 A committed Leveller, Defoe and his friends were betrayed by Cromwell's Republic after the war and executed or exiled.Disillusioned by Cromwell's actions, Defoe retired from military life and worked a sedan chair around the streets of London with Jack until he had saved enough money to buy a cottage in Colchester with his young wife, where they soon had several children.This idyll was shattered in 1666 when a meteor passed over the Southeast of the country, starting the Great Fire and raising the dead from the ashes.