don't regret it for a moment. We did the right thing. The guy deserved to die. And that's that, which is why everybody is so incredibly happy to put him on stage first, to have truly terrible things done to him. Do you want the details? Yes, please. to have truly terrible things done to him. Do you want the details?
Starting point is 00:24:44 Yes, please. Okay, here we go. He's a classic case of somebody on whom every bit of a horrific mode of dying is inflicted. He loves every minute. He's a classic jihadist. He really does believe, without any doubt, he's going straight to paradise as soon as he draws his last breath. So he is dragged through the streets of London looking cheerful. He is taken up to the scaffold. He's got his hands tied behind his back. He is then strung up and choked by a rope until he is gasping for breath. And then he's cut down with a very sore throat and a mark on his neck, but very much alive. His clothes are cut off him completely and he is tied down on a block and he is castrated and loses the rest of his wedding tackle as well,
Starting point is 00:25:45 while he's fully conscious. And then his abdomen is ripped up with a sharp knife and they start dragging out his guts. And by now he should have lost consciousness, but he doesn't. They've untied him because they think he's passed it. And he actually sits up and punches the executioner on the nose and then falls back and presumably dies a few minutes later. And then his guts are burned in front of the cheering crowd. And then his heart is yanked out and burned as well. His
Starting point is 00:26:20 genitals have already gone up in smoke. And that's when an axe is taken to his head. It comes off and his body is chopped into four quarters that are going to be boiled in tar to preserve them. And they're going to be stuck over various public places as a reminder that you shouldn't behave like Harrison. Some other people submitted to this sentence are killed more quickly, but they want Harrison to be around for as much as possible of the true nightmarish experience. And he goes out like a hero. I have to say, I'm slightly sorry that I asked for those details. I'm slightly sorry you did too. It brings home the courage of the man, as well as the brutality of the age. I think it gives such an insight into the psychological state of a lot of these men
Starting point is 00:27:11 who were involved in the civil wars. And as you say, actually, there was the sort of different religious factions within that struggle, actually, and the fact that Harrison, at various points, is sort of in conflict with Oliver Cromwell and Cromwell sees that he's being a bit of a nuisance but also that belief in the same way in the first episode of this mini-series where we talked about Charles I meeting his death with as much certainty as he could muster in terms of understanding what would happen next to him and how he should meet that death and we see that on the opposite end of the political scale here with Harrison, that he is so determined to meet his maker in a way that he sees fit, both in terms of performing for
Starting point is 00:27:57 the people there, what he believes, but also for his own soul. It's really remarkable to think of anyone, and we heard in that narrative there that Samuel Pepys was in the crowd. It's really remarkable to think of anyone, and we heard in that narrative there that Samuel Pepys was in the crowd. It's so difficult to think of being in the crowd and witnessing that like Pepys did, let alone being on the scaffold as Thomas Harrison, having this done to your own person. It's extraordinary. Yeah, it so fits the character of the age that having had a good morning's entertainment, watching somebody's genitals and entrails going up in smoke, you then head off for a hearty lunch, a luxury lunch of oysters with, one presumes, also brown bread and butter. And Harrison's bravery comes from his belief.
Starting point is 00:28:43 I think we've established that, but specifically, he was a fifth monarchist, if I'm recalling correctly. Can you tell us a little bit about what that entailed? It really acts to describe those radical Puritans, those who wanted a radical reform of British religion, who believe the end of the world is imminent and you should do everything you can to prepare for it. In other words, everything else is subordinated to the fact that the world as we know it is about to go up in smoke and be remade as something literally heavenly. They're called fifth monarchists because of a prophecy in the Bible, actually in the book of Daniel, which is that there are going to be four earthly empires or monarchies, and the fifth one is going to be the
Starting point is 00:29:32 reign of God and of Jesus. To evangelical Christians, this is a really famous passage because you have endless fun mapping it onto history according to your own beliefs. Do you think in the civil wars themselves leading up to the moment of Charles I's execution, that there is a more palpable sense for people like Harrison who fought in that conflict before eventually meeting the end under the restored monarchy? A palpable feeling that the world was coming to an end. Is this something that's already in place before that conflict breaks out? Or is there something about the Civil War itself that it evokes this feeling of disaster and impending doom, impending change, impending salvation, depending on your outlook? Well, both. It's difficult to read the Bible repeatedly,
Starting point is 00:30:29 which is what evangelical Protestant Christians in particular do, without thinking of the end of the world, because it's there, not just in one entire book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, but it's dotted around other texts as well. But when things are stable and familiar, it's easy to consign the end of the world to some kind of unknown and indefinite future. But when everything goes pear-shaped, it's much easier to imagine that it's in the post. And there is no time at which the British Isles go more comprehensively and appallingly pear-shaped than in the 1640s, when all the landmarks are just swept away as if by a tsunami of political chaos. So let's imagine, because it can't continue forever, that there is an end point to this revenge. Let's call it the Restoration Revenge or Charles II's Revenge.
Starting point is 00:31:32 When do they draw that line and then just get on with the new reign? Or do they? Does it continue on intermittently throughout? Well, there are a couple of processes that are interlinked. One is revenge for the Civil War. And that's really petering out within a year when a new parliament's elected full of old royalists who really want to wreak vengeance on enemies. They attempt to get at those of the king's judges
Starting point is 00:32:01 who surrender themselves and have been kept in prison. And at that point, Charles II himself scribbles another of his notes to his Lord Chancellor, which says, I am weary of hanging except on new offences. And in fact, there are three more of the judges who've escaped, who are recaptured and hanged a couple of years later. But the public response is rather dismayed. And it's clear to everybody now that the general appetite for vengeance is gone. On the other hand, politics in all three nations remain inherently unstable. So conspiracies, plots and rebellions continue. And they continue for almost another hundred years until the 1740s. And so new rounds of instability, execution, vengeance and retaliation set in, commencing within a year of Charles saying he is weary of hanging when there's
Starting point is 00:33:07 a rising in the north. And Charles is livid and there's another round of executions there. It just goes on and on. And just for the record, the very last time that people were executed for rebellion against the government by being hanged and then having their heads cut off and displayed was in 1820. Gosh, that seems very late. It is very late, but it goes on a long way. And there was talk of quartering the people executed in 1820. They decided just to take off their heads after they'd been hanged to death. It's very benevolent. Do you think, Ronald, that the restoration at the end of the 17th century marks a termination of radical politics in Britain
Starting point is 00:33:56 as we've seen it play out in the Civil War? Or, as you say, there's obviously an undercurrent of something crackling away because there are these moments of rebellion and resistance to whoever is in power leading into the 18th century. Do those ideals, those political ideals survive in some form or are they left in the 1640s and new ideas are coming in? What's happening there? Do we see a perseverance of these ideas? There's an end to republicanism as a major force in Britain, at least, although, of course, it reappears of necessity in the American colonies over 100 years later, and it's still there and the world's leading superpower. But there are three big issues that
Starting point is 00:34:47 are left completely unsettled at the restoration and continue to unsettle politics for another generation. The first is the question of where power ultimately lies in the state, whether it lies with the king alone or the king in partnership with lords and commons. The second is the relationship between the national church, which most people want with bishops and cathedrals and ceremonies, and those who don't accept it in that form and therefore have to worship outside it. And the third is the power relationship between Ireland, Scotland and England. Now, all of these are going to be settled ultimately for good in the 1690s by another major revolution, which drives out the main Stuart family and imposes a constitutional monarchy, which we've basically had ever since. That's the decisive turning point. In many ways, the 1660s are only halfway through the story.
Starting point is 00:35:51 Yes, there's this real sense that the monarchy, despite the restoration, is never the same again. Do you think that's fair to say, Ronald? Do you think that's fair to say, Ronald? It's never the same again, but it could go either way. In other words, there's now an acceptance that Parliament has to be there, but there's not an acceptance that any bit of it can run the king. So having Parliament as a permanent institution won't make much difference to royal power if the king can control Parliament and turn it into a rubber stamp. And that's what almost happens in the 1680s. Ronald, do you think that Charles II is aware of his vulnerability as a king? We talk about the monarchy shifting in various ways in those final decades. But do you think when he does return to England, in the shadow of his father's execution,
Starting point is 00:36:54 albeit almost a decade, over a decade later, is there a sense that his position, it's something that he will have to fight for, he will have to kill for, take revenge for, something that he will constantly have to bolster in order for it not to be undermined, because it's been proven that a king can be executed and overthrown in that way. Do you think he has that constantly in his mind? Or do you think he comes back to England, purely with a sense of entitlement, and that everything's going to be fine again. There's no doubt that Charles has a massive sense of entitlement. One can see why, given his royal blood and the fact that most of the British and the Irish want him there as king. I don't think he expects to have to kill to keep his position. But I agree utterly with what you've said about his basic insecurity. I think he comes back in 1660 realizing he can barely trust anybody, least of all his subjects. both of the former civil war parties want to control the monarchy. They have a real sense
Starting point is 00:38:07 that the monarchy is one of the forces for instability that provoke the civil wars. So although a lot of them are fulsome in their proclamations of loyalty, they also want to keep a lid on Charles and all future kings to make sure that they reign in a sensible way. And ironically, it's Charles who keeps on destabilising politics by trying desperately to strengthen his position. I think that might be a really nice place for us to depart with Charles II in mind, and potentially a bit of a different idea of Charles II, who is so famously known as the merry monarch. Things weren't necessarily always so merry and his actions weren't always so fun-filled, particularly in that first year after
Starting point is 00:38:51 he comes back to the throne. Ronald Hutton, thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure to hear you speak on these topics and I really look forward to reading the Cromwell biography. Dare I ask, how is it going and how far into it are you? Well, it's three hefty volumes. And I always pop out a different kind of book between each installment. But it's progressed well. Volume one was published in 2021. Volume two will be published in August this year.
Starting point is 00:39:24 It's gone through the press and i'll start working on volume three in another year if i live to see the end of it well destiny hasn't stored you'll need to now you've started so you have to finish but truly thank you so much it's been a real real pleasure to hear you speak on these topics if you've enjoyed this episode please go back and listen to the first part if you haven't heard it already, also featuring Professor Ronald Hutton. Leave us a review, send us any ideas for episodes that you might have at afterdarkathistoryhit.com. And until the next time, we'll see you again soon. Welcome to True Spies, the podcast that takes you deep inside the greatest secret missions of all time.
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