What was it like to live under the English Republic and, later, Cromwell’s Protectorate, if one supported the defeated Stuarts and yearned for the day when Charles II would once again set foot in England? This book tells the story of the traumatic decade of the 1650s (or, ‘the Interregnum’, from the Latin meaning ‘between the reign of the kings’) from the vantage point of those who lost the Civil Wars. It describes how these men and women negotiated the difficult choices they faced: to compromise, collaborate, or resist.

It brings together essays by established and emerging historians and literary scholars in Britain, Europe, the United States and Australia. The essays sketch the difficulties, complexities, and nuances of the Royalist experience during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, looking at women, religion, print-culture, literature, the politics of exile, and the nature and extent of royalist networks in England.