Why are you a historian of Seventeenth-century Britain?
As a result of there may be nothing extra compelling, and shifting, than revolution.
What’s a very powerful lesson historical past has taught you?
That we will by no means make certain, and that the protagonists had been additionally usually unsure.
Which historical past e book has had the best affect on you?
Ernst Kantorowicz’ The King’s Two Our bodies: A Research in Medieval Political Theology. I’ve been grappling with monarchy ever since.
What e book in your discipline ought to everybody learn?
John Milton’s Paradise Misplaced.
Which second would you most like to return to?
I want to have been within the crowd watching the execution of Charles I.
Which historian has had the best affect on you?
Patrick Collinson for the best way he wrote about faith, and for his generosity of spirit.
Which individual in historical past would you most wish to have met?
Oliver Cromwell. I’d like him to make clear a couple of issues.
What number of languages do you’ve gotten?
French, Italian, working Latin and rusty Spanish.
Is there an necessary historic textual content you haven’t learn?
I’m nonetheless to get by elements of the Bible.
What historic subject have you ever modified your thoughts on?
I’m consistently altering my thoughts concerning the Restoration.
What’s the commonest false impression about your discipline?
That the republic was an absolute failure and the Restoration inevitable.
Who’s essentially the most underrated individual in historical past…
Mary I.
… and essentially the most overrated?
Elizabeth I.
What’s essentially the most thrilling discipline in historical past immediately?
The historical past of feelings.
What’s your favorite archive?
The Uncommon Books room on the British Library.
What’s one of the best museum?
The Victoria and Albert Museum. I discover it anchoring to be among the many stuff of historical past.
What expertise has modified the world essentially the most?
Printing, clearly, however studying glasses enabled the attain of that expertise.
Advocate us a historic novel…
George Eliot’s Middlemarch .
… and a historic drama?
Shakespeare’s Richard II.
You possibly can remedy one historic thriller. What’s it?
To search out the copy of the invoice that MPs had been debating in Parliament in April 1653, which made Cromwell so indignant that he turfed all of them out. The invoice has by no means been seen since.
Alice Hunt is Professor of Early Trendy Literature and Historical past on the College of Southampton and the writer of Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649-1660 (Faber and Faber, 2024).
