The Rebel Daughter

Ely, 1643. Nineteen-year-old Bridget Cromwell watches the Civil War transform her family as her father Oliver rises from local gentleman to one of Parliament’s most important cavalry commanders. Bridget wants a life with purpose beyond the narrow domestic role expected of her, but the conflict divides communities and exposes tensions within the Cromwell household. Her growing attachment to the soldier and political thinker Henry Ireton offers both partnership and a deeper commitment to the Parliamentarian cause.

Malins follows Bridget through war, marriage and the radical politics that emerge from Parliament’s victory, drawing the personal story into the conflicts over monarchy, army and republic. The later stages encompass Ireton’s service in Ireland and the consequences of his death, before Bridget’s remarriage to Charles Fleetwood. The principal people and public events are historical, while Bridget’s private thoughts, conversations and many domestic incidents are necessarily imaginative reconstruction.