HIST362: Modern Revolutions

Having decided against following an uncle to Virginia, he instead became the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1628–1629. His maiden speech was the defense of a radical democrat who had argued in an unauthorized pamphlet in favor of giving the vote to all men. He was also prominent in defending the people of The Fens from wealthy landowners who wanted to drive them off their land.

Charles I ruled without a Parliament for the next eleven years and alienated many people by his policies of raising extra-parliamentary taxes and imposing his Catholicized vision of Protestantism on the Church of England. When he was forced by shortage of funds to call a Parliament again in 1640, Oliver Cromwell was one of many MPs who bitterly opposed voting for any new taxes until the King agreed to govern with the consent of Parliament on both civil and religious issues. The failure to solve this crisis led directly to civil war breaking out between Parliamentarians (supporters of the power of Parliament) and Royalists (supporters of the King).

Cromwell was a passionate supporter of the Parliament, primarily on religious grounds. Although not an accomplished speaker, Cromwell was prominent in the Parliamentary cause from the outset. He was related to a significant number of members of Parliament by blood or marriage, and his views were influential. When spies identified him as an insider to the revolt against King Charles, and soldiers were sent to arrest him, Cromwell was one of several members absent. However, he did not become a leader of the Parliamentary cause until well into the civil war, when his military ability brought him to prominence.

Although he was later involved in the King's overthrow and execution, Cromwell did not start the civil war as a radical republican, but with the intention of forcing Charles to reign with the consent of Parliament and with a more consensual, Protestant, religious policy.