The Penruddock Rising against Cromwell in 1655 captured Salisbury but was soon put down. This episode – scarcely remembered despite giving rise to rule by the Major-Generals – provides insights into political plotting and hence the nature of the Interregnum. A narrative opening is followed by a survey of material evidence remaining from the period and by a deeply-researched family history of one of the three principals – a sort of ‘who-done-it?’ – explaining how he alone avoided execution (he proves to have been related to Cromwell). This is seventeenth-century history centred on Wiltshire and in unfamiliar close-up.
Chapters follow on the shocks of war and defeat, with special attention to the way political resistance was sublimated in nonconformist religion. Regional evidence is cited throughout. Restoration England is portrayed as a three-way ‘elite settlement’ and a feature of the text is the (light) use of a few analytical concepts like that to frame the regional detail. Suggestions by Christopher Hill and William Dodd are developed in a discussion about the unexpected carryover of personnel and policies from Cromwell to Charles II and the re-affirmation of the ruling estate system. The book concludes with an evaluation of subsequent economic developments in the light of a simple scheme derived from development economics. In this way local, regional and national histories are fused.
