January 1649, Whitehall. A king steps onto the scaffold. Moments later, Charles I is dead... tried and executed by his own subjects. For the first time in its history, England is without a monarch.

What follows is one of the most radical experiments in British history. The House of Lords is abolished. The monarchy is swept away. England, Scotland, and Ireland are declared a republic, a commonwealth built on revolutionary ideals. But was it truly a revolution? And why did this bold new republic collapse within a decade?

For this Not Just The Tudors...Late, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb hosts a panel of leading historians - Dr Jonathan Healey, Dr Miranda Malins, and Prof. Ronald Hutton - to explore the often overlooked interregnum of the 1650s. Together, they dig into the realities behind the rhetoric: the role of Oliver Cromwell, the tensions between army and parliament, and the limits of radical change in a deeply divided nation.

Was England’s republic doomed from the start, or was it a missed opportunity? And did this failed experiment plant the seeds for later revolutions?

Join us as we revisit a turbulent decade of ambition, ideology, and contradiction... and ask why England’s revolution didn’t last.