427 Republic: Learning, Philosophy, Science

March 9, 2025·43 min·3 clips

James Harrington proposed that no one could inherit land worth over £2,000, challenging the Earl of Leicester's 25,000 acres.

First, a bit of touring throat-clearing. Once the episode settles, the host steps into the cultural world, with curiosity doing most of the work. Cabinets of Curiosity turn up as Europe's learned crowd peers at plants, artefacts, bones, animal remains, skulls, and other marvels. Strange, yes, but the point is bigger than weird stuff in boxes. The age of curiosities is sliding toward observation and experiment, with Francis Bacon hovering nearby. Elias Ashmole becomes the neat symbol of that change, taking Tredesant's collection and turning it into the basis for the Ashmolean in 1683. Museum history, with a flourish. Then the Boyle family arrives, almost too large for one episode, since their father had fifteen children. The host trims the cast. Roger, Lord Broughill, gets a quick pass as the moderate politician and statesman who tried to persuade Cromwell to become king. Robert Boyle waits offstage while elder sister Catherine comes in first. By the end, politics has shoved its way back in. The next business is the 1657 constitution, the humble petition and advice, and the other house. Commons factionalism is still snarling, and the Protectorate still has to prove it can move away from soldiers and back toward civil society. Then Oliver appears, looking peaky. It plays like history on a pub-walk: curiosities, philosophy, family networks, and constitutional bother all sharing the road.

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