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Historical person
1599–1658
Oliver Cromwell was an English soldier and political leader who rose during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. He commanded Parliamentarian forces, helped defeat Charles I, supported the king’s execution and later ruled as lord protector after campaigns in Ireland and Scotland.
In Antonia Fraser’s Cromwell, Our Chief of Men, this biography follows Oliver Cromwell from provincial gentleman and parliamentarian to soldier, regicide, Lord Protector and central figure of the English Revolution. In Andrew Taylor’s The Last Protector, Richard Cromwell, the former Lord Protector and son of Oliver Cromwell, has secretly returned to England despite the danger posed by the restored monarchy. Other novels featuring Oliver Cromwell include Michael Arnold’s Highwayman: Ironside, Bernard Cornwell’s A Crowning Mercy, Christopher Nicole’s Death of the Devil, Michael Arnold’s Highwayman: Winter Swarm, and Michael Arnold’s Marston Moor.
In non-fiction, Oliver Cromwell is discussed in Gareth Russell’s The Palace and Antonia Fraser’s The Weaker Vessel. Gareth Russell’s The Palace approaches the subject through court politics and dynastic power, art, learning and intellectual life, and political ambition and government.
Historical context
Series
The Civil War Chronicles follow Captain Innocent Stryker, a veteran of continental warfare who returns to England as conflict between Charles I and Parliament becomes open war. Stryker serves the Royalists through loyalty to his companions rather than unquestioning faith in the cause. His company is repeatedly used…
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Andrew Taylor’s Restoration series follows James Marwood, the son of a former Fifth Monarchist who becomes a government clerk and investigator, and Cat Lovett, the daughter of a regicide who rebuilds her life as an architect. Beginning with the Great Fire of London in 1666, their separate paths…
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The Crowning Mercy novels follow the Lazender family through two periods of upheaval in European history. A Crowning Mercy is set amid the religious and political violence of the English Civil War, when a young woman’s inheritance draws her into a contest involving family loyalty, faith and royalist…
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The Highwayman trilogy is set in 1655–1656, after Parliament’s victory and the establishment of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate. Major Samson Lyle is a former Roundhead officer whose disgust at the Irish campaign and conflict with the military regime have made him an outlaw. As the Ironside Highwayman, he attacks…
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Written originally as Caroline Gray, the Helier L’Eree trilogy combines seventeenth-century warfare with witchcraft and gothic adventure. Helier’s mother is executed as a witch on Guernsey, and his attempt at revenge leads to service under Cardinal Richelieu and an assassination mission during the Thirty Years’ War. The sequels…
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The Dublin Saga follows several interconnected families through more than a millennium of Irish history, with Dublin as the changing centre of political, religious and commercial life. The first volume moves from pre-Christian Ireland through the Viking and medieval periods to the Tudor intervention; the second traces plantation,…
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Standalone books
Non Fiction
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
