A 15-month period (1655-57) of direct military government, in conjunction with Oliver Cromwell, during the Protectorate. Military rule was imposed with the help of a 'decimation tax' of 10 per cent on all royalists, and the regime imposed stringent restrictions on those it considered to be enemies of the state, as well as trying to lead a period of moral reform.
Rule of the Major-Generals
Fact of the Day
Robert Plot, Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, devised a cunning plan to enable James II to permanently rid the country of parliaments: he advised James to found a hermetic college for the alchemical creation of gold, thus making the need for parliamentary subsidies redundant.
Quote of the Day
"Total abstinence is so excellent a thing that it cannot be carried to too great an extent. In my passion for it I even carry it so far as to totally abstain from total abstinence itself.
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~ Mark Twain
On This Day
1536 The trial of four of Anne Boleyn's 'lovers'. Only one confessed (under torture), which he maintained up to the point of his death.
1689 William III went to war with France. It was the start of more than a century of titanic clashes for global hegemony.
1789 William Wilberforce made his first speech to the Commons on the abolition of slavery.
1926 Limited power of unions shown as TUC calls off General Strike without consulting miners, who went back to work in November on reduced pay.
1937 In a ceremony that had originally been scheduled for his brother, Edward VIII (who had abdicated in December 1936), George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
1969 The minimum voting age in Britain was reduced from 21 to 18.
1994 The popular Labour leader John Smith died of a heart attack. He was replaced as leader by Tony Blair.