The Puritan Princess

London, 1657. Eighteen-year-old Frances Cromwell has been carried by her father Oliver’s extraordinary rise into the ceremonial world of Hampton Court and Whitehall, where the family of the Lord Protector lives with many of the trappings of royalty. When Parliament offers Cromwell the crown, Frances’s marriage prospects acquire political and diplomatic significance at the same time that she is trying to secure a love match and a future of her own choosing.

The novel follows the Cromwell family through the final years of the Protectorate, Oliver’s death, Richard Cromwell’s short rule and the political collapse that leads to the Restoration of Charles II. Frances’s courtship, marriage and bereavement give the national upheaval an intimate perspective, while Malins reconstructs a court more culturally varied and socially complex than the stereotype of joyless Puritan rule. The major relationships and political events are historical; private motives, dialogue and undocumented scenes are fictionalised.