England had been ruled by men whose competing priorities made an unstable compound

The problem was that ever since Ireton and Pride had purged Parliament in 1649 to push through the trial and execution of the King, in which Oliver Cromwell had acquiesced, England had been ruled by men whose competing priorities made an unstable compound. The desire for more powerful and active parliaments, for social reform and for a quite different form of religion from the old Church of England could not easily be satisfied in a single government. The representatives of the people did not want the wholesale religious reform that the victors of the civil wars felt must happen and were unconvinced about many ingredients of the programmes for social and political reform. That the regime, or various versions of it, had endured so long owed a great deal to Oliver Cromwell himself.

A. Keay, The restless republic (2022), loc. 5,036

The rise of the newspapers was itself an aspect of the explosion in publishing which took place in the mid-seventeenth century

The rise of the newspapers was itself an aspect of the explosion in publishing which took place in the mid-seventeenth century. In the year 1500 just over fifty books were printed in England, in 1600 the number was 300, come 1648 more than 2,300 titles poured off the presses in a single year. Perhaps 30 per cent of all men and 10 per cent of all women could read, and over double those percentages in the capital, a readership now offered an addictive weekly news fix that involved them as never before in the turbulent goings-on of their kingdom.

A. Keay, The restless republic (2022), loc. 2,044

The wages of the Derbys’ uncompromising royalism were death, but they were not destitution

The downfall of the nobility, even that part of it that had fought for Charles I, had never been the goal of the republican regime. The Committee for Compounding’s overwhelming concern was raising money, not meting out political or social retribution, and in spite of the seismic shifts of the decade there was much by 1652 that was stabilizing. The majority of major landowners had kept their heads down during the wars, prepared to root for the royalist cause, to send arms or plate, but not to risk their patrimony for it. Perhaps a quarter of aristocratic and gentry landowners – some 3,000 families – had had their lands sequestered, but most would pay the fines to regain their property.

...

The wages of the Derbys’ uncompromising royalism were death, but they were not destitution. The Commonwealth regime was proving to be remarkably unvindictive in its treatment of its adversaries; the need for unity and reconciliation, not least given the tiny numbers who had actively wished for a republic, was obvious to many in positions of power.

A. Keay, The restless republic (2022), loc. 1,918 & 1,946

And that if his Doggs would not eate himm hee would eate him himselfe

In interviewing informers Bradshaw [who presided over the trial of Charles I] was repeatedly confronted with the visceral fury that was felt towards him personally. A London grocer reported to the Council of State that he had heard a royalist vow that he ‘would cutt in peices the said Lord President and boyle him and after give him to his Dogges to eate; And that if his Doggs would not eate himm hee would eate him himselfe.’

A. Keay, The restless republic (2022), loc. 854

Oliver Cromwell’s daughter, Mary, and her husband Lord Fauconberg ... were popular figures at the late Stuart courts

Oliver Cromwell’s daughter, Mary, and her husband Lord Fauconberg, whose boisterous wedding party Oliver himself had hosted, were popular figures at the late Stuart courts; the Earl was ambassador to Venice, a friend of the Duke of Monmouth and, later, a prominent supporter of the Glorious Revolution. Well into the reign of Queen Anne the residents of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire would see an elderly man out riding with his dogs, or sketching landscapes, who was none other than Richard Cromwell, one-time Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland.

A. Keay, The restless republic (2022), loc. 235

Put up with so much architecture they detested

O beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested as within thy blessed borders today?

T. Wolfe, From Bauhaus to our house (1981), 1

The great advances of civilization ... have never come from centralized government

The great advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science or literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government. Columbus did not set out to seek a new route to China in response to a majority directive of a parliament, though he was partly financed by an absolute monarch. Newton and Leibnitz; Einstein and Bohr; Shakespeare, Milton, and Pasternak; Whitney, McCormick, Edison, and Ford; Jane Addams, Florence Nightingale, and Albert Schweitzer; no one of these opened new frontiers in human knowledge and understanding, in literature, in technical possibilities, or in the relief of human misery in response to governmental directives. Their achievements were the product of individual genius, of strongly held minority views, of a social climate permitting variety and diversity.

M. Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (1962), loc. 403

In my view, this analysis of history, though exhilaratingly written, is nonsense, and in some cases factually wrong. This is not because free markets aren't good, they're just not the only way good things happen.