{"id":1874,"date":"2025-11-28T17:16:39","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T17:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/?p=1874"},"modified":"2026-04-24T11:03:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T11:03:25","slug":"the-fiery-spirits-popular-protest-parliament-and-the-english-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/?p=1874","title":{"rendered":"The Fiery Spirits: Popular Protest, Parliament and the English Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Socialist History Society public on-line meeting held on Tuesday 17 March 2026<\/p>\n<p>Speaker: <strong>John Rees<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HVvlHqjRe4M?si=-DlujQoFoRmgiOtY&amp;start=2\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The thrilling history of Parliament\u2019s \u2018fiery spirits\u2019, whose actions led to the defeat of Charles I in the English Civil War and paved the way for the execution of the King in 1649<\/p>\n<p>The Fiery Spirits tells the story of the MPs in parliament and the protestors in the streets who played a pivotal role in the English Civil Wars. Through their stories, John Rees reveals the hidden history of the republicans who brought a desperate nation to the brink of revolution.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of the English Civil Wars, very few could have imagined that the country would soon become a republic. Practically alone in his republicanism was Henry Marten, MP and future regicide. But he soon gathered around him a group of radical Parliamentarians that included William Strode, the parliamentary firebrand, Alexander Rigby, the formidable soldier, and Sir Peter Wentworth, descendant of a long line of opponents of monarchy. They formed the nucleus of a group that allied itself to a popular movement outside parliament to defeat the king politically and militarily.<\/p>\n<p>In The Fiery Spirits, Rees tells how Marten and his radical allies overcame both moderate Parliamentarians and Royalists to change the face of England forever, establishing a kingdom without a crown.<\/p>\n<p><strong>John Rees<\/strong> is an historian, broadcaster and campaigner. He is coauthor of A People&#8217;s History of London and author of The Leveller Revolution and Timelines: A Political History of the Modern World, among other titles. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmith&#8217;s, University of London and a National Officer of the Stop the War Coalition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Socialist History Society public on-line meeting held on Tuesday 17 March 2026 Speaker: John Rees \ufeff The thrilling history of Parliament\u2019s \u2018fiery spirits\u2019, whose actions led to the defeat&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meetings","category-past-shs-meetings","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1874"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1924,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1874\/revisions\/1924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.socialisthistorysociety.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}