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Oxford Companion to Military History:
Oliver Cromwell |
Cromwell, Oliver (1599-1658), soldier and statesman, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth (1653-8). He began his career as a Member of the Long Parliament for Cambridge who returned to his native county when the English civil war broke out to raise a troop of horse against the king (see British civil wars). Until then his career had provided little clue of the greatness to come. A gentleman of modest means he had, around 1630, undergone a Calvinist conversion experience which transformed his life. His troop of horse soon swelled to two regiments, called the ‘Ironsides’ after the nickname that Prince Rupert of the Rhine gave the unbending Oliver himself. His trenchant philosophy for recruitment was: ‘If you choose Godly honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them, … I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else.’
By contrast with the royalists, and indeed the hell-for-leather English cavalry tradition, Cromwell kept his men well in hand. At Marston Moor he first defeated the royalist right wing under Lord Byron, then turned to attack the adjacent infantry. Obliged to leave the battlefield for treatment of a wound to the neck, he returned to lead his men to join Fairfax in attacking and routing the remaining royalist cavalry under Goring. He served as lieutenant general to Fairfax in the New Model Army and at Naseby the following year Cromwell's iron control was again in evidence. After scattering the left wing of the royalist horse he again resisted the temptation of pursuit and regrouped to envelop the royalist infantry in a battle of near-annihilation.
Over a career involving many dozens of battles, sieges, and skirmishes, Cromwell was beaten once: at Clonmel in May 1650, when he walked into a trap laid by Hugh O'Neill. The blunder cost him 1, 500 men. His masterpiece was Dunbar. There, in September 1650, he faced a well-equipped and trained Anglo-Scots force of 20, 000 under David Leslie. His own army of 16, 000 had been reduced by sickness and desertion to 11, 000 within a matter of weeks. Encamped with their back to the sea, it seemed that they were about to be rolled over by the Scots, who from their commanding position on Doon Hill controlled the road back to England. On the morning of 2 September Leslie confidently moved his army down the hill, preparatory to an attack on what he believed to be a demoralized English army.
But Cromwell had perceived a weakness in the Scots position. He saw how their left wing was crowded against the steep slope of Spott Burn Glen, thus unlikely to be able to deploy, and that the two wings of Leslie's army would not be able to support each other. He also saw a slight depression across the front of the enemy and under the cover of driving rain and darkness marched the bulk of his army along it, literally under Leslie's nose. As he launched the assault at daybreak, he shouted the words of the psalmist, ‘Now let God arise, and his enemies shall be scattered.’ Isolated from their comrades, the Scots right wing crumpled and the battle was over in barely an hour. Three thousand Scots were slaughtered and 10, 000 taken prisoner. Cromwell lost only twenty of his own men.
He was a courageous and charismatic leader, and the only English commoner ever to seize power in a coup d'état, which he did by expelling the unrepresentative Rump of the Long Parliament in 1653. He accepted the title of Lord Protector (some wanted him to become king) but was not able to establish a settlement which long survived his death. He was superbly successful in animating his men with his own burning conviction that they would accomplish great things as instruments of the Almighty. He was also a shrewd judge of men who chose good subordinates and trusted them to do their job well. He was a good battlefield tactician who could visualize the possibilities inherent in a piece of terrain and exploit them to devastating effect. Not least of all, he cared for his men, and was thrifty with their lives. He had the political ability to fight for and obtain the money and supplies he needed, often refusing to move forward until they were in place. Because his soldiers knew they were safe in his hands, they rewarded him with intense loyalty. He is among the greatest generals Britain has produced.
— Ian Gentles
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:
Oliver Cromwell |
The English statesman and general Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) won decisive battles in the English civil war. He then established himself and his army as the ruling force in England and later took the title Lord Protector of Great Britain and Ireland.
Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25, 1599, at Huntingdon. His father, Richard Cromwell, was a younger son of one of the richest men in the district, Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook, known as the "Golden Knight." Cromwell's mother was the daughter of Sir William Steward, who managed the tithe revenues of Ely Cathedral. Little is known of Cromwell's childhood, except that his circumstances were modest and he was sent to the local school. His schoolmaster, Dr. Beard, was a devout Calvinist; most of Cromwell's intense religious convictions were derived from Beard, whom he venerated throughout his life.
In 1616 Cromwell entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He left the following year on the death of his father. For the next few years he lived in London, where in 1620 he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir James Bourchier, a wealthy leather merchant. Cromwell then returned to his small estate in Huntingdon, where he farmed his land and played a modest part in local affairs, acquiring a reputation as a champion of the poor and dispossessed. During these years Cromwell experienced periods of deep melancholy, suffused with religious doubt, but after much spiritual torment he became convinced that he was the instrument of God.
Political Situation in 1640
When Cromwell entered Parliament for Cambridge in 1640, England had been ruled personally by Charles I for 11 years. The King had pursued an authoritarian policy in religion and finance which had distressed many country gentlemen, including Cromwell. Furthermore, Charles had plunged into war with Scotland, which had risen in revolt when Archbishop William Laud had persuaded him to impose the English Prayer Book on the Scottish Church. The Scots rapidly defeated the King; destitute of money and at the mercy of the Scots, Charles I was forced to call Parliament.
The mood of Parliament was highly critical, and there was a closely knit body of Puritan country gentlemen and lawyers who were determined that the power of the King and the Anglican Church should be limited by Parliament. Several of Cromwell's relatives, particularly the influential John Hampden and Oliver St. John, belonged to this group, which was led by John Pym. Cromwell threw in his lot with these men. A middle-aged man without parliamentary experience, he spoke rarely, but when he did it was usually in support of extreme measures. Cromwell soon established his reputation as a firm upholder of the parliamentary cause; he was dedicated to the reform of the Church and of the court and was highly critical of the King.
Civil War
By 1642 the King and Parliament had become so antagonistic that armed conflict was inevitable. At the outbreak of war in August 1642, Cromwell headed a regiment whose prime duty was to defend East Anglia. He rapidly demonstrated not only his skill as a military leader by rapid raids into royalist territory combined with skillful retreat, but also his capacity to mold an effective army from his force of raw recruits.
Under the leadership of the Earl of Manchester, Cromwell's commander, regiments from other counties were brought together in a formidable body, known as the Eastern Association. In 1643 Cromwell's cavalry worsted the royalists in a number of sharp engagements - Grantham (May 13), Gainsborough (July 18), and Wincaby (October 13). These successes helped to create parliamentary supremacy in East Anglia and the Midlands. Cromwell's reputation as Parliament's most forceful general was made the next year, however, at the battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), when his Ironsides routed the cavalry of Prince Rupert, the most successful royalist general. To Cromwell, whose religious convictions strengthened with every victory that he won, Marston Moor was God's work, and he wrote, "God made them stubble to our swords."
The victories in eastern England, however, were not matched by success elsewhere. After 2 years of war the King was still in the field, and there was a growing rift between Parliament and the army. Many disliked the price paid for alliance with the Scots (acceptance of the Presbyterian form of church government), and most longed for peace. Cromwell, however, yearned for victory. He bitterly attacked the Earl of Manchester, and after complex political maneuvering he emerged as the effective leader of the parliamentary armies. He proved his exceptional capacities as a general on June 14, 1645, when he smashed the royalists' army at Naseby in Northamptonshire. Within 12 months the royalist armies had capitulated.
In 5 years Cromwell had risen from obscurity to renown. A large man with a long, red face studded with warts, he nevertheless possessed considerable presence. His mood was usually somber, thoughtful, and deeply religious. His soldiers sang psalms as they went into battle, and every regiment had its preacher.
The next 3 years taxed Cromwell's skill and faith. His army became riddled with Levellers, whose radical doctrines called for a far more democratic social structure than Cromwell and his fellow generals would tolerate. Parliament and the Scots inclined not only to peace with the King but also to a rigid form of Presbyterianism, which Cromwell disliked. He claimed to believe in toleration, but excepted always Catholics and atheists.
In 1648 the royalists rose again, sided by the Scots, but in a lightning campaign Cromwell smashed both. The republicans were then determined to bring Charles I to trial, and Cromwell did nothing to stop them. At last agreeing that the King was "a man of blood" and should be executed, he signed Charles I's death warrant.
Further Campaigns
The execution of the King settled nothing. Legally, the House of Commons, purged to such an extent that it was called the Rump, ruled. But the army, Scotland, and Ireland were soon in rebellion. The Scottish Presbyterians proclaimed Charles II (Charles I's son) their lawful monarch, and the Irish Catholics did likewise. In England the radicals were a rampant minority, the royalists a stunned majority, but neither had any respect for the Rump.
Cromwell suppressed the Levellers by force and then set about subduing first Ireland and then Scotland. In the former Cromwell fought a tough, bloody campaign in which the butchery of thousands of soldiers at Drogheda (Sept. 11, 1649) and hundreds of civilians at Wexford (Oct. 11) caused his name to be execrated in Ireland for centuries.
On June 26, 1650, Cromwell finally became commander in chief of the parliamentary armies. He moved against the Scots and got into grievous difficulties. At Dunbar in August 1650 he was pressed between the hills and the sea and was surrounded by an army of 20,000 men. But the folly of the Scottish commander, Leslie, enabled Cromwell to snatch a victory, he thought by divine help, on September 3. The next year Charles II and his Scottish army made a spirited dash into England, but Cromwell smashed them at Worcester on Sept. 3, 1651. At long last the war was over and Cromwell realized that God's humble instrument had been given, for better or worse, supreme power.
Cromwell's Rule: 1653-1658
For 5 years after the execution of the King, Parliament tried to formulate a new constitution. Its failure to do this so exasperated Cromwell that on April 20, 1653, he went with a handful of soldiers to the House of Commons, where he shouted at the members, "The Lord be done with you," and ordered them out.
Until his death Cromwell tried to create a firm new constitutional base for his power. His first attempt to establish a constitution by means of a nominated Parliament in 1653 ended in disaster, so the Council of Army Officers promulgated the Instrument of Government, by which Cromwell became Protector in December 1653. He was assisted by a Council of State on whose advice he acted, for Cromwell believed sincerely in the delegation and sharing of power. For 8 months Cromwell and his Council ruled most effectively, sweeping away ancient feudal jurisdictions in Scotland and Ireland and uniting those countries with England under one Parliament, which was itself reformed. When the Parliament met in 1654, however, it soon quarreled with Cromwell over the constitution. He once more took power into his own hands and dissolved Parliament on June 22, 1655.
Cromwell's government became more authoritarian. Local government was brought under major generals, soldiers whom he could trust. This infuriated the radical left as well as the traditionalists. Again attempting to give his authority a formal parliamentary base and also needing additional revenue, Cromwell reconvened Parliament. His successes abroad and his suppression of revolts at home had greatly increased his popularity; thus when Parliament met, he was pressed to accept the crown, but after much soul-searching he refused. He took instead the title Lord Protector under a new constitution - the Humble Petition and Advice (May 25, 1657). This constitution also reestablished the House of Lords and made Cromwell king in all but name. But Cromwell was no Napoleon; there were definite limits to his personal ambition. He did not train his son Richard to be his successor, nor did he try to establish his family as a ruling dynasty. And at the height of his power he retained his deep religious conviction that he was merely an instrument of God's purpose.
Cromwell pursued an effective foreign policy. His navy enjoyed substantial success, and the foundation of British power in the West Indies was laid by its capture of Jamaica (1655). He allied himself with France against Spain, and his army carried the day at the battles of the Dunes in 1658. These victories, combined with his dexterous handling of Scotland and brutal suppression of Ireland, made his personal ascendancy unassailable, in spite of failures in his domestic policy. But shortly after his death on Sept. 3, 1658, Cromwell's regime collapsed, and the restoration of the monarchy followed in 1660.
Critical Assessment
Cromwell's greatness will always be questioned. As a general, he was gifted yet lucky; as a statesman, he had some success but was unable to bring his plans to complete fruition. Although his religious conviction often appears to be a hypocritical cloak for personal ambition, his positive qualities are unmistakable. He believed in representative government (limited to men of property, however). He encouraged reform, and much of it was humane. He brought to the executive side of government a great degree of professionalism, particularly in the army and navy. Britain emerged from the Commonwealth stronger, more efficient, and more secure. Perhaps the most remarkable qualities of Cromwell were his sobriety and his self-control. Few men have enjoyed such supreme power and abused it less.
Further Reading
Cromwell's letters and speeches are collected by Wilbur C. Abbott in The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (4 vols., 1937-1947). The literature on Cromwell is enormous. The best and most complete biography of him is Sir Charles Firth, Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England (1900; repr. 1961). An excellent brief biography is C. V. Wedgwood, Oliver Cromwell (1939). Maurice Ashley, OliverCromwell and the Puritan Revolution (1958), is also valuable. The problems of Cromwell's character and policies are well explored in Richard E. Boyer, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan Revolt (1966). Equally valuable is Maurice P. Ashley, ed., Cromwell (1969). Cromwell's career as a general is best studied in C. V. Wedgwood, The King's War (1958); Alfred H. Burne and Peter Young, The Great Civil War: A Military History of the First Civil War, 1642-1646 (1959); and Austin H. Woolrych, The Battles of the English Civil War (1961). The best bibliographical guide is Wilbur C. Abbott, Bibliography of Oliver Cromwell (1929).
Oxford Dictionary of British History:
Oliver Cromwell |
Cromwell, Oliver (1599-1658). General and lord protector. It is still difficult to appreciate the unique character of Cromwell's career. In a country governed by custom, precedent, and the common law, Cromwell completely changed the ancient frame of government, reforming Parliament and imposing a written constitution. By conquest he incorporated the separate kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland into a single commonwealth with England. He remains the only British statesman whose entire career depended on the control and use of military power. Yet his achievement proved to be totally ephemeral.
A provincial gentleman from Huntingdon of modest means, Cromwell first became prominent in the second session of the Long Parliament (1641-2). Cromwell urged Parliament to assume control of both the army destined for Ireland and the home militia, and soon became identified with the war party. He made the forces maintained by the Eastern Association the most formidable of the parliamentarian armies. Cromwell's men contributed decisively to the victory at Marston Moor July 1644).
Cromwell deplored the failure to follow up this victory effectively, denounced his own neighbour and superior officer, Lord Manchester, and helped pass the self-denying ordinance. This barred peers and MPs, with exceptions of whom Cromwell was one, from commands and set up a central army, the New Model, of which he became second in command. At Naseby, Cromwell annihilated Charles's field army June 1645). He next emerged as the chief military politician, eclipsing his superior, Lord Fairfax. Cromwell took the lead, first in representing army grievances, but soon in a wider sense claiming to speak and act as the embodiment of the ‘cause’ for which it had fought the war. In July 1647 the army issued the Heads of the Proposals, a manifesto for a new constitutional settlement, which it discussed with Charles. The manifesto did not go far enough to satisfy the more radical officers and men. Influenced by Leveller ideas, the radicals published an Agreement of the People: this was discussed in the Putney debates of the army council, a body representing all ranks and units.
During this period of rapid change Cromwell developed the techniques which enabled him to keep control over the army for the rest of his life. He could not depend on politicized radicals obeying orders. He had to break up networks of officers that could develop into challenges to his authority, he had to balance the factions—ambitious opportunists (like Lambert), religious fanatics (Thomas Harrison), professionals (Monck, Montagu). He learned that neglect of the interests and grievances of ordinary soldiers led to their politicization. Above all he knew that army unity must be maintained.
Early in 1648 royalist risings broke out and a Scottish army invaded on Charles's behalf. Cromwell and Fairfax reacted with great speed, annihilating enemy forces. Opinion in the army now accepted that as a ‘man of blood’ the king had to be punished. Cromwell clearly inspired the action that followed. Colonel Pride, backed up by armed soldiers, prevented MPs who were unacceptable to the army from entering the Commons. The purged House that subsequently worked with the army was known as the Rump. By killing the king the regicides made any future compromise impossible.
In 1649-51 Cromwell was almost continuously on campaign away from Westminster. His militarily successful Irish campaign of 1649-50 has been universally condemned for its ruthlessness, especially for the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford. Cromwell's methods represented a revival of those used in Elizabeth's Irish wars and he saw them as a reprisal for atrocities committed by the Irish rebels in 1641. In 1650-1 he was engaged in war against the Scots, who crowned Charles II king of Scotland. Cromwell defeated them at Dunbar and finally Worcester in successive Septembers, 1650 and 1651.
Cromwell's second major coup, his ejection of the Rump on 20 April 1653, opened the way for an experiment to create a form of government that would be in accord with what he took to be God's will. He and the army council named a constituent body to draft a godly constitution, Barebone's or the ‘Nominated’ Parliament. The fanatics in Barebone's Parliament disappointed Cromwell by wanting the abolition of tithe and universities, seeing a salaried and learned ministry as unnecessary. After moderates dissolved the ‘Parliament’ Cromwell infuriated the fanatics further by ending the Dutch War, giving the defeated enemy lenient terms March 1654). After Barebone's Parliament came a written constitution, the Instrument of Government December 1653), introducing a form of government based on a balance of power between a reformed single-chamber parliament elected by a new representative system, an elected council, and the executive, Lord Protector Cromwell. This constitution was superseded in 1657 by the Humble Petition and Advice which established an upper house in Parliament and empowered the lord protector to designate his successor. Neither constitution gave the impression of a governmental system built to last. This explains Cromwell's reluctant refusal in 1657 to assume the familiar title of king.
In the short term Cromwellian government worked. He maintained army discipline and unity but he could not eradicate all potential radical activists. Quakers as well as catholics and Prayer Book Anglicans were excluded from toleration. The costs of maintaining the army, aggravated by a Spanish war that began in 1655, produced an accumulation of debt that would have ended in an insoluble crisis. But the greatest change brought about by the institutionalization of the Protectorate was the erosion of the ‘cause’ which Cromwell embodied, the establishment of a form of government in which the godly, not a monarch, wielded power. Previous rulers—even Elizabeth—had failed to undertake and complete all the tasks required of a godly prince. Cromwell's missionary cause was to create a godly nation, but by 1658 few still shared his zeal.
Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore:
Oliver Cromwell |
Chiefly remembered in folk tradition as a destroyer. A considerable number of castles and manor houses, especially in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, are said (incorrectly) to have been destroyed or severely damaged by Cromwell's cannon-fire an even larger number of churches, in several different counties, are said to have been desecrated by Cromwell (or Cromwell's men) stabling horses there. Presumably as a result of this violent and destructive reputation, Cromwell became a bogey figure. Flora Thompson mentions in her Lark Rise to Candleford (1945) that in Oxfordshire in the 1880s ‘the older mothers and grandmothers still threatened naughty children with the name of Cromwell. “If you ain't a good gal, old Oliver Crummell'll have ‘ee!” they would say, or “Here comes old Crummell!”’ (chapter 14).
His sudden death on 3 September 1658, at the height of his power, made a deep impression on the popular mind. Shortly before, on the night of 30/31 August, there had been a great gale, and it was soon being said that the two events were connected—indeed, that the storm had come on the very night Cromwell died. Such signs were ambiguous; they could mark the death of a great hero, or of a sinner bound for Hell. In the case of a regicide the latter was more likely, and became the accepted interpretations in folk tradition.
To add to the drama, Cromwell's body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey after the a Restoration in 1660 and decapitated, the head being displayed at Westminster Hall, and these events too are said to have been accompanied by storms. The body may have been secretly buried in Red Lion Square in Holborn, London, or taken by his daughter to her home at Newburgh Priory and laid in a vault there; it is said that any attempt to open this vault to establish the truth will lead to disaster.
Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.
Oxford Companion to Irish Literature:
Oliver Cromwell |
Cromwell, Oliver (1599-1658), opposition MP under Charles I and Parliament's leading military commander in the Civil War. He ruled Britain and Ireland as Lord Protector from the end of 1653 until his death. In Ireland he is remembered mainly for the period August 1649-May 1650, when he took charge of the Parliamentary army and presided over the capture of Drogheda (11 September 1649) and Wexford (11 October 1649), each followed by the massacre of the garrison and its inhabitants. The period 1649-58 saw the suppression of Catholic resistance [see Rebellion of 1641], the execution, transportation, or imprisonment of substantial numbers of Catholic clergy, and the wholesale confiscation of Catholic lands [see plantations]. Gaelic poets of Cromwell's time saw him as directly responsible for the destruction of the traditional social order.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Oliver Cromwell |
Parliamentary General
The son of a gentry family, he entered Cambridge in 1616 but probably left the next year. Cromwell entered Parliament in 1628, standing firmly with the opposition to Charles I, and was active in the Short and Long Parliaments (1640), although not a conspicuous leader. During the first civil war (see English civil war) he rose rapidly to leadership because of his military ability and his genius for organizing and inspiring the parliamentary armies. His own regiment, the Ironsides, distinguished itself at Marston Moor (1644) and in numerous minor engagements.
In 1644 he pressed for a thorough reorganization of the parliamentary forces and was appointed (1645) second in command to Sir Thomas Fairfax (later Baron Fairfax of Cameron) in the resulting New Model Army, which defeated the king at Naseby in 1645. In the quarrel between the army and Parliament following the first civil war, Cromwell supported the sectarians in the army and approved the seizure (1647) of Charles from Parliament. However, he favored a moderate settlement with the king (as opposed to the radical proposals of the Levelers) until Charles's flight to Carisbrooke (1647) and secret dealings with the Scots caused him to lose all hope of further negotiations with the king.
In the second civil war he repelled the Scottish royalist invasion at Preston (1648). His political power was enhanced by the removal of Presbyterian leaders from Parliament in Pride's Purge (see under Pride, Thomas), and at the king's trial (1649) his was the leading voice demanding execution.
Lord Protector
In 1649, after the proclamation of the republican Commonwealth, Cromwell led a punitive expedition into Ireland, especially remembered for the massacre of the royalist garrison at Drogheda. He then initiated a policy of systematic dispossession of the Irish, transferring their lands to Protestant proprietors. In 1650 he invaded Scotland and routed the Scottish royalists at Dunbar; later he defeated the Scots and Charles II himself at Worcester (1651) and left the rest of the conquest of Scotland to Gen. George Monck.
Cromwell, now virtual dictator of the Commonwealth, dissolved the Rump Parliament in 1653 after it had failed to effect reforms demanded by the army and had sought to perpetuate its power. His attempt to replace it by the Nominated (Barebone's) Parliament (see Barebone, Praise-God), appointed by himself from nominations of the Independent congregations, resulted in a reckless, hopelessly divided body that was finally forced to dissolve itself. A group of army officers then drew up the constitutional document known as the Instrument of Government (1653), by which Cromwell became lord protector (see Protectorate). The Parliament of 1654, which was elected under the terms of the same document, wanted to prepare a new constitution and was soon dissolved.
After that Cromwell resorted to open military government, dividing England into 11 districts, each administered by a major-general. Another, more amenable Parliament was summoned in 1656, and in 1657 it presented to Cromwell a new constitution known as the Humble Petition and Advice and offered him the crown. He declined the crown but accepted (with some modifications) the Humble Petition, which further increased his power and set up a second legislative chamber. The second session of this same Parliament, however, challenged the new constitution, and Cromwell dissolved it (1658) seven months before his death.
Cromwell's foreign policy was governed by the need to expand English trade and prevent the restoration of the Stuarts, and by the desire to build up a Protestant league and enhance the prestige of the English republic. He approved the Navigation Act of 1651, which led to the first (1652-54) of the Dutch Wars, and he pressed the war against Spain (1655-58) as a means of encroaching on Spanish rights of colonization in America. The Dutch war resulted in several important naval victories for the English under Admiral Robert Blake, but the Spanish war, apart from the sinking of a Spanish fleet (also by Blake), brought only Jamaica and imposed a great strain on English finances.
Character and Influence
Opinions of Cromwell have always varied widely. His military skill and force of character are universally recognized. He met the task of holding together the gains of the civil wars and the discordant groups in the Puritan party in what seemed the only practical way. This involved force and intolerance, which were evidently alien to him personally, for he professed love for both toleration and constitutional government. Only Jews and non-Anglican Protestants (excepting Quakers) were tolerated during his rule, however, and he found it impossible to cooperate with Parliament in governing. His government, dependent on his own strong character, costly in its foreign policy, and representing a break in English institutions and a minority religious viewpoint, could not survive him long, and he was succeeded briefly as protector by his son Richard.
Bibliography
See the writings and speeches of Oliver Cromwell (ed. by W. C. Abbott et al., 4 vol., 1937-47); biographies by M. P. Ashley (1969), J. E. C. Hill (1970), C. V. Wedgwood (rev. ed. 1973), and A. Fraser (1973); M. P. Ashley, The Greatness of Oliver Cromwell (1957, repr. 1966); writings on the period by S. R. Gardiner and Sir Charles Firth.
Gale Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World:
Oliver Cromwell |
Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658), military leader and ruler of England. Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, was a descendant of Henry VIII's great minister Thomas Cromwell. A native of Huntingdon, he married Elizabeth Bourchier, the daughter of a London merchant, in 1620. Through her he established connections with the London merchant community and with leading Puritans in Essex. His long, stable marriage produced nine children.
In 1628 he was elected to Parliament for Huntingdon. At about the same time, he underwent a spiritual crisis and religious conversion, from being a conventional Protestant to a passionate, "born-again" Puritan, that shaped the rest of his life. By 1631, however, he had fallen on hard times, and had to move to smaller quarters in St. Ives, where he worked as a yeoman farmer for several years. In 1636 he inherited substantial property, and with this dramatic increase in his income he resumed the status of a minor country gentleman.
Civil War
In 1640 Cromwell was returned as member of Parliament (M.P.) for the borough of Cambridge. He quickly made his mark in the Long Parliament, serving on eighteen important committees. When in August 1642 civil war broke out, he went back to Cambridge to recruit a troop of cavalry. Soon he was promoted from captain to colonel and effectively became the senior army officer in East Anglia. Devoid of military experience, he nevertheless devised a strategic plan for the defense of the region and made it work. In recruiting he insisted that no test except that of godliness be applied to those volunteering for service. "If you choose godly men to be captains of horse," he wrote to the Suffolk committee, "honest men will follow them . . . I had rather have a plain, russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else" (Carlyle, letter XVI, September 1643). In minor engagements Cromwell developed the ability to lead a cavalry charge and then regroup his men and lead them a second and third time against the foe. This would stand him in good stead later at Marston Moor and Naseby.
In August 1643 the Long Parliament created an army in East Anglia under the command of the earl of Manchester. Cromwell was named lieutenant general of the cavalry and Manchester's second-in-command. Early in 1644 he was appointed to the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the chief executive body in charge of the war against the king. His star was on the rise.
At the end of June 1644 the combined armies of the English Parliament and the Scottish Estates laid siege to York. When the king's main field army under Prince Rupert arrived to raise the siege, the result was the greatest of the battles of the civil war, Marston Moor (2 July 1644). Cromwell commanded the left wing of the 28,000-strong allied army and directed the final, decisive charge, scattering the royalist army and killing over four thousand of them. "God made them as stubble to our swords," he wrote afterward. (Carlyle, letter XXI).
The aristocratic generals on the parliamentary side were strangely reluctant to follow up this stunning victory. Open feuding erupted between Essex and Manchester on the one side, and Cromwell and his radical parliamentary allies on the other. The way out of the impasse was a resolution of self-denial (9 December 1644) under which all members of both houses were required to surrender their commissions and make way for new commanders. At the same time the Commons proceeded to construct a new army under centralized command and with solid financing on the ruins of the three older armies of Essex, Manchester, and Waller. By June 1645, on the eve of the battle of Naseby, the post of lieutenant-general of the cavalry of the New Model Army was still vacant. At the insistence of the commanderin-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, Cromwell was allowed to fill the post in defiance of the Self-Denying Ordinance.
He rode onto the battlefield at Naseby on 13 June 1645, and the outcome of the English Civil War was decided the next day in the space of two hours. Cromwell scattered the royalist cavalry facing him and then regrouped to assist Fairfax in shattering the royalist infantry in a great coordinated charge. The next twelve months were little more than a mopping-up operation culminating in the surrender of the royalist headquarters at Oxford and the king's flight to the Scots army.
For Cromwell the New Model Army's unbroken chain of victories was the incontestable proof that the sun of God's favor shone upon them. He used the army's successes to plead for the cause closest to his heart: liberty of conscience. Parliament's response was to thank him for his pains, but to ignore his heartfelt pleas. In June 1646 he returned to his seat in Westminster to join his war party friends in the struggle to win the peace.
When the Presbyterian peace party decided to disband most of the New Model Army and pack the rest off to Ireland to fight the rebels there, Cromwell threw in his lot with the officers and rank-and-file who chose to rebel rather than submit. The king was seized and removed to army headquarters; London was invaded and the Presbyterian ringleaders in Parliament expelled. Charles was offered a settlement—The Heads of the Proposals—more generous than any terms Parliament had put on the table. He chose instead to make a secret agreement with the Scots to renew the war for his English kingdom.
Meanwhile, at Putney, Cromwell and his son-inlaw Henry Ireton faced a challenge from Levellerinspired soldiers and officers disenchanted with his prolonged dallying with the king. With great difficulty he prevented the Army Council from adopting the radically democratic Agreement of the People as the army's preferred constitution for England.
Further political argument was curtailed by the second civil war, which broke out in early 1648. Before setting off to snuff out the brushfires of royalist discontent, Cromwell attended the officers' three-day prayer meeting at Windsor. His call to repentance unleashed a flood of bitter tears from his comrades over the army's failure to follow the ways of God. They then bound themselves to call "Charles Stuart, that man of blood" to account for all his mischief (Allen, p. 5). After quelling the revolts in Wales Cromwell marched north to link up with Lambert, who was guarding the northern approaches against a Scottish invasion. Together they fell upon the Scots at Preston, completely liquidating their dispirited army (17 August 1648). It was the first major battle in which Cromwell had been commander-in-chief.
Regicide and Republic
By the time he arrived back in London the army had published its demand for the king's trial and purged the House of Commons (6 December 1648) for persisting in negotiations with the "man of blood." Cromwell supported these measures, and while he may initially have hoped that the king could be forced to abdicate, when this proved unfeasible he accepted the "cruel necessity" of regicide. No one was more zealous in rounding up signatures for the king's death warrant, and seeing that the beheading actually took place, than Cromwell. King Charles I was beheaded on 30 January 1649.
For the next decade Cromwell was continually torn between a yearning for constitutional respectability on the one hand and a hunger for godly reformation on the other. With Fairfax he marched to Burford in May 1649 to suppress a Levellerinspired army mutiny. Passionately committed to the suppression of the Catholic rebellion in Ireland and the elimination of support for Charles II, he led an expedition there in August. Despite his ruthless massacres at Drogheda and Wexford, the Irish were not subdued until 1652. Cromwell was forced to abandon the siege of Waterford, and at Clonmel he lost two thousand men. Before Ireland's subjugation could be accomplished he was recalled to England to prepare for the military threat from the Scots who had crowned Charles II king.
Marching north he met Leslie's army at Dunbar (3 September 1650), where he won his most sensational victory, in no small part because of his willingness to be guided by his brilliant major-general, John Lambert. The following year (to the day) he crushed Charles II and the last remnants of armed royalism at Worcester.
Back in London he found that Parliament was making no progress toward either constitutional settlement or godly reformation. When at last it was on the verge of passing a bill that would have excluded army officers from future Parliaments while erecting few safeguards against the election of conservatives or royalists, Cromwell expelled the members (20 April 1653), replacing them with a nominated assembly of "saints," that is, Puritan "godly men," commonly known as the Barebones Parliament. Their radicalism proved to be alarming, and within months they were prevailed upon to dissolve themselves.
The Protectorate
Next came a written constitution, the Instrument of Government (December 1653), which provided for a single-chamber Parliament, an elected council of state, and a lord protector. Although he was named to that post for life, Cromwell still had to meet his Parliaments, and he had little control over the makeup of the councils. Far from being a military dictator, and chastened by his many political setbacks, he now described himself as a good constable, set to keep the peace of the parish. During the tenure of the protectorate he formally readmitted the Jews to England, while also leaving Catholics undisturbed in the exercise of their religion. The main thrust of his foreign policy was hostility to Spain. When the expedition to seize Hispaniola ended in failure, Jamaica was taken as the consolation prize (1655).
In 1657, under the Humble Petition and Advice, an upper house was reestablished and Cromwell empowered to name his successor. But with an eye to army opinion and to God, he refused to accept the title of king. By the time he died (3 September 1658), of malaria complicated by pneumonia, the nation was weary of constitutional uncertainty, large standing armies, burdensome taxation, and a bankrupt exchequer. Although Cromwell was one of England's three or four military geniuses, a religious visionary, and a man of towering integrity, in the end he was an indifferent statesman.
Cromwell appears to have nominated his eldest son Richard (1626–1712) as his successor only hours before his death. A man of little military or political experience, Richard lacked totally the forceful personality of his father. He was eventually brought down by the intractable problems he inherited. Politically he found himself thwarted by the radical republicans in Parliament and the grandees in the army. When it came to a trial of strength with the grandees in April 1659, the grandees won hands down. Richard retired to private life, living in exile from 1660 to 1680.
Bibliography
Primary Source
Cromwell, Oliver. The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Edited by W. C. Abbott. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1937–1947.
Secondary Sources
Allen, William. A Faithful Memorial of That Remarkable Meeting of Many Officers of the Army in England, at Windsor Castle, in the Year 1648. London, 1659.
Buchan, John. Oliver Cromwell. London, 1934.
Coward, Barry. Oliver Cromwell. London, 1991.
Davis, J. C. Oliver Cromwell. London, 2001.
Firth, C. H. Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England. London, 1901.
Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell, Our Chief of Men. London, 1973.
Hill, Christopher. God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. London, 1970.
Morrill, John. Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. London, 1990.
Paul, Robert S. The Lord Protector: Religion and Politics in the Life of Oliver Cromwell. London, 1955.
—IAN GENTLES
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: History:
Cromwell, Oliver |
An English Puritan political leader and general of the seventeenth century. He led the army of parliament to victory over King Charles I in the English Civil War and afterward emerged as ruler of the nation under the title Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. A skillful general and administrator, and a ruthless dictator (see dictatorship), he was particularly harsh in his suppression of rebellion in Ireland. After his death, monarchy was soon restored. (See Restoration.)
Quotes By:
Oliver Cromwell |
Quotes:
"Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will."
"No man rises so high as he knows not whither he goes."
"What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted."
"A few honest men are better than numbers."
"Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged."
"I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else."
See more famous quotes by
Oliver Cromwell
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Oliver Cromwell |
| Oliver Cromwell | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper | |
| 1st Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland | |
| In office 16 December 1653 – 3 September 1658 (4 years, 261 days) |
|
| Preceded by | Council of State |
| Succeeded by | Richard Cromwell |
| Member of Parliament for Huntingdon |
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| In office 1628–1629 |
|
| Monarch | Charles I |
| Member of Parliament for Cambridge |
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| In office 1640–1649 |
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| Monarch | Charles I |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 April 1599 Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire |
| Died | 3 September 1658 (aged 59) Whitehall, London |
| Resting place | Tyburn, London |
| Nationality | English |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Bourchier |
| Relations |
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| Children |
|
| Alma mater | Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Farmer; Parliamentarian; Military commander. |
| Religion | Puritan (Independent) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Nickname(s) | Old Ironsides |
| Allegiance | Roundhead |
| Service/branch | Eastern Association (1643–1645); New Model Army (1645–1646) |
| Years of service | 1643–51 |
| Rank | Colonel (1643 – bef. 1644); Lieutenant-General of Horse (bef. 1644–45); Lieutenant-General of Cavalry (1645–46) |
| Commands | Cambridgeshire Ironsides (1643 – bef. 1644); Eastern Association (bef. 1644–45); New Model Army (1645–46) |
| Battles/wars | Gainsborough; Marston Moor; Newbury II; Naseby; Langport; Preston; Dunbar; Worcester |
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 – 3 September 1658) was an English military and political leader who was part of the joint republican, military and parliamentarian effort that overthrew the Stuart monarchy as a result of the English Civil War, and was subsequently invited by his fellow leaders to assume a head of state role in 1653. As such, Cromwell ruled as "Lord Protector" for a five-year segment (1653–58) of the 11-year period of republican Commonwealth and protectorate rule of England, and nominally of Ireland, Wales and Scotland. As one of the commanders of the New Model Army, he played an important role in the defeat of the King's forces, the royalists in the English Civil War. After the execution of King Charles I in 1649, Cromwell dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England, conquered Ireland and Scotland, ruling as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658.
Cromwell was born into the ranks of the middle gentry, and remained relatively obscure for the first 40 years of his life. Along with his brother, Henry, he kept a small holding of chickens and sheep, selling eggs and wool to support himself. His lifestyle resembled that of a yeoman farmer until he received an inheritance from his uncle. After undergoing a religious conversion during the same decade, Cromwell made an independent style of puritanism an essential part of his life. He took a generally (but not completely) tolerant view towards the many Protestant sects of his period.[1] As a ruler he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy and did as much as any English leader to shape the future of the land he governed. But his Commonwealth collapsed after his death and the royal family was restored in 1660. An intensely religious man—a self-styled Puritan Moses — he fervently believed God was guiding his victories.
He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short (1640) and Long (1640–49) Parliaments. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the "Roundheads" or Parliamentarians and became a key military leader. Nicknamed "Old Ironsides", he was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to become one of the principal commanders of the army. In 1649 he was one of the signatories of Charles I's death warrant and was a member of the Rump Parliament (1649–1653), which selected him to take command of the English campaign in Ireland during 1649–50. He led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651. On 20 April 1653 he dismissed the Rump Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as the Barebones Parliament, before being made Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland on 16 December 1653. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. After the Royalists returned to power, they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded.
Cromwell has been one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles—considered a regicidal dictator by some historians such as David Hume and Christopher Hill as quoted by David Sharp,[2][3] he was considered a hero of liberty by others such as Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Rawson Gardiner. In a 2002 BBC poll in Britain, Cromwell was elected as one of the Top 10 Britons of all time.[4] His measures against Catholics in Scotland and Ireland have been characterised as genocidal or near-genocidal.[5] In Ireland his record is harshly criticised.[6]
He was born at Cromwell House in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599,[7] to Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. He was descended from Katherine Cromwell (born c. 1482), an elder sister of Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell (c. 1485–1540), a minister of Henry VIII, whose family acquired considerable wealth by taking over monastery property during the Reformation. Katherine was married to Morgan ap William, son of William ap Yevan of Wales. The family line continued through Richard Williams, alias Cromwell, (c. 1500–1544), Henry Williams, alias Cromwell, (c. 1524–6 January 1604),[8] then to Oliver's father Robert Cromwell (c. 1560–1617), who married Elizabeth Steward (c. 1564–1654) on the day of Oliver Cromwell's birth. Thomas thus was Oliver's great-great-great-uncle.[9]
At the time of Oliver's birth his grandfather, Sir Henry Williams, was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire. Oliver's father Robert was of modest means but still inside the gentry class. As a younger son with many siblings, Robert's inheritance was limited to a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes.[10] Cromwell himself in 1654 said "I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity".[11]
Records survive of Cromwell's baptism on 29 April 1599 at St. John's Church,[12] and his attendance at Huntingdon Grammar School. He went on to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, which was then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos. He left in June 1617 without taking a degree, immediately after the death of his father.[13] Early biographers claim he then attended Lincoln's Inn, but there is no record of him in the Inn's archives. Fraser (1973) concludes he likely did train at one of the London Inns of Court during this time. His grandfather, his father, and two of his uncles had attended Lincoln's Inn, and Cromwell sent his son Richard there in 1647.[14]
Cromwell probably returned home to Huntingdon after his father's death, for his mother was widowed and his seven sisters were unmarried, and he, therefore, was needed at home to help his family.[15]
On 22 August 1620 at St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London,[12] Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier (1598–1665). They had 9 children.
Elizabeth's father, Sir James Bourchier, was a London leather merchant who owned extensive land in Essex and had strong connections with puritan gentry families there. The marriage brought Cromwell into contact with Oliver St John and with leading members of the London merchant community, and behind them the influence of the earls of Warwick and Holland. A place in this influential network would prove crucial to Cromwell’s military and political career.
At this stage, though, there is little evidence of Cromwell's own religion. His letter in 1626 to Henry Downhall, an Arminian minister, suggests that Cromwell had yet to be influenced by radical puritanism.[17] However, there is evidence that Cromwell went through a period of personal crisis during the late 1620s and early 1630s. He sought treatment for valde melancolicus (depression) from London doctor Theodore de Mayerne in 1628. He was also caught up in a fight among the gentry of Huntingdon over a new charter for the town, as a result of which he was called before the Privy Council in 1630.[18]
In 1631 Cromwell sold most of his properties in Huntingdon—probably as a result of the dispute—and moved to a farmstead in St Ives. This was a major step down in society compared with his previous position, and seems to have had a significant emotional and spiritual impact. A 1638 letter survives from Cromwell to his cousin, the wife of Oliver St John, and gives an account of his spiritual awakening. The letter outlines how, having been "the chief of sinners", Cromwell had been called to be among "the congregation of the firstborn".[17] The language of this letter, which is saturated with biblical quotations and which represents Cromwell as having been saved from sin by God's mercy, places his faith firmly within the Independent beliefs that the Reformation had not gone far enough, that much of England was still living in sin, and that Catholic beliefs and practices needed to be fully removed from the church.
In 1636 Cromwell inherited control of various properties in Ely from his uncle on his mother's side, as well as his uncle's job as tithe collector for Ely Cathedral. As a result, his income is likely to have risen to around £300–400 per year;[19] by the end of the 1630s Cromwell had returned to the ranks of acknowledged gentry. He had become a committed puritan and had established important family links to leading families in London and Essex.
Cromwell became the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1628–1629, as a client of the Montagus[clarification needed]. He made little impression: records for the Parliament show only one speech (against the Arminian Bishop Richard Neile), which was poorly received.[20] After dissolving this Parliament, Charles I ruled without a Parliament for the next eleven years. When Charles faced the Scottish rebellion known as the Bishops' Wars, shortage of funds forced him to call a Parliament again in 1640. Cromwell was returned to this Parliament as member for Cambridge, but it lasted for only three weeks and became known as the Short Parliament. Cromwell moved his family from Ely to London in 1640.[21]
A second Parliament was called later the same year, and became known as the Long Parliament. Cromwell was again returned as member for Cambridge. As with the Parliament of 1628–29, it is likely that Cromwell owed his position to the patronage of others, which might explain why in the first week of the Parliament he was in charge of presenting a petition for the release of John Lilburne, who had become a puritan martyr after his arrest for importing religious tracts from Holland. For the first two years of the Long Parliament Cromwell was linked to the godly group of aristocrats in the House of Lords and Members of the House of Commons with whom he had established familial and religious links in the 1630s, such as the Earls of Essex, Warwick and Bedford, Oliver St John, and Viscount Saye and Sele.[22] At this stage, the group had an agenda of godly reformation: the executive checked by regular parliaments, and the moderate extension of liberty of conscience. Cromwell appears to have taken a role in some of this group's political manoeuvres. In May 1641, for example, it was Cromwell who put forward the second reading of the Annual Parliaments Bill and later took a role in drafting the Root and Branch Bill for the abolition of episcopacy.[23]
Failure to resolve the issues before the Long Parliament led to armed conflict between Parliament and Charles I in the autumn of 1642, the beginning of the English Civil War. Before joining Parliament's forces Cromwell's only military experience was in the trained bands, the local county militia. He recruited a cavalry troop in Cambridgeshire after blocking a valuable shipment of silver plate from Cambridge colleges that was meant for the king. Cromwell and his troop then rode to, but arrived too late to take part in the indecisive Battle of Edgehill on 23 October 1642. The troop was recruited to be a full regiment in the winter of 1642 and 1643, making up part of the Eastern Association under the Earl of Manchester. Cromwell gained experience in a number of successful actions in East Anglia in 1643, notably at the Battle of Gainsborough on 28 July.[24] He was subsequently appointed governor of Ely and a colonel in the Eastern Association.
By the time of the Battle of Marston Moor in July 1644, Cromwell had risen to the rank of Lieutenant General of horse in Manchester's army. The success of his cavalry in breaking the ranks of the Royalist cavalry and then attacking their infantry from the rear at Marston Moor was a major factor in the Parliamentarian victory. Cromwell fought at the head of his troops in the battle and was slightly wounded in the neck, stepping away briefly to receive treatment during the battle but returning to help force the victory.[25] After Cromwell's nephew was killed at Marston Moor he wrote a famous letter to his brother-in-law. Marston Moor secured the north of England for the Parliamentarians, but failed to end Royalist resistance.
The indecisive outcome of the Second Battle of Newbury in October meant that by the end of 1644 the war still showed no signs of ending. Cromwell's experience at Newbury, where Manchester had let the King's army slip out of an encircling manoeuvre, led to a serious dispute with Manchester, whom he believed to be less than enthusiastic in his conduct of the war. Manchester later accused Cromwell of recruiting men of "low birth" as officers in the army, to which he replied: "If you choose godly honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them ... I would rather have a plain russet-coated captain who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else".[26] At this time, Cromwell also fell into dispute with Major-General Lawrence Crawford, a Scottish Covenanter Presbyterian attached to Manchester's army, who objected to Cromwell's encouragement of unorthodox Independents and Anabaptists.[27] Cromwell's differences with the Scots, then allies of the Parliament, developed into outright enmity in 1648 and in 1650–51.
Partly in response to the failure to capitalise on their victory at Marston Moor, Parliament passed the Self-Denying Ordinance in early 1645. This forced members of the House of Commons and the Lords, such as Manchester, to choose between civil office and military command. All of them—except for Cromwell, whose commission was given continued extensions and was allowed to remain in parliament—chose to renounce their military positions. The Ordinance also decreed that the army be "remodelled" on a national basis, replacing the old county associations; Cromwell contributed significantly to these military reforms. In April 1645 the New Model Army finally took to the field, with Sir Thomas Fairfax in command and Cromwell as Lieutenant-General of cavalry, and second-in-command. By this time, the Parliamentarians' field army outnumbered the King's by roughly two to one.
In the New Model Army, Oliver Cromwell wanted the men who fought in this war to be strong believers of the church like himself. The men did not have to be from a higher class; they just had to have ability. Cromwell gave his men proper military training and hoped they would be a strong enough army to beat the king.
At the critical Battle of Naseby in June 1645, the New Model Army smashed the king's major army. Cromwell led his wing with great success at Naseby, again routing the Royalist cavalry. At the Battle of Langport on 10 July, Cromwell participated in the defeat of the last sizeable Royalist field army. Naseby and Langport effectively ended the King's hopes of victory, and the subsequent Parliamentarian campaigns involved taking the remaining fortified Royalist positions in the west of England. In October 1645, Cromwell besieged and took the wealthy and formidable Catholic fortress Basing House, later to be accused of killing one hundred of its three-hundred-man Royalist garrison there after its surrender.[28] Cromwell also took part in successful sieges at Bridgwater, Sherborne, Bristol, Devizes, and Winchester, then spent the first half of 1646 mopping up resistance in Devon and Cornwall. Charles I surrendered to the Scots on 5 May 1646, effectively ending the First English Civil War. Cromwell and Fairfax took the formal surrender of the Royalists at Oxford in June
Cromwell had no formal training in military tactics, and followed the common practice of ranging his cavalry in three ranks and pressing forward, relying on impact rather than firepower. His strengths were an instinctive ability to lead and train his men, and his moral authority. In a war fought mostly by amateurs, these strengths were significant and are likely to have contributed to the discipline of his cavalry.[29]
Cromwell also introduced close-order cavalry formations, with troopers riding knee to knee; this was an innovation in England at the time, and was a major factor in his success. He kept his troops close together following skirmishes where they had gained superiority, rather than allowing them to chase opponents off the battlefield. This facilitated further engagements in short order, which allowed greater intensity and quick reaction to battle developments. This style of command was decisive at both Marston Moor and Naseby.[30]
In February 1647 Cromwell suffered from an illness that kept him out of political life for over a month. By the time he had recovered, the Parliamentarians were split over the issue of the king. A majority in both Houses pushed for a settlement that would pay off the Scottish army, disband much of the New Model Army, and restore Charles I in return for a Presbyterian settlement of the Church. Cromwell rejected the Scottish model of Presbyterianism, which threatened to replace one authoritarian hierarchy with another. The New Model Army, radicalised by the failure of the Parliament to pay the wages it was owed, petitioned against these changes, but the Commons declared the petition unlawful. In May 1647 Cromwell was sent to the army's headquarters in Saffron Walden to negotiate with them, but failed to agree.
In June 1647, a troop of cavalry under Cornet George Joyce seized the king from Parliament's imprisonment. After the King was in arm's reach of Cromwell, he was eager to find out what conditions the king would be willing to compromise on if his authority was restored. The king appeared to be willing to compromise, so Cromwell employed his son in law, Henry Ireton to draw up proposals for a constitutional settlement. Proposals were drafted multiple times with different changes until finally the "Head of the Proposals" pleased Cromwell in principle and would allow for further negotiations.[31] It was designed to check the powers of the executive, to set up regularly elected parliaments, and to restore a non-compulsory Episcopalian settlement.[32]
Many in the army, such as the Levellers led by John Lilburne, thought this was not enough and demanded full political equality for all men, leading to tense debates in Putney during the autumn of 1647 between Fairfax, Cromwell and Ireton on the one hand, and radical Levellers like Colonel Rainsborough on the other. The Putney Debates ultimately broke up without reaching a resolution.[33] The debates, and the escape of Charles I from Hampton Court on 12 November, are likely to have hardened Cromwell's resolve against the king.
The failure to conclude a political agreement with the king led eventually to the outbreak of the Second English Civil War in 1648, when the King tried to regain power by force of arms. Cromwell first put down a Royalist uprising in south Wales led by Rowland Laugharne, winning back Chepstow Castle on 25 May and six days later forcing the surrender of Tenby. The castle at Carmarthen was destroyed by burning. The much stronger castle at Pembroke, however, fell only after a siege of eight weeks. Cromwell dealt leniently with the ex-royalist soldiers, but less so with those who had previously been members of the parliamentary army, John Poyer eventually being executed in London after the drawing of lots.[34]
Cromwell then marched north to deal with a pro-Royalist Scottish army (the Engagers) who had invaded England. At Preston, Cromwell, in sole command for the first time and with an army of 9,000, won a brilliant victory against an army twice as large.[35]
During 1648, Cromwell's letters and speeches started to become heavily based on biblical imagery, many of them meditations on the meaning of particular passages. For example, after the battle of Preston, study of Psalms 17 and 105 led him to tell Parliament that "they that are implacable and will not leave troubling the land may be speedily destroyed out of the land". A letter to Oliver St John in September 1648 urged him to read Isaiah 8, in which the kingdom falls and only the godly survive. This letter suggests that it was Cromwell's faith, rather than a commitment to radical politics, coupled with Parliament's decision to engage in negotiations with the king at the Treaty of Newport, that convinced him that God had spoken against both the king and Parliament as lawful authorities. For Cromwell, the army was now God's chosen instrument.[36] The episode shows Cromwell’s firm belief in "Providentialism"—that God was actively directing the affairs of the world, through the actions of "chosen people" (whom God had "provided" for such purposes). Cromwell believed, during the Civil Wars, that he was one of these people, and he interpreted victories as indications of God's approval of his actions, and defeats as signs that God was directing him in another direction.
In December 1648, those members of parliament who wished to continue negotiations with the king were prevented from sitting for parliament by a troop of soldiers headed by Colonel Thomas Pride, an episode soon to be known as Pride's Purge. Thus weakened, the remaining body of MPs, known as the Rump, agreed that Charles should be tried on a charge of treason. Cromwell was still in the north of England, dealing with Royalist resistance, when these events took place, but then returned to London. On the day after Pride's Purge, he became a determined supporter of those pushing for the king's trial and execution, believing that killing Charles was the only way to end the civil wars. The death warrant for Charles was eventually signed by 59 of the trying court's members, including Cromwell (who was the third to sign it); Fairfax conspicuously refused to sign. Charles I was executed on 30 January 1649.
After the execution of the King, a republic was declared, known as the Commonwealth of England. The Rump Parliament exercised both executive and legislative powers, with a smaller Council of State also having some executive functions. Cromwell remained a member of the Rump and was appointed a member of the Council. In the early months after the execution of Charles I, Cromwell tried but failed to unite the original group of 'Royal Independents' centred around St John and Saye and Sele, which had fractured during 1648. Cromwell had been connected to this group since before the outbreak of war in 1642 and had been closely associated with them during the 1640s. However, only St John was persuaded to retain his seat in Parliament. The Royalists, meanwhile, had regrouped in Ireland, having signed a treaty with the Irish Confederate Catholics. In March, Cromwell was chosen by the Rump to command a campaign against them. Preparations for an invasion of Ireland occupied Cromwell in the subsequent months. In the latter part of the 1640s, Cromwell came across political dissidence in his New Model Army. The “Leveller,” or “Agitator,” movement was a political movement that emphasized popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law, and religious tolerance. These sentiments were expressed in the manifesto “Agreement of the People” in 1647. Cromwell and the rest of the Grandees disagreed with these sentiments in that they gave too much freedom to the people; they believed that the vote should only extend to the landowners. In the Putney Debates of 1647, the two groups debated these topics in hopes of forming a new constitution for England. There were rebellions and mutinies following the debates, and in 1649, the Bishopsgate mutiny resulted in the execution of Leveller Robert Lockyer by firing squad. The next month, the Banbury mutiny occurred with similar results. Cromwell led the charge in quelling these rebellions. After quelling Leveller mutinies within the English army at Andover and Burford in May, Cromwell departed for Ireland from Bristol at the end of July.[37]
Cromwell led a Parliamentary invasion of Ireland from 1649–50. Parliament's key opposition was the military threat posed by the alliance of the Irish Confederate Catholics and English royalists (signed in 1649). The Confederate-Royalist alliance was judged to be the biggest single threat facing the Commonwealth. However, the political situation in Ireland in 1649 was extremely fractured: there were also separate forces of Irish Catholics who were opposed to the royalist alliance, and Protestant royalist forces that were gradually moving towards Parliament. Cromwell said in a speech to the army Council on 23 March that "I had rather be overthrown by a Cavalierish interest than a Scotch interest; I had rather be overthrown by a Scotch interest than an Irish interest and I think of all this is the most dangerous".[38]
Cromwell's hostility to the Irish was religious as well as political. He was passionately opposed to the Catholic Church, which he saw as denying the primacy of the Bible in favour of papal and clerical authority, and which he blamed for suspected tyranny and persecution of Protestants in Europe.[39] Cromwell's association of Catholicism with persecution was deepened with the Irish Rebellion of 1641. This rebellion, although intended to be bloodless, was marked by massacres of English and Scottish Protestant settlers by Irish and Old English, and Highland Scot Catholics in Ireland. These settlers had settled on land seized from former, native Catholic owners to make way for the non-native Protestants. These factors contributed to the brutality of the Cromwell military campaign in Ireland.[40]
Parliament had planned to re-conquer Ireland since 1641 and had already sent an invasion force there in 1647. Cromwell's invasion of 1649 was much larger and, with the civil war in England over, could be regularly reinforced and re-supplied. His nine month military campaign was brief and effective, though it did not end the war in Ireland. Before his invasion, Parliamentarian forces held only outposts in Dublin and Derry. When he departed Ireland, they occupied most of the eastern and northern parts of the country. After his landing at Dublin on 15 August 1649 (itself only recently defended from an Irish and English Royalist attack at the Battle of Rathmines), Cromwell took the fortified port towns of Drogheda and Wexford to secure logistical supply from England. At the Siege of Drogheda in September 1649, Cromwell's troops massacred nearly 3,500 people after the town's capture—comprising around 2,700 Royalist soldiers and all the men in the town carrying arms, including some civilians, prisoners and Roman Catholic priests.[41] Cromwell wrote afterwards that:
I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands in so much innocent blood and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are satisfactory grounds for such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.[42]
At the Siege of Wexford in October, another massacre took place under confused circumstances. While Cromwell was apparently trying to negotiate surrender terms, some of his soldiers broke into the town, massacred 2,000 Irish troops and up to 1,500 civilians, and burned much of the town.[43] No disciplinary actions were taken against his forces subsequent to this second massacre.
After the taking of Drogheda, Cromwell sent a column north to Ulster to secure the north of the country and went on to besiege Waterford, Kilkenny and Clonmel in Ireland's south-east. Kilkenny surrendered on terms, as did many other towns like New Ross and Carlow, but Cromwell failed to take Waterford, and at the siege of Clonmel in May 1650 he lost up to 2,000 men in abortive assaults before the town surrendered.[44]
One of his major victories in Ireland was diplomatic rather than military. With the help of Roger Boyle, 1st Earl of Orrery, Cromwell persuaded the Protestant Royalist troops in Cork to change sides and fight with the Parliament.[45] At this point, word reached Cromwell that Charles II had landed in Scotland and been proclaimed king by the Covenanter regime. Cromwell therefore returned to England from Youghal on 26 May 1650 to counter this threat.[46]
The Parliamentarian conquest of Ireland dragged on for almost three years after Cromwell's departure. The campaigns under Cromwell's successors Henry Ireton and Edmund Ludlow mostly consisted of long sieges of fortified cities and guerrilla warfare in the countryside. The last Catholic-held town, Galway, surrendered in April 1652 and the last Irish troops capitulated in April of the following year.[44]
In the wake of the Commonwealth's conquest, the public practice of Catholicism was banned and Catholic priests were murdered when captured.[47] All Catholic-owned land was confiscated in the Act for the Settlement of Ireland 1652 and given to Scottish and English settlers, the Parliament's financial creditors and Parliamentary soldiers. The remaining Catholic landowners were allocated poorer land in the province of Connacht—this led to the Cromwellian attributed phrase "To hell or to Connacht". Under the Commonwealth, Catholic landownership dropped from 60% of the total to just 8%.
The extent of Cromwell's brutality[48][49] in Ireland has been strongly debated. Some historians argue that Cromwell never accepted that he was responsible for the killing of civilians in Ireland, claiming that he had acted harshly but only against those "in arms".[50] Other historians, however, cite Cromwell's contemporary reports to London including that of 27 September 1649 in which he lists the slaying of 3,000 military personnel, followed by the phrase "and many inhabitants".[51] In September 1649, he justified his sacking of Drogheda as revenge for the massacres of Protestant settlers in Ulster in 1641, calling the massacre "the righteous judgement of God on these barbarous wretches, who have imbued their hands with so much innocent blood."[41] However, Drogheda had never been held by the rebels in 1641—many of its garrison were in fact English royalists. On the other hand, the worst atrocities committed in Ireland, such as mass evictions, killings and deportation of over 50,000 men, women and children as POW's and indentured servants[52] to Bermuda and Barbados, were carried out under the command of other generals after Cromwell had left for England.[53] On entering Ireland, Cromwell demanded that no supplies were to be seized from the civilian inhabitants and that everything should be fairly purchased; "I do hereby warn....all Officers, Soldiers and others under my command not to do any wrong or violence toward Country People or any persons whatsoever, unless they be actually in arms or office with the enemy.....as they shall answer to the contrary at their utmost peril." Several English soldiers were hanged for disobeying these orders.[54]
While the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford were in some ways typical of the day, especially in the context of the recently ended Thirty Years War[55] which reduced the male population of Germany by up to half, [56] there are few comparable incidents during Parliament's campaigns in England or Scotland. One possible comparison is Cromwell's Siege of Basing House in 1645—the seat of the prominent Catholic the Marquess of Winchester—which resulted in about 100 of the garrison of 400 being killed after being refused quarter. Contemporaries also reported civilian casualties, six Catholic priests and a woman.[57] However, the scale of the deaths at Basing House was much smaller.[58] Cromwell himself said of the slaughter at Drogheda in his first letter back to the Council of State: "I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives."[59] Cromwell's orders—"in the heat of the action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town"—followed a request for surrender at the start of the siege, which was refused. The military protocol of the day was that a town or garrison that rejected the chance to surrender was not entitled to quarter.[60] The refusal of the garrison at Drogheda to do this, even after the walls had been breached, was to Cromwell justification for the massacre.[61] Where Cromwell negotiated the surrender of fortified towns, as at Carlow, New Ross, and Clonmel, he respected the terms of surrender and protected the lives and property of the townspeople.[62] At Wexford, Cromwell again began negotiations for surrender. However, the captain of Wexford castle surrendered during the middle of the negotiations, and in the confusion some of his troops began indiscriminate killing and looting.[63] Amateur[64] Irish historian (and Drogheda native) Tom Reilly has taken this argument further, claiming that the accepted versions of the campaigns in Drogheda and Wexford in which wholesale killings of civilians on Cromwell's orders took place "were a 19th century fiction".[54] However, Reilly's conclusions have been rejected by other scholars, while validated by others.[65][66][67][68]
Although Cromwell's time spent on campaign in Ireland was limited, and although he did not take on executive powers until 1653, he is often the central focus of wider debates about whether, as historians such as Mark Levene and John Morrill suggest, the Commonwealth conducted a deliberate programme of ethnic cleansing in Ireland.[69] By the end of the Cromwellian campaign and settlement there had been extensive dispossession of landowners who were Catholic, and a huge drop in population.[70]
The sieges of Drogheda and Wexford have been prominently mentioned in histories and literature up to the present day. James Joyce, for example, mentioned Drogheda in his novel Ulysses: "What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text God is love pasted round the mouth of his cannon?" Similarly, Winston Churchill described the impact of Cromwell on Anglo-Irish relations:
...upon all of these Cromwell's record was a lasting bane. By an uncompleted process of terror, by an iniquitous land settlement, by the virtual proscription of the Catholic religion, by the bloody deeds already described, he cut new gulfs between the nations and the creeds. 'Hell or Connaught' were the terms he thrust upon the native inhabitants, and they for their part, across three hundred years, have used as their keenest expression of hatred 'The Curse of Cromwell on you.' ... Upon all of us there still lies 'the curse of Cromwell'."[71]
Cromwell is still a figure of hatred in Ireland, his name being associated with massacre, religious persecution, and mass dispossession of the Catholic community there. As Churchill notes, a traditional Irish curse was mallacht Chromail ort or "the curse of Cromwell upon you".
The key surviving statement of Cromwell's own views on the conquest of Ireland is his Declaration of the lord lieutenant of Ireland for the undeceiving of deluded and seduced people of January 1650.[72] In this he was scathing about Catholicism, saying that "I shall not, where I have the power... suffer the exercise of the Mass."[73] However, he also declared that: "as for the people, what thoughts they have in the matter of religion in their own breasts I cannot reach; but I shall think it my duty, if they walk honestly and peaceably, not to cause them in the least to suffer for the same."[73] Private soldiers who surrendered their arms "and shall live peaceably and honestly at their several homes, they shall be permitted so to do."[74] As with many incidents in Cromwell's career, there is debate about the extent of his sincerity in making these public statements: the Rump Parliament's later Act of Settlement of 1652 set out a much harsher policy of execution and confiscation of property of anyone who had supported the uprisings.
Cromwell left Ireland in May 1650 and several months later invaded Scotland after the Scots had proclaimed Charles I's son Charles II as king. Cromwell was much less hostile to Scottish Presbyterians, some of whom had been his allies in the First English Civil War, than he was to Irish Catholics. He described the Scots as a people "fearing His [God's] name, though deceived".[75] He made a famous appeal to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, urging them to see the error of the royal alliance—"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."[76] The Scots' reply was robust: "would you have us to be sceptics in our religion?" This decision to negotiate with Charles II led Cromwell to believe that war was necessary.[77]
His appeal rejected, Cromwell's veteran troops went on to invade Scotland. At first, the campaign went badly, as Cromwell's men were short of supplies and held up at fortifications manned by Scottish troops under David Leslie. Sickness began to spread in the ranks. Cromwell was on the brink of evacuating his army by sea from Dunbar. However, on 3 September 1650, unexpectedly, Cromwell smashed the main army at the Battle of Dunbar, killing 4,000 Scottish soldiers, taking another 10,000 prisoner and then capturing the Scottish capital of Edinburgh.[78] The victory was of such a magnitude that Cromwell called it, "A high act of the Lord's Providence to us [and] one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people".[78]
The following year, Charles II and his Scottish allies made a desperate attempt to invade England and capture London while Cromwell was engaged in Scotland. Cromwell followed them south and caught them at Worcester on 3 September 1651. At the subsequent Battle of Worcester, Cromwell's forces destroyed the last major Scottish Royalist army. Charles II barely escaped capture, and subsequently fled to exile in France and the Netherlands, where he would remain until 1660.[79] Many of the Scottish prisoners of war taken in the campaigns died of disease, and others were sent as indentured labourers to the colonies. To fight the battle, Cromwell organised an envelopment followed by a multi pronged coordinated attack on Worcester which involved his forces attacking from three directions with two rivers partitioning his force. During the battle, Cromwell switched his reserves from one side of the river Severn to the other and back again. The editor of the Great Rebellion article of the Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition noted that compared to the early Civil War Battle of Turnham Green, Worcester was a battle of manoeuvre, which the English parliamentary armies at the start of the war were unable to execute, and agreed with a German critic that it was a prototype for the Battle of Sedan (1870).[80]
In the final stages of the Scottish campaign, Cromwell's men, under George Monck, sacked the town of Dundee, killing up to 2,000 of its population of 12,000 and destroying the 60 ships in the city's harbour.[81] During the Commonwealth, Scotland was ruled from England, and was kept under military occupation, with a line of fortifications sealing off the Highlands, which had provided manpower for Royalist armies in Scotland, from the rest of the country. The north west Highlands was the scene of another pro-royalist uprising in 1653–55, which was only put down with deployment of 6,000 English troops there.[82] Presbyterianism was allowed to be practised as before, but the Kirk (the Scottish church) did not have the backing of the civil courts to impose its rulings, as it had previously.[83]
Cromwell's conquest, unwelcome as it was, left no significant lasting legacy of bitterness in Scotland. The rule of the Commonwealth and Protectorate was, the Highlands aside, largely peaceful. Moreover, there was no wholesale confiscations of land or property. Three out of every four Justices of the Peace in Commonwealth Scotland were Scots and the country was governed jointly by the English military authorities and a Scottish Council of State.[84] Although not often favourably regarded, Cromwell's name rarely meets the hatred in Scotland that it does in Ireland.
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From the middle of 1649 until 1651, Cromwell was away on campaign. In the meantime, with the king gone (and with him their common cause), the various factions in Parliament began to engage in infighting. On his return, Cromwell tried to galvanise the Rump into setting dates for new elections, uniting the three kingdoms under one polity, and to put in place a broad-brush, tolerant national church. However, the Rump vacillated in setting election dates, and although it put in place a basic liberty of conscience, it failed to produce an alternative for tithes or dismantle other aspects of the existing religious settlement. In frustration, in April 1653 Cromwell demanded that the Rump establish a caretaker government of 40 members (drawn both from the Rump and the army) and then abdicate. However, the Rump returned to debating its own bill for a new government.[85] Cromwell was so angered by this that on 20 April 1653, supported by about forty musketeers, he cleared the chamber and dissolved the Parliament by force. Several accounts exist of this incident: in one, Cromwell is supposed to have said "you are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament; I will put an end to your sitting".[86] At least two accounts agree that Cromwell snatched up the mace, symbol of Parliament's power, and demanded that the "bauble" be taken away.[87] Cromwell's troops were commanded by Charles Worsley, later one of his Major Generals and one of his most trusted advisors, to whom he entrusted the mace.
After the dissolution of the Rump, power passed temporarily to a council that debated what form the constitution should take. They took up the suggestion of Major-General Thomas Harrison for a "sanhedrin" of saints. Although Cromwell did not subscribe to Harrison's apocalyptic, Fifth Monarchist beliefs—which saw a sanhedrin as the starting point for Christ's rule on earth—he was attracted by the idea of an assembly made up of men chosen for their religious credentials. In his speech at the opening of the assembly on 4 July 1653, Cromwell thanked God’s providence that he believed had brought England to this point and set out their divine mission: "truly God hath called you to this work by, I think, as wonderful providences as ever passed upon the sons of men in so short a time."[88] Sometimes known as the Parliament of Saints or more commonly the Nominated Assembly, it was also called the Barebones Parliament after one of its members, Praise-God Barbon. The assembly was tasked with finding a permanent constitutional and religious settlement (Cromwell was invited to be a member but declined). However, the revelation that a considerably larger segment of the membership than had been believed were the radical Fifth Monarchists led to its members voting to dissolve it on 12 December 1653, out of fear of what the radicals might do if they took control of the Assembly.[89]
| Royal styles of Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of the Commonwealth |
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After the dissolution of the Barebones Parliament, John Lambert put forward a new constitution known as the Instrument of Government, closely modelled on the Heads of Proposals. It made Cromwell Lord Protector for life to undertake “the chief magistracy and the administration of government”. Cromwell was sworn in as Lord Protector on 16 December 1653, with a ceremony in which he wore plain black clothing, rather than any monarchical regalia.[90] However, from this point on Cromwell signed his name 'Oliver P', the P being an abbreviation for Protector, which was similar to the style of monarchs who used an R to mean Rex or Regina, and it soon became the norm for others to address him as "Your Highness".[91] As Protector, he had the power to call and dissolve parliaments but was obliged under the Instrument to seek the majority vote of a Council of State. Nevertheless, Cromwell's power was buttressed by his continuing popularity among the army. As the Lord Protector he was paid £100,000 a year.[92]
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Cromwell had two key objectives as Lord Protector. The first was "healing and settling" the nation after the chaos of the civil wars and the regicide, which meant establishing a stable form for the new government to take.[93] Although Cromwell declared to the first Protectorate Parliament that, "Government by one man and a parliament is fundamental," in practice social priorities took precedence over forms of government. Such forms were, he said, "but ... dross and dung in comparison of Christ".[94] The social priorities did not, despite the revolutionary nature of the government, include any meaningful attempt to reform the social order. Cromwell declared, "A nobleman, a gentleman, a yeoman; the distinction of these: that is a good interest of the nation, and a great one!",[95] Small-scale reform such as that carried out on the judicial system were outweighed by attempts to restore order to English politics. Direct taxation was reduced slightly and peace was made with the Dutch, ending the First Anglo-Dutch War.
England's American colonies in this period consisted of the New England Confederation, the Providence Plantation, the Virginia Colony and the Maryland Colony. Cromwell soon secured the submission of these and largely left them to their own affairs, intervening only to curb his fellow Puritans who were usurping control over the Maryland Colony at the Battle of the Severn, by his confirming the former Catholic proprietorship and edict of tolerance there. Of all the English dominions, Virginia was the most resentful of Cromwell's rule, and Cavalier emigration there mushroomed during the Protectorate.
Cromwell famously stressed the quest to restore order in his speech to the first Protectorate parliament at its inaugural meeting on 3 September 1654. He declared that "healing and settling" were the "great end of your meeting".[96] However, the Parliament was quickly dominated by those pushing for more radical, properly republican reforms. After some initial gestures approving appointments previously made by Cromwell, the Parliament began to work on a radical programme of constitutional reform. Rather than opposing Parliament’s bill, Cromwell dissolved them on 22 January 1655.
Cromwell's second objective was spiritual and moral reform. He aimed to restore liberty of conscience and promote both outward and inward godliness throughout England.[97] During the early months of the Protectorate, a set of "triers" was established to assess the suitability of future parish ministers, and a related set of "ejectors" was set up to dismiss ministers and schoolmasters who were deemed unsuitable for office. The triers and the ejectors were intended to be at the vanguard of Cromwell's reform of parish worship. This second objective is also the context in which to see the constitutional experiment of the Major Generals that followed the dissolution of the first Protectorate Parliament. After a royalist uprising in March 1655, led by Sir John Penruddock, Cromwell (influenced by Lambert) divided England into military districts ruled by Army Major Generals who answered only to him. The 15 major generals and deputy major generals—called "godly governors"—were central not only to national security, but Cromwell's crusade to reform the nation's morals. The generals not only supervised militia forces and security commissions, but collected taxes and ensured support for the government in the English and Welsh provinces. Commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth were appointed to work with them in every county. While a few of these commissioners were career politicians, most were zealous puritans who welcomed the major-generals with open arms and embraced their work with enthusiasm. However, the major-generals lasted less than a year. Many feared they threatened their reform efforts and authority. Their position was further harmed by a tax proposal by Major General John Desborough to provide financial backing for their work, which the second Protectorate parliament—instated in September 1656—voted down for fear of a permanent military state. Ultimately, however, Cromwell's failure to support his men, sacrificing them to his opponents, caused their demise. Their activities between November 1655 and September 1656 had, however, reopened the wounds of the 1640s and deepened antipathies to the regime.[98]
As Lord Protector, Cromwell was aware of the contribution the Jewish community made to the economic success of Holland, now England's leading commercial rival. It was this—allied to Cromwell's tolerance of the right to private worship of those who fell outside evangelical Puritanism—that led to his encouraging Jews to return to England in 1657, over 350 years after their banishment by Edward I, in the hope that they would help speed up the recovery of the country after the disruption of the Civil Wars.[99]
In 1657, Cromwell was offered the crown by Parliament as part of a revised constitutional settlement, presenting him with a dilemma, since he had been "instrumental" in abolishing the monarchy. Cromwell agonised for six weeks over the offer. He was attracted by the prospect of stability it held out, but in a speech on 13 April 1657 he made clear that God's providence had spoken against the office of king: “I would not seek to set up that which Providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust, and I would not build Jericho again”.[100] The reference to Jericho harks back to a previous occasion on which Cromwell had wrestled with his conscience when the news reached England of the defeat of an expedition against the Spanish-held island of Hispaniola in the West Indies in 1655—comparing himself to Achan, who had brought the Israelites defeat after bringing plunder back to camp after the capture of Jericho.[101] Instead, Cromwell was ceremonially re-installed as Lord Protector on 26 June 1657 at Westminster Hall, sitting upon King Edward's Chair which was specially moved from Westminster Abbey for the occasion. The event in part echoed a coronation, utilising many of its symbols and regalia, such as a purple ermine-lined robe, a sword of justice and a sceptre (but not a crown or an orb). But, most notably, the office of Lord Protector was still not to become hereditary, though Cromwell was now able to nominate his own successor. Cromwell's new rights and powers were laid out in the Humble Petition and Advice, a legislative instrument which replaced the Instrument of Government. Despite failing to restore the Crown, this new constitution did set up many of the vestiges of the ancient constitution including a house of life peers (in place of the House of Lords). In the Humble Petition it was called the Other House as the Commons could not agree on a suitable name. Furthermore, Oliver Cromwell increasingly took on more of the trappings of monarchy. In particular, he created two baronages after the acceptance of the Humble Petition and Advice—Charles Howard was made Viscount Morpeth and Baron Gisland in July 1657 and Edmund Dunch was created Baron Burnell of East Wittenham in April 1658. Cromwell himself, however, was at pains to minimise his role, describing himself as a constable or watchman.
Cromwell is thought to have suffered from malaria and from "stone", a common term for urinary/kidney infections. In 1658 he was struck by a sudden bout of malarial fever, followed directly by illness symptomatic of a urinary or kidney complaint. A Venetian physician tracked Cromwell's final illness, saying Cromwell's personal physicians were mismanaging his health, leading to a rapid decline and death.[citation needed] The decline may also have been hastened by the death of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, in August. He died aged 59 at Whitehall on Friday 3 September 1658, the anniversary of his great victories at Dunbar and Worcester.[102] The most likely cause of Cromwell's death was septicaemia following his urinary infection. He was buried with great ceremony, with an elaborate funeral based on that of James I, at Westminster Abbey,[103] his daughter Elizabeth also being buried there.[104]
He was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard. Although Richard was not entirely without ability, he had no power base in either Parliament or the Army, and was forced to resign in May 1659, ending the Protectorate. There was no clear leadership from the various factions that jostled for power during the short lived reinstated Commonwealth, so George Monck, the English governor of Scotland, at the head of New Model Army regiments was able to march on London, and restore the Long Parliament. Under Monck's watchful eye the necessary constitutional adjustments were made so that in 1660 Charles II could be invited back from exile to be king under a restored monarchy.
On 30 January 1661, (symbolically the 12th anniversary of the execution of Charles I), Oliver Cromwell's body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution, as were the remains of Robert Blake, John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. (The body of Cromwell's daughter was allowed to remain buried in the Abbey.) His body was hanged in chains at Tyburn. Finally, his disinterred body was thrown into a pit, while his severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685.
However, many people began to question whether or not the body mutilated at Tyburn was in fact that of Cromwell. These doubts arose because it was assumed that between his death in September 1658 and the exhumation of January 1661, Cromwell’s body was buried and reburied in several places in order to protect it from vengeful royalists. The stories suggest that his bodily remains are buried in London, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire or Yorkshire.[105] It continues to be questioned whether the body mutilated at Tyburn was in fact that of Oliver Cromwell.
Ironically the Cromwell vault was later used as a burial place for Charles II’s illegitimate descendants.[106] Afterwards the head changed hands several times, including the sale in 1814 to a man named Josiah Henry Wilkinson,[107][108] before eventually being buried in the grounds of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 1960.[109][110]
During his lifetime, some tracts painted him as a hypocrite motivated by power—for example, The Machiavilian Cromwell and The Juglers Discovered, both part of an attack on Cromwell by the Levellers after 1647, present him as a Machiavellian figure.[111] More positive contemporary assessments—for instance, John Spittlehouse in A Warning Piece Discharged—typically compared him to Moses, rescuing the English by taking them safely through the Red Sea of the civil wars.[112] Several biographies were published soon after his death. An example is The Perfect Politician, which described how Cromwell "loved men more than books" and gave a nuanced assessment of him as an energetic campaigner for liberty of conscience brought down by pride and ambition.[113] An equally nuanced but less positive assessment was published in 1667 by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, in his History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. Clarendon famously declared that Cromwell "will be looked upon by posterity as a brave bad man".[114] He argued that Cromwell's rise to power had been helped not only by his great spirit and energy, but also by his ruthlessness. Clarendon was not one of Cromwell's confidantes, and his account was written after the Restoration of the monarchy.[114]
During the early eighteenth century, Cromwell's image began to be adopted and reshaped by the Whigs, as part of a wider project to give their political objectives historical legitimacy. A version of Edmund Ludlow’s Memoirs, re-written by John Toland to excise the radical Puritanical elements and replace them with a Whiggish brand of republicanism, presented the Cromwellian Protectorate as a military tyranny. Through Ludlow, Toland portrayed Cromwell as a despot who crushed the beginnings of democratic rule in the 1640s.[115]
During the early nineteenth century, Cromwell began to be adopted by Romantic artists and poets. Thomas Carlyle continued this reassessment of Cromwell in the 1840s by presenting him as a hero in the battle between good and evil and a model for restoring morality to an age that Carlyle believed to have been dominated by timidity, meaningless rhetoric, and moral compromise. Cromwell's actions, including his campaigns in Ireland and his dissolution of the Long Parliament, according to Carlyle, had to be appreciated and praised as a whole.
By the late 19th century, Carlyle's portrayal of Cromwell, stressing the centrality of puritan morality and earnestness, had become assimilated into Whig and Liberal historiography. The Oxford civil war historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner concluded that "the man—it is ever so with the noblest—was greater than his work".[116] Gardiner stressed Cromwell’s dynamic and mercurial character, and his role in dismantling absolute monarchy, while underestimating Cromwell’s religious conviction.[117] Cromwell’s foreign policy also provided an attractive forerunner of Victorian imperial expansion, with Gardiner stressing his “constancy of effort to make England great by land and sea”.[118]
During the first half of the twentieth century, Cromwell's reputation was often influenced by the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany and in Italy. Wilbur Cortez Abbott, for example—a Harvard historian—devoted much of his career to compiling and editing a multi-volume collection of Cromwell's letters and speeches. In this work, which was published between 1937 and 1947, Abbott began to argue that Cromwell was a proto-fascist. However, subsequent historians such as John Morrill have criticised both Abbott's interpretation of Cromwell and his editorial approach.[119] Ernest Barker similarly compared the Independents to the Nazis. Nevertheless, not all historical comparisons made at this time drew on contemporary military dictators.
Late twentieth century historians re-examined the nature of Cromwell's faith and of his authoritarian regime. Austin Woolrych explored the issue of "dictatorship" in depth, arguing that Cromwell was subject to two conflicting forces: his obligation to the army and his desire to achieve a lasting settlement by winning back the confidence of the political nation as a whole. Woolrych argued that the dictatorial elements of Cromwell's rule stemmed not so much from its military origins or the participation of army officers in civil government, as from his constant commitment to the interest of the people of God and his conviction that suppressing vice and encouraging virtue constituted the chief end of government.[120]
Historians such as John Morrill, Blair Worden and J. C. Davis have developed this theme, revealing the extent to which Cromwell’s writing and speeches are suffused with biblical references, and arguing that his radical actions were driven by his zeal for godly reformation.[121]
The noted 19th century engineer Sir Richard Tangye was a noted Cromwell enthusiast, and noted collector of Cromwell manuscripts and memorabilia.[122] His collection included many rare manuscripts and printed books, medals, paintings, objets d'art and a bizarre assemblage of "relics." This includes Cromwell's bible, button, coffin plate, death mask and funeral escutcheon. On Tangye's death, the entire collection was donated to the Museum of London, where it can still be seen today.[123]
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[The Act of Settlement of Ireland], and the parliamentary legislation which succeeded it the following year, is the nearest thing on paper in the English, and more broadly British, domestic record, to a programme of state-sanctioned and systematic ethnic cleansing of another people. The fact that it did not include 'total' genocide in its remit, or that it failed to put into practice the vast majority of its proposed expulsions, ultimately, however, says less about the lethal determination of its makers and more about the political, structural and financial weakness of the early modern English state.
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| Parliament of England | ||
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| Preceded by Arthur Mainwaring John Goldsborough |
Member of Parliament for Huntingdon 1628–1629 With: James Montagu |
Succeeded by Parliament suspended until 1640 |
| Preceded by Parliament suspended since 1629 |
Member of Parliament for Cambridge 1640–1653 With: Thomas Meautys 1640 John Lowry 1640–1653 |
Succeeded by Not represented in Barebones Parliament |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by Council of State |
Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland 16 December 1653 – 3 September 1658 |
Succeeded by Richard Cromwell |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by Earl of Pembroke |
Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1650–1657 |
Succeeded by Richard Cromwell |
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17. Katherine Cromwell | |||||||||||||||
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4. Sir Henry Williams |
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2. Robert Cromwell |
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20. Sir Thomas Warren | |||||||||||||||
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10. Sir Ralph Warren |
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5. Joan Warren |
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22. John Lake | |||||||||||||||
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11. Joan Lake |
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1. Oliver Cromwell |
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3. Elizabeth Steward |
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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Best of the Web:
Oliver Cromwell |
Some good "Oliver Cromwell" pages on the web:
 Royalty www.genuki.org.uk |
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| Dunbar (burgh of southeast Scotland on the North Sea) |
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