Tag: United Provinces

• October 4, 2022

  The Armies

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. So this section was originally supposed to be a part of Episode 5 – Cavaliers and Roundheads, but it just kept growing, started to sidetrack the narrative, and had I let it go on like that, we never would have gotten anywhere, so I pulled it out and created this…
• September 21, 2022

  The Restoration

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Today, we conclude our run of episodes on the English Revolution. Since the death of King Charles, we’ve seen numerous attempts to cement a Republican Constitution for Britain, but none of them have succeeded. Here now, at the very end, we’ll witness the last round of squabbling between the army…
• September 21, 2022

  The Good Old Cause

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions, So we left off our story in May 1657, with Oliver Cromwell’s decision to not allow himself to be Crown King. But as we are about to see, while Cromwell himself had built up enough gravitas to rule merely as Lord Protector, when he died, that gravitas died with him.…
• September 21, 2022

  The War on Christmas

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions, As you know, the triumph of Parliament over the King in the First Civil War put a bunch of Puritans in power. This bunch of Puritans wasted no time trying to implement a whole series of religious reforms designed to roll back not only Archbishop Laud’s recent innovations to the…
• September 21, 2022

  The Humble Petition and Advice

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions, After frustration with the first Protectorate Parliament led Oliver Cromwell to prematurely dissolve the body in January 1655. Oh, wait, what’s that, Mr. Lord Protector? It wasn’t premature. You just have to go by lunar months? Okay. After frustration with the first Protectorate Parliament led Oliver Cromwell to totally legitimately…
• September 20, 2022

  The Instrument of Government

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions, Last time we saw two consecutive legislative of bodies, the Rump Parliament and the Nominated Assembly, abruptly dissolved by men with guns. Despite his reputation as the Slayer of Parliaments, though, it doesn’t really look like Oliver Cromwell was happy to see either go away. Well, I guess in the…
• August 17, 2022

  The Tennis Court Oath

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. So here we are, ten episodes into this thing, and we’re finally getting to the start of the French Revolution. With the convening of the Estates General, and then the immediate grinding to a halt of the Estates General, events would begin to slip out of everyone’s control. But those…
• July 25, 2022

  What is the Third Estate

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. We left off last time with the de facto bankruptcy of the French monarchy in August 1788. The short term consequences of this bankruptcy was that it forced Principal Minister Brienne to suspend his attempts at financial and judicial reform, officially call for the convening of the Estates General, and…
• July 25, 2022

  The Day of the Tiles

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Last week, we saw the Royal Ministry and the Paris Parlement battle over the big financial reform package that had been cooked up to save the Kingdom’s bacon. After accepting a few of the initial offerings, the Parlement’s then rejected the main pieces of the puzzle, leading to a series…
• July 25, 2022

  The Séance Royale

  Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Last week, we stepped away from the final financial crisis that was busy rocking the Ancien Régime to take a look at the wider world of international politics, diplomacy, and war that the French Revolution was about to explode in the middle of.  And as I kind of suspected would…