Jackie Eales

Oliver Cromwell chopping down ‘The Royall Oake of Brittayne’, 1653. Prints, Drawings and Watercolors from the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. Public Domain.

‘Turncoat’ by Dennis Sewell review

In Turncoat: Roundhead to Royalist, the Double Life of Cromwell’s Spy, Dennis Sewell asks whether George Downing was the ‘biggest scoundrel in Stuart England’?

Portrait of Oliver Cromwell, unknown artist, c. 1650. Rijksmuseum. Public Domain.

‘Friends in Youth’ by Minoo Dinshaw review

Friends in Youth: Choosing Sides in the English Civil War by Minoo Dinshaw views the conflict through the sad case of Bulstrode Whitelock and Edward Hyde.

A symbolic eagle brings a note concerning treason, possibly relating to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, from Mischeefes mysterie London 1617, 1641. British Library/Bridgeman Images.

‘All His Spies’ and ‘Spycraft’ review

All His Spies: The Secret World of Robert Cecil and Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade from Elizabeth I to the Restoration bring Tudor and Stuart espionage in from the cold.

Cromwell in the Battle of Naseby in 1645, by Charles Landseer, 1851

The Letters, Writings, and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume I, II and III review

From backbench MP and minor gentleman to Lord Protector and almost-king, a new edition provides the most complete and accurate version of Oliver Cromwell’s writings to date.

You and Whose Army?

Civil War politics amongst MPs and the New Model Army.

Can You Keep a Secret?

A hidden network of 17th-century female spies

Engraved portrait of John Lilburne, by Robert Cooper after John Bullfinch, c. 1810. University of Leicester. Public Domain.

‘The Common Freedom of the People’ review

The Common Freedom of the People: John Lilburne & the English Revolution by Michael Braddick charts his remarkable rise.