Republic

John Milton and Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649-1660

Alice Hunt talks about her new, critically acclaimed ‘biography’ of the 1650s when Britain was – for the first and only time in its history – a republic, led by the soldier-statesman, Oliver Cromwell. Working at the heart of the republic was John Milton, robustly defending a kingless regime. But Milton soon became disillusioned with Cromwell and returned to what he loved best: poetry. His epic Paradise Lost arose from the dying ashes of Britain’s experiment with republicanism.

Delivered as part of the Chalfont St Giles & Jordans Literary Festival, Republic will bring this revolutionary decade to life: a decade of bewildering instability but also one of innovation and daring. Previously unthinkable ideas about sovereignty and liberty were debated and implemented. Alternative forms of art and religion flourished. Philosophers talked radical politics in coffee houses, and experimental scientists scrutinised the world in wholly new ways. The republic was short-lived – much to Milton’s dismay – but it changed the course of British history. It reshaped the British Isles, reset the compact between monarch and people, and refashioned the story the British told, and continue to tell, about themselves.

Alice is Professor of Early Modern Literature and History at the University of Southampton. She has previously written about Tudor monarchy and James I, and is the author of The Drama of Coronation (Cambridge, 2008). Republic was published by Faber in 2024 and selected as a book of the year by The Times, Telegraph and History Today.