Oliver Cromwell

Lord protector of England (1653-1658)

• Born: April 25, 1599
• Birthplace: Huntingdon, Huntingdonshire, England
• Died: September 3, 1658
• Place of death: London, England

Cromwell was the dominant figure in the English Civil Wars, first as a military commander, then as an advocate of the trial and execution of Charles I, and finally as a political leader trying unsuccessfully to restore stability to his nation.

Early Life

Oliver Cromwell’s father, Robert, was descended from the Williamses, a Welsh family that had profited from the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII and from a fortuitous marriage to the sister of that monarch’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell. Oliver’s great-grandfather, Thomas Cromwell’s nephew, changed the family name from Williams to Cromwell to show his gratitude. Oliver’s mother was Elizabeth Steward of Ely.

Cromwell’s early life was typical of the English gentry. His family’s Puritanism was reinforced by his education at Huntingdon under Thomas Beard and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (1616-1617), where it seems he was more interested in horses than scholarship. He probably attended the Inns of Court in London, learning enough law for a country gentleman. After his father’s death in 1617, Cromwell returned to Huntingdon and the family estate. In 1620, he married Elizabeth Bourchier, the daughter of a London merchant. Their long and happy marriage produced four sons and four daughters. In 1631, he sold the family property at Huntingdon and rented land at Saint Ives, and in 1636, he inherited property from an uncle and moved to Ely. There, he played a modest but noteworthy role in public affairs.

In 1628, Huntingdon elected Cromwell to Parliament, where he made a speech on Puritanism, participated in the creation of the Petition of Right and, in 1629, witnessed the session’s tempestuous conclusion, in which Parliament was dissolved by King Charles I . In 1630, as a justice of the peace for Huntingdon, Cromwell supported the rights of commoners. In 1637, he defended the rights of men who could be hurt by a project to drain the Fens. Cromwell’s Puritanism became a deep, abiding faith with a Calvinist sense of sin and of salvation by grace. He sought earnestly to do the work of God, not in order to earn salvation but out of gratitude to his Maker (although success, as Beard had taught him, could also be a welcome assurance of one’s membership in the elect).

Life’s Work

Had there been no Puritan Revolution, it is unlikely that Cromwell’s potential would ever have been realized. In 1640, Cambridge elected Cromwell to the Short Parliament and then to the Long Parliament. He supported the Root and Branch Bill to end episcopacy, limits on the king’s command of the army, and the Grand Remonstrance (1641), an extended list of Parliament’s grievances against the king. His rise began in 1642, when both the king and Parliament became increasingly militant in their dispute. Cromwell raised a troop of cavalry, gave money for the defense of Parliament, and militarized his constituency in Cambridge.

At the indecisive Battle of Edgehill (October 23, 1642), Cromwell saw the army’s need for men such as himself, who knew what they believed and were willing to fight for it. In 1643, while Parliament was negotiating the Solemn League and Covenant , obtaining the support of the Scottish army in exchange for a promise to reform religion in England along Presbyterian lines, Cromwell’s cavalry grew to a regiment of more than one thousand men and gained experience in a number of skirmishes. The Ironsides, as they were soon called, were unique for their religious and fighting spirit, for their discipline, and for the devastating effect of their charge. It was Cromwell’s Ironsides that turned the tide at the Battle of Marston Moor (July, 1644), giving Parliament its first major victory.

Cromwell urged Parliament to create a national, professional army and advocated the removal of any officers who were reluctant to defeat the king. The fighting force that subsequently developed came to be known as the New Model Army . In order to rid it of incompetent amateurs, the Self-Denying Ordinance was enacted in April, 1645, ordering members of Parliament from both houses to surrender their military commissions. As a member of Parliament, Cromwell was technically covered by this ordinance, but Parliament delayed his resignation and then made him lieutenant general and commander of cavalry of the New Model Army under Thomas Fairfax, the future third Baron Fairfax. The success of these reforms and of Cromwell’s enlarged cavalry was seen in Parliament’s victory at Naseby in June, 1645.

In 1646, when the initial phase of the English Civil War was over, Cromwell resumed his seat in Parliament, which was attempting to reestablish order in England. Stability was not achieved, however: Charles I was intransigent, and the victorious Parliamentarians were themselves deeply divided. Cromwell, an Independent, or Congregationalist, opposed the Presbyterian settlement favored by Parliament and the Scots. Differences between Cromwell and his fellow M.P.’s were aggravated by Parliament’s 1647 proposal to disband the army without paying the soldiers. Cromwell, disgusted with Parliament’s poor treatment of the men who had bravely defended England, threw in his lot with the army. The army occupied London and overawed Parliament.

Rejecting entreaties by Cromwell and his son-in-law Henry Ireton to agree to a constitutional settlement, Charles I escaped from Hampton Court Palace. When, in December, 1647, Charles began negotiations with his fellow Scotsmen for military support, the Second Civil War erupted. The army and Parliament resolved their differences and agreed to cease negotiating with the king. Cromwell defeated Royalist forces in Wales and then crushed the Scottish army at Preston in August, 1648. Returning to London, he acquiesced in Colonel Thomas Pride’s purge of Parliament, leaving only the small Rump of members who supported the army. Cromwell became the chief advocate of the king’s trial and of his execution on January 30, 1649.

While the Rump and a council of state were turning England into a commonwealth without king or House of Lords, Cromwell was ridding the government of its enemies. At Burford, in May, 1649, he removed the Levellers (a Puritan group that aimed to level the differences between the classes) from the army. He then subdued Ireland, preventing it from becoming a base for the restoration of monarchy. When the fortified town of Drogheda refused to surrender, Cromwell ordered all defenders put to the sword (September 11, 1649). Wexford received much the same treatment. In 1650, Cromwell was recalled to London to deal with the Scots, who had recognized Charles II, Charles I’s son, and were preparing to invade England. On September 3, 1650, Cromwell defeated the Scots at Dunbar, Scotland, and destroyed Charles II’s Scottish army a year later in Worcester.

Cromwell, his fame greater than ever, returned to his place in Parliament, which was still no closer to a permanent settlement of the government. On April 20, 1653, by which time the Rump had proved its intransigence, Cromwell and a troop of soldiers expelled its members, thereby eliminating the last vestige of legitimate rule. The Church and the army selected members for the Barebones Parliament, but when it became rancorous, its more moderate members dissolved Parliament and gave Cromwell its powers.

In December, 1653, Cromwell accepted the Instrument of Government, a written constitution granting power to a one-house Parliament and to himself as lord protector of England. This arrangement, too, worked poorly. Cromwell quarreled with his first Parliament (1654-1655). After the Royalist Penruddock’s Uprising (1655), Cromwell instituted martial law. He appointed eleven major generals to oversee local government and prevent disorder. This action more than anything else made Cromwell’s Puritan rule hateful and confirmed the people’s conviction that standing armies were dangerous to their rights. Cromwell accepted the Humble Petition and Advice (1657), recommended by his second Parliament, by which he could name his successor and create a second house of Parliament but would not become king.

Cromwell aimed not only for a stable government but also for a Puritan church settlement with toleration of dissent. By ordinance, he established what had been the status quo, a Presbyterian church with toleration for Protestant dissenters. Politically dangerous Catholics and Episcopalians were excluded from the church, but they were not actively pursued. Though the Quakers at times suffered under Cromwell’s regime, their survival proves the degree of toleration he allowed. In 1655, Cromwell allowed Jews to return to England and to have a synagogue, ending the banishment begun in 1290. In all this, Cromwell took the lead; few were willing to go so far.

Cromwell restored England’s respect among its neighbors. Though he at times spoke as if he would champion a Protestant crusade in Europe, in fact his actions always served England’s national interests. English ships became a force in the Mediterranean, and they seized Spanish treasure fleets in the Atlantic. In 1655, an English expedition captured Jamaica. In 1657, a treaty with France gained for England an ally in its war with Spain. In 1658, the Battle of the Dunes, which won Dunkirk for England, demonstrated to a French ally and a Spanish enemy the quality of the New Model Army.

Cromwell died on September 3, 1658, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His son Richard succeeded him as lord protector.

Significance

For two-thirds of his life, Cromwell was an obscure country gentleman. Then, for almost two decades, he rose to heights equaled by few others in English history. Afterward, he, or rather his reputation, fell more rapidly than he had risen. Within nine months, his reluctant successor had resigned, and England fell into a state of confusion that could well have become anarchy had not General George Monck and the English people decided to restore the old order. The revolution was repudiated, as was Cromwell. Already dead, he could not be punished with the other regicides, but his body was exhumed and hanged, his head then placed on a pole above Westminster Hall.

It was almost two centuries before historians could begin to think favorably of Cromwell. To Royalists, he was the chief of those who had killed the royal martyr. To radicals and republicans, he was the traitor to the cause of revolution. There is no doubt of his ability to lead an army; he is, perhaps, unparalleled as a cavalry commander. His role in furthering the power of England and its empire also seems beyond doubt. His religion and the role it played, for good or ill, will always be difficult to evaluate. The nineteenth century Whigs, who resurrected his reputation, saw him as an early champion of parliamentary democracy. Twenty-first century observers tend to see him either as a counterpart to contemporary European dictators or as an important contributor to an English revolution.

Cromwell failed in his attempts to establish a parliamentary government and a tolerant church. His ideas about government, society, religion, and economics, however, eventually triumphed. If Cromwell’s will and power were insufficient to achieve what he sought in his own day, he at least provided a relatively stable environment where ideas could grow, and his regime was sufficiently moderate that neither did it destroy everything old nor did the reaction to it destroy everything new.

Bibliography

Abbott, Wilbur Cortez, ed. The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, with an Introduction, Notes, and a Sketch of His Life. 4 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937-1947. Reprint. New York: Russell & Russell, 1970. The place to begin any serious study, though the evaluation of Cromwell is somewhat influenced by the rise of Fascism at the time the book was produced.

Ashley, Maurice. The Greatness of Oliver Cromwell. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1957. A good biography concerned with the paradoxes of Cromwell’s character and finding greatness in his religious toleration.

Carlyle, Thomas, and S. C. Lomas, eds. Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations. 4 vols. New York, 1845. Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1974. This work played an important role in presenting a more sympathetic understanding of Cromwell.

Coward, Barry. The Cromwell Protectorate. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Coward, a Cromwell biographer, refutes historians who have depicted Cromwell’s rule as a reactionary military dictatorship. Instead, this selection of essays points out the positive achievements of Cromwell’s government.

Davis, J. C. Oliver Cromwell. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Examines Cromwell’s life and the familial, religious, and political alliances on which his career depended.

Firth, C. H. Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1901. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953. The standard biography written in the Whig tradition, but perhaps still the best.

Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell: Our Chief of Men. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. Reprint. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997. A biography intended for a popular audience.

Gaunt, Peter. Oliver Cromwell. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996. Reprint. New York: New York University Press, 2004. A concise and accessible biography detailing Cromwell’s life and career.

Hill, Christopher. God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1970. A good biography that attempts to escape from the Whig viewpoint of Firth and to see Cromwell in his own time, involved in a revolution that was economic and social as well as religious and political.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Oliver Cromwell. London: Historical Association, 1958. An excellent, twenty-eight-page discussion of Cromwell and his important place in history.

Paul, Robert S. The Lord Protector: Religion and Politics in the Life of Oliver Cromwell. 2d ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1964. An excellent biography by an author trained as a theologian as well as a historian. A sympathetic presentation of Cromwell’s religious belief and its influence.

Smith, David L., ed. Cromwell and the Interregnum: The Essential Reading. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003. Collects eight of the most frequently cited essays about Cromwell. Among other topics, the essays focus on Cromwell’s religiousness and the workings of British government during the 1650’s.