The Pol Roger Duff Cooper prize was awarded on March 6th 2023 to Anna Keay for The Restless Republic: Britain without a Crown. Artemis Cooper, chair of the panel of judges, praised her skilful depiction of Britain’s national experiment with republicanism between 1649 and 1660, for its “entertaining and illuminating insights”

“What makes The Restless Republic so compelling are the stories of the men and women who lived through the Interregnum,” she added, “People like the agile turncoat Marchamont Nedham, editor of Mercurius Politicus, who created popular propaganda for the Commonwealth; or the formidable Countess of Derby, who held one of the last royalist redoubts in Isle of Man; or Gerrard Winstanley’s Levellers, who tried to grow food on common land in Weybridge and Cobham – an idea too radical to gain much support among the landowners of Surrey.”