HIST362: Modern Revolutions

Unfinished portrait miniature of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1657.

Oliver Cromwell (April 25, 1599 – September 3, 1658) was an English military leader and politician. After leading the overthrow of the British monarchy, he ruled England, Scotland, and Ireland as Lord Protector from December 16, 1653 until his death almost five years later, which is believed to have been due either to malaria or poisoning.

He was born in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. He matriculated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, which was then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos. Cromwell left without taking a degree, probably due to the death of his father. He was appointed Justice of the Peace, the local magistrate.

At the outset of the English Civil War, Cromwell began his military career by raising a cavalry troop, known as the Ironsides Cavalry, which became the basis of his New Model Army. Cromwell's leadership in the Battle of Marston Moor (in 1644) brought him to great prominence. As a leader of the Parliamentarian cause, and commander of the New Model Army, (informally known as the Roundheads), he defeated King Charles I, thus bringing to an end the monarchy's claims to absolute power.

Cromwell was a religious man, and had a profound sense of divine destiny, having had a conversion experience at the age of 27. As a magistrate, he would round up men who were drinking in bars and compel them to sing hymns. A puritan, he disliked the ritual and ceremonies and decorations of the established church, objected to the authority of bishops and of the King in religious affairs, but supported a state church along Presbyterian or Congregational lines. Religious freedom was an important plank in his portfolio of beliefs, although he did not tolerate Catholics. In 1656 he officially allowed Jews to re-settle in England. When the Zionist Organization petitioned the post World War I Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for a homeland in Palestine, it specifically requested that this task should be mandated to Britain because of "the peculiar relationship of England to the Palestinian problem" and because "the return of the Jews to Zion has not only been a remarkable feature in English literature, but in the domain of statecraft it has played its part, beginning with the readmission of the Jews under Cromwell". Some scholars suggest that Cromwell thought that the New Jerusalem might be established on British soil. Some trace British Zionism, belief that the British nation has succeeded the Jewish people as God's chosen race, from Cromwell. Cromwell was a quiet and sober man, yet he commanded respect from those who served him and created a disciplined army that defeated the royalists in the English Civil War.

Cromwell agonized over executing the king but believed that when the magistrate such was the King, in his view broke faith or the covenant with the people, the king may be deposed. This covenantal concept of authority, which owes something to John Calvin was hugely influential in the founding documents of the United States of America. Although disappointed, a Parliament of Lords and landowners was no more sympathetic to the poor than the king had been. Cromwell is properly credited with laying the foundation for Parliamentary democracy. Cromwell did commit excesses in his zeal for 'purity,' especially in his opposition to Catholic Ireland, where it is said that the destruction of any ruined old building is still blamed on Cromwell. In 1999, Catholics snubbed the 400th anniversary of his birth. After the massacre of men, women and children at Drogheda in September 1649, he said that it was the righteousness punishment of God. However, in terms of Cromwell's legacy, his re-admission of the Jews, his religious tolerance (albeit limited), and his opposition to authoritarian rule laid essential foundations on which modern British and North American democracy has been built, and replicated elsewhere in the world as a result of Britain's influence. It is not unfitting that his statue is prominent outside what some call the mother of parliaments.

Source: New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Oliver_Cromwell
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