Some historians have described events as ‘The British Civil Wars’. The wars spanning all four countries are also known as the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

These wars were in England, and Wales, and the same political instabilities led to continuity of the conflict in wars in Ireland and Scotland, not least because of doubts about monarchical power.

Professor Alice Hill refers to Britain’s revolutionary decade of 1649 to 1660, and concentrates on England, Scotland and Ireland after the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649.

Oliver Cromwell is said to have suggested that the execution of the monarch had been “cruel necessity”, although politicians and soldiers had to work out immediately how to rule a country without a king.

It was unclear then as to what constituted a republic, or what “liberty of conscience” mounted to. These developments were opposed by many others, and success may have not have been expected.

Later, the restoration of the monarchy meant that the republic that was imposed upon the home nations was short-lived, its demise attributable to contingencies, the essence of politics.

Although historians have written of the interregnum as the years between the execution of Charles I and the return of monarchy with his son Charles II, many politicians of the time did not see it as such.

The professor’s book is a year-by-year account of the 1650s: a biography of “a daring and unprecedented decade” that she argues ought to be written about and understood as a distinct entity.

A chapter is directed at each of the years from 1649 to 1660, and the narrative moves easily on to demonstrate the revolution and the continuity that existed in the affairs of state.

The book ends with an epilogue on the restitution of the monarchy. This broad approach provides an interesting and chronological narrative reflecting enormous changes in the constitution.

Throughout the decade there was a continuous stream of military ventures and political events, with social upheaval, and consequently a vast literature, yet this narrative account is a model of concision.

The principal focus is on the causes and consequences of the civil war and the politics at Westminster, with the means by which a monarchy was abolished and a quasi-monarchical regime put in place.

The lack of foresight is only too obvious given the uncertainties once Oliver Cromwell was in office that there had been no succession planning: was the Lord Protector an elective or hereditary office?

Perhaps the emphasis on England is only to be expected given the size of country, geographically and by population, and the importance of what was at stake there within the wider European context.

It is odd now, however, to read of the English Parliament in London passing legislation to ensure that the Stuarts were “excluded and debarred” from holding “the Crown of England, Scotland and Ireland”.

It is not immediately clear if there had been any contemporary objections to the extra-territorial jurisdiction assumed by the English Parliament.

Perhaps executing a king, the supreme example of high politics in action, can only be done by force and overcoming the scruples of lawyers.

Professor Hunt does note, where many other historians have not, that the English authorities had sanctioned the public execution of Charles I, the proclaimed king of Scotland, then a separate country.

The febrile nature of politics of the time might well be reflected in the number of oaths demanded by various groupings, at least one participant expressing concern about “troubling oaths” and another stating that “all oaths are snares”.

The revolutionary decade in British history gave rise to customs and laws that inform the workings of the constitution, matters which, as the professor argues, came into focus with contemporary events.

The political tensions, amongst Parliament, the executive and the government and the courts, impacting on sovereignty in modern form could be seen in Brexit and other modern political conflicts.

Republic: Britain’s Revolutionary Decade, 1649-1660 by Alice Hunt. Published by Faber, 512pp, £25.