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"Not the kind of man to be restrained by common sense"—least of all when dared by a pretty girl—seventeen-year-old Dr. James Gilroy filed off the iron chain that supported Cromwell's head, the sign of The Cromwell Tavern. This impetuous act not only insulted the fiery patriots of Colonial Boston who frequented the Tavern, but knocked down their leader, Dr. Joseph Warren, and uncovered a letter implicating Dr. Browne, a rigid Tory to whom Jamey was apprenticed. Torn between loyalty to his own master and admiration for the rival Dr. Warren, Jamey found himself threatened with dismissal and suspected as a traitor by both sides. With the persistent, and sometimes exasperating, help of admiring Betty and the little kinchin cove—a waif who knew his way around the waterfront—Jamey attempts to clear himself and clarify his own political feelings.
Cromwell's Head is Mrs. Coolidge's first historical novel and is written with the same feeling for accuracy and historic detail that characterize Egyptian Adventures, The Trojan War, Greek Myths, and Legends of the North. It is a vivid and absorbing picture of Boston in the spring of 1775 when the town was on the edge of rebellion and tempers were high on both the British and Colonial sides.
Jacket and decorative chapter openings by Edward A. Wilson.
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