Following the execution of King Charles I, England’s new republic was faced with a dilemma. Which parts of the nation's bloody recent past should be remembered and how, and which, were best consigned to oblivion?

Across the country, the state's opponents, local communities and individual citizens were grappling with many of the same questions, as calls for remembrance vied with the competing goals of reconciliation, security and the peaceful settlement of the state.

In this insightful presentation, Dr Imogen Peck will showcase the national authorities' attempts to shape the meaning of the recent past, while also considering the evidence of what the English people - lords and labourers, men and women, veterans and civilians – were actually remembering.

Dr Imogen Peck is Assistant Professor in British History at the University of Birmingham and Director of the Centre for Midlands History and Cultures. She is a Historian of memory and communities, with research expertise in local and family history, the social history of archives, and the mental afterlife of conflict.

Her first book, Recollection in the Republics: Memories of the British Civil Wars in England, 1649–59, was published in 2021.

English Memories of the British Civil Wars