The Restless Republic

Britain without a Crown

Anna Keay

$56.99

Hardback

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English

William Collins
06 September 2022

History; British & Irish history; Medieval history; Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions

THE SUNDAY TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022

WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE

Eleven years when Britain had no king.

In 1649 Britain was engulfed by revolution.

On a raw January afternoon, the Stuart king, Charles I, was executed for treason. Within weeks the English monarchy had been abolished and the ‘useless and dangerous’ House of Lords discarded. The people, it was announced, were now the sovereign force in the land. What this meant, and where it would lead, no one knew.

The Restless Republic is the story of the extraordinary decade that followed. It takes as its guides the people who lived through those years. Among them is Anna Trapnel, the daughter of a Deptford shipwright whose visions transfixed the nation. John Bradshaw, the Cheshire lawyer who found himself trying the King. Marchamont Nedham, the irrepressible newspaper man and puppet master of propaganda. Gerrard Winstanley, who strove for a Utopia of common ownership where no one went hungry. William Petty, the precocious scientist whose mapping of Ireland prefaced the dispossession of tens of thousands. And the indomitable Countess of Derby who defended to the last the final Royalist stronghold on the Isle of Man.

The Restless Republic ranges from London to Leith, Cornwall to Connacht, from the corridors of power to the common fields and hillsides. Gathering her cast of trembling visionaries and banished royalists, dextrous mandarins and bewildered bystanders, Anna Keay brings to vivid life the most extraordinary and experimental decade in Britain’s history. It is the story of how these tempestuous years set the British Isles on a new course, and of what happened when a conservative people tried revolution.

By: Anna Keay
Imprint: William Collins
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 240mm, Width: 159mm, Spine: 41mm
Weight: 780g
ISBN: 9780008282028
ISBN 10: 0008282021
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 06 September 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Born in the West Highlands of Scotland, Anna was educated at Oban High School in Argyll and Bedales in Hampshire. She read history at Magdalen College, Oxford and took her PhD at the University of London. From 1996 to 2002 Anna worked as a curator for Historic Royal Palaces, which looks after the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace, Kew Palace and the Banqueting House in Whitehall. From 2002 until 2012 she was Properties Presentation Director of English Heritage, responsible for curating and presenting to the public 420 historic sites across England, from Stonehenge to Kenwood House. She is now Director of The Landmark Trust.

Reviews for The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown

PRAISE FOR ANNA KEAY'S THE LAST ROYAL REBEL 'Brilliant and revelatory. Anna Keay has written a superb biography, which paints a vivid picture of the times and of her subject. She has an instinctive feel for character and place, and combines elegant prose with a novelistic gift for narrative. Above all, she has rescued this much-traduced and forgotten royal rebel from the backwaters and set him once more at the centre of one of Britain's great historical whirlpools' Daily Telegraph 'In Anna Keay's fine biography, this tragic finale is rendered still more bitter by her unfolding of Monmouth's past career, his ever-changing hopes and fears. Keay provides a fascinating portrait of the slippery, charismatic Charles II, and of his genuine love for his son. The brilliance of Keay's account lies in her ability to convey the subtle intricacies of diplomacy and royal ambition. Yet, she also keeps a clear focus on Monmouth's private story ... Keay tells the story with heart-breaking crispness' Jenny Uglow, Guardian 'Anna Keay's fascinating, compelling, outrageous and ultimately tragic book delivers, with scholarly authority, political acumen, exciting narrative and a worldly, playful eye for drama, character and detail a vivid political-personal portrait of the hitherto-neglected Monmouth' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'Anna Keay has effectively turned [the] old-fashioned, censorious judgment of Monmouth on its head by making him the hero of his own story. It is a bold approach, and this vividly told story will remain in the reader's memory long after the last page of Keay's book has been turned ... Keay's real achievement in this book is not so much a re-evaluation of Monmouth himself, though that may be well overdue, but her deft analysis of 17th-century personalities and politics . Keay has brought a period almost lost to popular history compellingly alive' Literary Review