Cromwell and the Republic

While the war between king and Parliament raged in England, Ireland had troubles of its own: Catholic Irish rose up in 1641, alarmed by the growing power of Puritans within the English Parliament, and brutal fighting followed. Back in England, the king's cause kept losing ground, and by 1646 it was clear Parliament had won the war outright, leaving the king a prisoner with no army left to fight for him. He still refused to compromise, and in 1649 Charles I was tried and executed, an extraordinary step that turned England into a republic, the only spell in its whole history without a monarch on the throne.

Oliver Cromwell, the general who had done most to secure Parliament's victory, emerged as the dominant figure in the republic that followed, and went on to lead it as Lord Protector until his death in 1658, after which his son could not hold the army's loyalty and the country drifted without any settled leadership.