Get Your Free Audiobook
-
Providence Lost
- The Rise and Fall of Cromwell's Protectorate
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Categories: History, Europe
Non-member price: $25.82
People who bought this also bought...
-
Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- Tales from a Colonial Coroner's Court
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Magpie on 12-07-2020
-
A History of Britain: Volume 2
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 20 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The British wars began on the morning of 23 July 1637, heralding 200 years of battles. Most were driven by religious or political conviction, as Republicans and Royalists, Catholics and Protestants, Tories and Whigs, and colonialists and natives vied for supremacy. Of the battles not fought on home territory, many took place across Europe, America, India, and also at sea. Schama's examination of this turbulent period reveals how the British people eventually united in imperial enterprise, forming 'Britannia Incorporated'.
-
The Commonwealth of Thieves
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lively history of the 'First Fleet' which took convicts from Britain to Australia in 1787; Sydney's early years as 'an open-air prison'; and the colonisation of New South Wales.
The story of modern Australia begins in 18th-century Britain, where people were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife and the gaols were bursting. From this situation was born the Sydney experiment, with criminals perceived to be damaging British society transported to Sydney, an 'open air prison with walls 14,000 miles thick'.
Eleven ships were dispatched in 1781 and arrived in Australia after eight hellish months at sea. Tom Keneally describes the first four years of the 'thief colony' and how, despite the escapes, the floggings, the murders and the rebellions, it survived against the odds to create a culture which would never have been tolerated in its homeland but which, in Australia, became part of the identity of a new and audacious nation.
-
-
A most vivid account of Australian settlement
- By The Nautrual on 21-09-2020
-
Shadow King
- The Life and Death of Henry VI
- By: Lauren Johnson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ness
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Firstborn son of a warrior father who defeated the French at Agincourt, Henry VI of the House Lancaster inherited the crown not only of England but also of France, at a time when Plantagenet dominance over the Valois dynasty was at its glorious height. And yet, by the time he was done to death in the Tower of London in 1471, France was lost, his throne had been seized by his rival, Edward IV of the House of York, and his kingdom had descended into the violent chaos of the Wars of the Roses.
-
-
Good History Mediocre Narration
- By S.Attenborough on 27-01-2020
-
Convict Colony
- The Remarkable Story of the Fledgling Settlement That Survived Against the Odds
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: Conrad Coleby
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New World of the 18th century was dotted with failed colonies, and New South Wales nearly joined them. The motley crew of unruly marines and bedraggled convicts who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 in leaky boats nearly starved to death. They could easily have been murdered by hostile locals, been overwhelmed by an attack from French or Spanish expeditions or been brought undone by the Castle Hill uprising of 1804. Yet through fortunate decisions, a few remarkably good leaders and, most of all, good luck, Sydney survived and thrived.
-
-
Quality Reference
- By Amazon Customer on 28-01-2020
-
The Surgeon of Crowthorne
- The Murder, Mystery and Madness of the Oxford English Dictionary
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The compiling of the OED was a monumental task. It took 50 years, even with the help of numerous contributors. Among the most prolific was William Chester Minor, who sent editor James Murray thousands of extracts. On many occasions, Murray invited this mysterious correspondent to Oxford, but the invitation was always declined. Finally stirred by curiosity, Murray himself went to visit Minor. What he found was shocking: Minor lived in Broadmoor asylum.
-
-
Wonderful story
- By Anonymous User on 15-10-2020
-
Murder, Misadventure and Miserable Ends
- Tales from a Colonial Coroner's Court
- By: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Narrated by: Dr. Catie Gilchrist
- Length: 12 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Most of us today rarely see a dead body. In 19th-century Sydney, when health was precarious and workplaces and the busy city streets were often dangerous, witnessing a death was rather common. And any death that was sudden or suspicious would be investigated by the coroner. Henry Shiell was the Sydney city coroner from 1866 to 1889. In the course of his unusually long career, he delved into the lives, loves, crimes, homes, and workplaces of colonial Sydneysiders.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Magpie on 12-07-2020
-
A History of Britain: Volume 2
- By: Simon Schama
- Narrated by: Stephen Thorne
- Length: 20 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The British wars began on the morning of 23 July 1637, heralding 200 years of battles. Most were driven by religious or political conviction, as Republicans and Royalists, Catholics and Protestants, Tories and Whigs, and colonialists and natives vied for supremacy. Of the battles not fought on home territory, many took place across Europe, America, India, and also at sea. Schama's examination of this turbulent period reveals how the British people eventually united in imperial enterprise, forming 'Britannia Incorporated'.
-
The Commonwealth of Thieves
- By: Thomas Keneally
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lively history of the 'First Fleet' which took convicts from Britain to Australia in 1787; Sydney's early years as 'an open-air prison'; and the colonisation of New South Wales.
The story of modern Australia begins in 18th-century Britain, where people were hanged for petty offences but crime was rife and the gaols were bursting. From this situation was born the Sydney experiment, with criminals perceived to be damaging British society transported to Sydney, an 'open air prison with walls 14,000 miles thick'.
Eleven ships were dispatched in 1781 and arrived in Australia after eight hellish months at sea. Tom Keneally describes the first four years of the 'thief colony' and how, despite the escapes, the floggings, the murders and the rebellions, it survived against the odds to create a culture which would never have been tolerated in its homeland but which, in Australia, became part of the identity of a new and audacious nation.
-
-
A most vivid account of Australian settlement
- By The Nautrual on 21-09-2020
-
Shadow King
- The Life and Death of Henry VI
- By: Lauren Johnson
- Narrated by: Jennifer Ness
- Length: 20 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Firstborn son of a warrior father who defeated the French at Agincourt, Henry VI of the House Lancaster inherited the crown not only of England but also of France, at a time when Plantagenet dominance over the Valois dynasty was at its glorious height. And yet, by the time he was done to death in the Tower of London in 1471, France was lost, his throne had been seized by his rival, Edward IV of the House of York, and his kingdom had descended into the violent chaos of the Wars of the Roses.
-
-
Good History Mediocre Narration
- By S.Attenborough on 27-01-2020
-
Convict Colony
- The Remarkable Story of the Fledgling Settlement That Survived Against the Odds
- By: David Hill
- Narrated by: Conrad Coleby
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The New World of the 18th century was dotted with failed colonies, and New South Wales nearly joined them. The motley crew of unruly marines and bedraggled convicts who arrived at Botany Bay in 1788 in leaky boats nearly starved to death. They could easily have been murdered by hostile locals, been overwhelmed by an attack from French or Spanish expeditions or been brought undone by the Castle Hill uprising of 1804. Yet through fortunate decisions, a few remarkably good leaders and, most of all, good luck, Sydney survived and thrived.
-
-
Quality Reference
- By Amazon Customer on 28-01-2020
-
The Surgeon of Crowthorne
- The Murder, Mystery and Madness of the Oxford English Dictionary
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The compiling of the OED was a monumental task. It took 50 years, even with the help of numerous contributors. Among the most prolific was William Chester Minor, who sent editor James Murray thousands of extracts. On many occasions, Murray invited this mysterious correspondent to Oxford, but the invitation was always declined. Finally stirred by curiosity, Murray himself went to visit Minor. What he found was shocking: Minor lived in Broadmoor asylum.
-
-
Wonderful story
- By Anonymous User on 15-10-2020
-
A History of the Bible
- The Book and Its Faiths
- By: John Barton
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 21 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Bible is the central book in Western culture, yet extraordinarily there is no proper history of it. This exceptional work, by one of the world's leading Biblical scholars, provides a full account of how the different parts of the Bible came to be written; how some writings which were regarded as holy became canonical and were included in the Bible, and others were not; what the relationship is of the different parts of the Bible to each other; and how, once it became a stable text, the Bible has been disseminated and interpreted around the world.
-
-
Liberalism at its worst
- By Kirsten Anstey on 26-06-2020
-
The Boundless Sea
- A Human History of the Oceans
- By: David Abulafia
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 41 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For most of human history, the seas and oceans have been the main means of long-distance trade and communication between peoples - for the spread of ideas and religion as well as commerce. This book traces the history of human movement and interaction around and across the world's greatest bodies of water, charting our relationship with the oceans from the time of the first voyagers.
-
-
Great
- By Anonymous User on 06-08-2020
-
The Five
- The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
- By: Hallie Rubenhold
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffeehouses and lived on country estates; they breathed ink dust from printing presses and escaped people traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women.
-
-
A beautifully written tale of the forgotten women
- By Jessica Law on 17-01-2021
-
The Looming Tower
- Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
- By: Lawrence Wright
- Narrated by: Lawrence Wright
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.
-
-
Gripping and enlightening with brilliant narration
- By Dave T on 11-01-2021
-
The Hollow Crown
- The Wars of the Roses and the Rise of the Tudors
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some of the greatest heroes and villains in British history were thrown together in these turbulent times: Henry V, whose victory at Agincourt and prudent rule at home marked the high point of the medieval monarchy; Edward IV, who was handed his crown by the scheming soldier Warwick the Kingmaker, before their alliance collapsed into a fight to the death; and the last Plantagenet, Richard III, who stole the throne and murdered his own nephews, the Princes in the Tower.
-
-
A very well balanced book
- By Clare Ong on 05-01-2019
-
Appeasing Hitler
- Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to War
- By: Tim Bouverie
- Narrated by: John Sessions
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Appeasing Hitler is a compelling new narrative history of the disastrous years of indecision, failed diplomacy and parliamentary infighting that enabled Nazi domination of Europe. Beginning with the advent of Hitler in 1933, it sweeps from the early days of the Third Reich to the beaches of Dunkirk. Bouverie takes us into the backrooms of 10 Downing Street and Parliament, where a small group of rebellious MPs, including the indomitable Winston Churchill, were among the few to realise that the only choice was between ‘war now or war later’.
-
-
Brilliant
- By Richard on 20-02-2020
Publisher's Summary
England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart King Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies.
He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'.
Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World. When an amphibious assault on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1655 proves a disaster, a shaken Cromwell is convinced that God is punishing England for its sinfulness.
But the imposition of the rule of the Major-Generals - bureaucrats with a penchant for closing alehouses - backfires spectacularly. Sectarianism and fundamentalism run riot. Radicals and royalists join together in conspiracy.
The only way out seems to be a return to a Parliament presided over by a king. But will Cromwell accept the crown?
Paul Lay narrates in entertaining but always rigorous fashion the story of England's first and only experiment with republican government: he brings the febrile world of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate to life, providing vivid portraits of the extraordinary individuals who inhabited it and capturing its dissonant cacophony of political and religious voices.
Critic Reviews
"A compelling and wry narrative of one of the most intellectually thrilling eras of British history." (The Guardian)
More from the same
What listeners say about Providence Lost
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Padre
- 22-07-2020
Fascinating insights into a forgotten era
I bought this book having come across a favourable newspaper review. The writer (and narrator) makes the ostensibly dry Interregnum period fascinating. A particular strength is his ability to describe characters with a critical but empathetic eye. Overall a balanced, informative and entertaining book for the generalist and the expert.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- AngeloPL
- 24-10-2020
Not for beginners
An interesting story well told but if you're not already familiar with the setting and characters you will be lost.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- j t connolly
- 30-07-2020
Not an overview of the Commonwealth
Gets bogged down in Royalist minutiea. I'd prefer to know whys and wherefores of life.
4 people found this helpful
16 Best Audiobooks by Aboriginal Authors
Across genres, there’s no shortage of brilliant titles from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers of Australia.



25 Best Celebrity Audiobooks
It’s always a pleasant surprise to pick up a familiar story and find an unexpected famous friend in the narrator’s booth.



Best Audiobooks of 2020
We've crunched the numbers, heard from our listeners and gotten expert opinions to round up the best listens of 2020.


