Oliver Cromwell 9781847600523

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History Insights

General Editor: Martyn Housden

Oliver Cromwell Graham Goodlad

‘... Old Noll, Copper-face, Great Leviathan of Men, His Noseship, The Sagest of Usurpers, The Town Bull of Ely ...’ For advice on use of this ebook please scroll to page 2

Publication Data © Graham Goodlad, 2007 The Author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Humanities-Ebooks.co.uk Tirril Hall, Tirril, Penrith CA10 2JE

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ISBN 978-1-84760-052-3

Oliver Cromwell Graham Goodlad

History Insights. Tirril: Humanities-Ebooks, 2007

Contents Note on the author Part 1: Oliver Cromwell: Career Outline Chapter 1 Chapter 2

From country gentleman to political general, 1599–1646 From regicide to Lord Protector, 1646–58

Part 2: Issues and debates Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

Cromwell as military commander Seeking power or seeking the Lord? The Protectorate at home Cromwell and the international scene

Part 3: The Legacy Chapter 7

Cromwell’s reputation in historical perspective

A Chronology of Oliver Cromwell’s Career Bibliography

A Note on the Author Dr Graham Goodlad has taught History for twenty years and has written widely on modern and early modern British history for A Level students and undergraduates. He is currently Director of Studies at St John’s College, Southsea.

Part 1 Oliver Cromwell: Career Outline Chapter 1 From country gentleman to political general, 1599–1646 1.1 Introduction Three and a half centuries after his death, Oliver Cromwell continues to fascinate both academic historians and the wider public. It was a tribute to his enduring hold on the popular imagination that he reached tenth place in the BBC poll for the title of ‘Greatest Briton’ in 2002. This came shortly after the four hundredth anniversary of Cromwell’s birth in 1999, which was commemorated by a number of events, including major exhibitions at the Museum of London and in Cambridge. He has been the subject of a number of television documentaries and of at least one major feature film, Cromwell (1970), with Richard Harris in the title role. He is one of a handful of figures from British history to be commemorated by an organisation dedicated to the study of his career and legacy: the Cromwell Association, which can be located at www.olivercromwell.org. A museum devoted to Cromwell is to be found in his East Anglian birthplace, Huntingdon; and at nearby Ely, the house that he occupied for a short time in the 1630s is also open to the public. Why has Cromwell attracted this level of attention? It was in the nineteenth century that he first began to attain heroic stature, especially after the publication of Thomas Carlyle’s Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell in 1845. The leading Victorian scholar, Samuel Rawson Gardiner, described him as ‘the greatest because the most typical Englishman of all time’. For historians writing today, however, the era of Gardiner is perhaps almost as remote as that of Cromwell himself. This may make us less inclined to ascribe to him ‘national’ characteristics capable of application across the centuries. We may reflect instead on the way in which Cromwell embod

Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Pelican Books, 1972), p. 259.

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ies key features of his own time, a period that retains its importance and fascination as a genuinely revolutionary age. He is identified with the assertion of parliamentary power against the traditional authority of the Crown in the 1640s, with the puritan challenge to the established Church of England, and the attempt to find a viable political and religious settlement after the upheavals of the Civil Wars. The way in which Cromwell’s success as a military commander propelled him to the forefront of national politics, ultimately making him the only commoner to become head of state, also gives his career unique interest. The paradoxes of Cromwell’s career have often been remarked upon. He struggled against royal despotism yet established an authoritarian regime of his own and proved no more able to work with representative institutions than the king whom he displaced. He was a socially conservative figure who played a leading role in the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords. Regarded by many as an advocate of religious toleration, he has also been reviled as an implacable foe of Catholicism in Ireland. To many of his contemporaries, Cromwell’s political life was a disappointment, as the radical of the 1640s gave way to the conservative Lord Protector of the 1650s. This book seeks to address the key debates and controversies that surround his career. Firstly, it traces Cromwell’s development from his relatively obscure beginnings, though the military and political conflicts of the Civil Wars, to eventual leadership of his country. 1.2 Out of the fenland shadows The outline facts regarding Oliver Cromwell’s early life are well known. He was the eldest surviving son of Robert and Elizabeth Cromwell of Huntingdon, and the dates of his birth and baptism in April 1599 are recorded. He was educated at the local grammar school, now the site of the Cromwell Museum, and attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, leaving early on the sudden death of his father in June 1617. Cromwell may have studied Law at one of the Inns of Court in London but there is no proof of this. Detail of his upbringing and education unfortunately is hampered by a shortage of hard documentary evidence. Another difficulty is the doubtful provenance of several stories told about Cromwell’s formative years. These are problematic because of the way in which they so obviously seem to prefigure his later life. Some reflect his opponents’ desire to portray him in the worst possible light, whilst others reinforce the image of an individual marked out by providence for leadership. Among these is the tradition that the

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baby Oliver was taken up on to the roof of his grandfather’s house by the family’s pet monkey. In the same category is the claim that, as a young child, he fought with the young Prince Charles during a royal visit to the home of Cromwell’s uncle—an apocryphal foreshadowing of more serious conflict in later life. The nature of Cromwell’s social status has been a controversial area for historians. As Lord Protector he famously recalled that he was ‘by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height, nor yet in obscurity’. The exact socio-economic meaning of this statement has been extensively debated. Cromwell’s father had served as a Member of Parliament and a Justice of the Peace. His grandfather and uncle were substantial property owners in Huntingdonshire as a result of the family’s acquisition of church property following the dissolution of the monasteries. Cromwell himself was elected MP for Huntingdon in 1628–29. It seems, however, that the family’s local standing was undergoing a process of relative decline during Cromwell’s youth. His inheritance from his father was of limited value. In 1631 Cromwell slipped further down the social hierarchy when, following a dispute over the remodelling of the borough’s charter, he left Huntingdon for St Ives where he became a tenant farmer. The position improved five years later when a legacy from his mother’s brother, Sir Thomas Steward, enabled him to move to Ely, where his income improved as an administrator of church lands and tithes. Even this left Cromwell on the margins of the gentry and it is worth recalling that his later nickname, ‘Lord of the Fens’, was intended to suggest that he had merely achieved prominence in a regional backwater. We should however beware of seeing Cromwell’s rise as the spectacular, unaided ascent of a man wholly excluded from the dominant elite of his time. J. C. Davis has emphasised the importance in his life of a series of overlapping networks, based on family ties and shared values, which he strove to cultivate throughout his career. Martyn Bennett has described Cromwell’s gentry background as providing a ‘cocoon’ which fostered his development, and which was by no means unusual in seventeenth century society. Cromwell certainly made an advantageous connection in 1620 when he married Elizabeth Bourchier, the daughter of a London fur trader and leather dresser, who owned land in Essex. His marriage drew him into the circle of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, the patron of Felsted School in Essex, at which Cromwell’s    

Speech to Parliament, 12 September 1654, quoted in Ivan Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (London: Everyman, 1989), p. 42. The fullest examination of this phase is John Morrill, ‘The making of Oliver Cromwell’ in John Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Longman, 1990), pp. 19–48. J. C. Davis, Oliver Cromwell (London: Arnold, 2001), pp. 78–80 Martyn Bennett, Oliver Cromwell (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 8

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own sons were educated. He counted a number of influential connections among his cousins, including John Hampden and Oliver St John, who were to play an important role in the coming political upheavals. It has been calculated that when Cromwell was elected once more to Parliament in 1640, he numbered at least fifteen kinsmen among his fellow MPs. 1.3 The emergence of a revolutionary Central to Cromwell’s identity was the development of his religious beliefs. In his adult life he became closely associated with the puritan movement within English Protestantism. Puritans rejected what they regarded as surviving ‘popish’ elements in the practice of the Church of England. Their faith was based not upon attachment to outward ceremony and ritual but upon a personal faith in God, whose word was to be found in the Bible. Puritanism promoted a desire for the moral reform of society and, at a deeper level, gave a conviction of God’s direct intervention in the life of the individual. It is not clear when Cromwell became seriously influenced by these ideas. It used to be believed that the Huntingdon schoolmaster, Thomas Beard, played an important part, early in Cromwell’s life, in influencing him in this direction. John Morrill’s work has however cast serious doubt on this notion. He has uncovered evidence that Beard was ‘a greedy pluralist’, motivated primarily by his own self-interest, who remained within the Church of England establishment. It seems more likely that Cromwell experienced a kind of religious conversion in the late 1620s or early 1630s, and that this was associated with a deep personal crisis, amounting to a nervous breakdown. It is known that Sir Theodore Mayerne, a noted London physician, treated him for depression during his term as a Member of Parliament in 1628–29. The exact date of Cromwell’s conversion is not clear but it seems to have been complete by 1638. It is important to understand its significance for his career. Cromwell described himself in a letter to a relative as having ‘lived in and loved darkness’ before his spiritual experience, and as having been ‘the chief of sinners’. This exaggerated characterisation of an individual’s unworthiness was   

A good short analysis is Patrick Collinson, English Puritanism (London: Historical Association, 1987). See also Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales, ed., The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1996). John Morrill, ‘The Making of Oliver Cromwell’, in John Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, pp.27–8 Cromwell to Mrs St John, 13 October 1638, quoted in W. C. Abbott, ed., The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 1 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1937), p. 97.

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typical of puritans of Cromwell’s time. It was the language of those who had come to believe that God was directing their lives in a personal way, leading them out of a spiritual desert and making them members of His elect. From now on he would see the hand of God in all the major events of his life and times, and he would explain his own actions—to himself and others—in terms of divine grace working in the world. Cromwell’s religious convictions were the decisive factor in driving him towards active involvement in politics. Most historians now argue that in the 1630s he showed little sign of acting as an embryonic revolutionary. Instead, to all intents and purposes he was an obedient subject of the King, outwardly accepting the policies of the ‘personal rule’, the eleven year period when Charles I governed without Parliament. Charles’ resort to means of taxation for which he lacked parliamentary authority was particularly controversial. This included the extension to inland counties of the tax known as ship money, which had traditionally been levied to pay for the upkeep of the navy. Cromwell dutifully paid up, in sharp contrast to his cousin, John Hampden, whose defiance of the king became the occasion of a celebrated law case. Similarly, in spite of the claim made by some older historians, there is little evidence that Cromwell championed the rights of the rural poor against the fenland drainage projects of Dutch engineers, who were supported by self-interested members of the aristocracy. He may have shown concern over the level of compensation offered to commoners whose livelihood was threatened, but it cannot be demonstrated that he opposed fen drainage in principle. Christopher Hill’s depiction of Cromwell as ‘the spokesman of humbler and less articulate persons’ is almost certainly an unjustified dramatisation of his role. The main issue that drew Cromwell into conflict with royal government was Charles’ religious policies. During the 1630s the King tried, in partnership with his Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, to promote the ceremonial and priestly aspects of Anglicanism and to enhance the authority and prestige of the Church of England. To godly puritans like Cromwell this seemed close to a reversion to the practices of the pre-Reformation Church. Coupled with Laud’s opposition to puritan lecturers and preachers, it appeared to herald an assault on the essence of Protestantism. Cromwell and others came to believe that there was a popish conspiracy, centred on the royal court and propagated by Laud and his fellow bishops. This is why, when Charles was compelled to recall Parliament in 1640 and Cromwell was elected MP for Cambridge, he associated himself with a number of proposals to protect the Protestant religion. These included a bill to promote sermons and another 

Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman, p. 48.

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to abolish the episcopal government of the Church. At this stage he appears to have been operating as a junior member of a group of radical critics of royal government, including John Pym in the Commons and Warwick in the Lords. It seems likely, as opposition began to take shape, that the leaders of this network were encouraging him to take initiatives designed to test the reactions of others. In December 1640, for example, he was chosen to move the second reading of a bill calling for annual parliaments, as a means of making the King more accountable. Cromwell was confirmed in his fears of a Catholic revival, linked to the arbitrary use of royal power, by news of a rebellion in Ireland, which reached London in November 1641. Lurid reports of atrocities committed by Irish Catholics against Protestant settlers were widely believed, and Cromwell was one of many parliamentarians who feared that these events presaged an attack on religious liberties in England. It was a measure of his alarm that he contributed a considerable sum towards funding an army to suppress the rebellion. Yet he was still not one of the most prominent critics of the royal government. When Charles descended on the Commons in January 1642, Cromwell was not one of the five MPs whose arrest he sought to effect. Within months, however, he was in the forefront of attempts to put Parliament in a state of readiness for conflict. With the impetuosity that characterised a number of his later actions, in July 1642 he sought authority to raise two companies of volunteers in Cambridge. The following month, even before the civil war had formally broken out, he seized the colleges’ plate to prevent it from being sent to finance the King’s military preparations. By this point Cromwell was ready to commit himself wholeheartedly to the task of checking royal power by force of arms. 1.4 Fighting in the Lord’s cause Cromwell spent the first year and a half of the war fighting mainly in eastern England, the region from which he originated. He raised a troop of horse in Huntingdon soon after the outbreak of hostilities and this was placed under the authority of the main parliamentary army, headed by the Earl of Essex. It is not certain that he led his troop into action at the first major engagement of the war, at Edgehill in October 1642, but it is likely that he arrived during the battle. During the following winter he raised a regiment, leading to his promotion from captain to colonel. At this time he became concerned at the quality of officers recruited to the parliamentary cause and demonstrated a readiness to appoint individuals who did not have a traditional landed background. One of his statements on this subject has become famous for its

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apparent socially radical implications: ‘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’. It should however be noted that he went on to say, ‘I honour a gentleman that is so indeed.’ This makes it clear that Cromwell was a man of his time, in preferring members of the gentry if they were up to the task. After all, they possessed the personal resources and social standing necessary to recruit men to fight. For Cromwell, however, this was not enough in itself; officers must be ‘godly’ individuals, committed to the cause, men with ‘the root of the matter’ in them. Cromwell’s troop captains represented a broad social spectrum but it is noteworthy that a significant number were also members of his own family connection: his own son Oliver, his cousin Edward Whalley, his nephew Valentine Walton and his brotherin-law John Disbrowe (Desborough). In January 1643 Cromwell received his first major appointment when he was assigned to the Eastern Association, one of the regional bodies set up by Parliament, initially for purposes of local defence. The Eastern Association covered the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire and later Lincolnshire. After its commander, Lord Grey of Warke, was sent southwards in April, Cromwell assumed responsibility for establishing Parliament’s authority in the region and for defending it against royalist forces to the north. He demonstrated great energy in raising support from local magnates and took part in several minor actions, including victories at Gainsborough (July) and Winceby (October) in Lincolnshire. The latter saw Cromwell fighting for the first time alongside Sir Thomas Fairfax, whose power base was in Yorkshire, and with whom he would form an effective military partnership. Meanwhile the Eastern Association came under the overall command of Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester, with whom Cromwell initially cooperated quite effectively. The Association increased in size and by the beginning of 1644 Cromwell had been recognised as its second in command, with the rank of lieutenant-general and responsibility for the cavalry. By this stage, however, serious differences were beginning to open up on the parliamentary side. One of the key issues was the emerging divide between men like Cromwell, who favoured a fight to the finish, and the lack lustre commander in chief, the Earl of Essex, who wanted to seek a negotiated settlement with the King. Ranged with these moderates was Manchester himself. Such men feared that outright victory would unleash uncontrollable social forces, placing members of the most radical Protestant sects in the driving seat. As a result of this uncertainty at the heart of 

Abbott, Writings and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 256.

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their command, the parliamentarians were unable to exploit their first major victory of the war, the Battle of Marston Moor near York (July 1644). Essex undertook an unsuccessful campaign in southwest England. At the end of October royalist forces were allowed to escape at the second Battle of Newbury and the nearby strategically important fortress of Donnington Castle was not taken. These disappointments set the stage for a serious conflict between Cromwell and Manchester in late 1644. Their quarrel marked Cromwell’s emergence as a significant political figure in his own right, as well as the important field commander that he had already become. Several interrelated questions were at stake. Cromwell accused the Earl of a defeatist approach to the civil war. This was summed up in an exchange between the two men during the Newbury campaign. Manchester betrayed his unease at his colleague’s uncompromising stance with the observation that ‘if we beat the King 99 times he would be King still, and his posterity, and we subjects still; but if he beats us but once we should be hanged, and our posterity undone.’ Cromwell replied, ‘my lord, if this be so, why did we take up arms at first? This is against fighting ever hereafter’. Religious issues were intertwined with controversies over the conduct of the war. In the summer of 1643, desperate for reinforcements, Parliament had concluded an alliance with the Scots, the Solemn League and Covenant. In return for Scottish military aid the signatories had agreed to promote the Scottish Presbyterian model of Church government in England and Wales, in place of the episcopal structure of the old Anglican establishment. Both Manchester and Cromwell had accepted the Covenant and both were members of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, the body set up to oversee the conduct of the war. By the end of 1644, however, serious differences between them had opened up on the church question. Manchester and others criticised Cromwell’s promotion of humbly born officers and his toleration of a diversity of religious sects within the army with suspicion, viewing this as a prelude to a general collapse of order. For his part Cromwell had come to dislike the intolerance of Presbyterianism, which he saw as a threat to liberty of conscience. This for him was central to the cause for which he was fighting. Here were the seeds of serious conflict within the parliamentary side. 1.5 Turning the tide of war Amongst the criticisms levelled against Cromwell by Manchester and his allies was 

Abbott, Writings and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 310.

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one charge with real potential for damage: the allegation that he too had behaved indecisively at Newbury. Although politically motivated, this attempt to share the blame had some substance, for it was true that Cromwell’s cavalry had shown uncharacteristic restraint in the battle. Fortunately for Cromwell, in a sequence of events that remains controversial, he was thrown a lifeline by some of his parliamentary allies early in December 1644. The proposal of a Self-Denying Ordinance, whereby members of both Lords and Commons would be expected to give up their military commands, was a device that at first seemed likely to terminate Cromwell’s army career as well as those of his aristocratic foes. As events turned out, however, it was Manchester and Essex who departed from military life and not Cromwell. On the point of surrendering his commission he was invited to resume his command for a period of forty days and thereafter it was to be periodically renewed for the duration of hostilities. At the same time the parliamentary forces were reorganised into a more effective fighting machine, the New Model Army, under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, and Cromwell secured the post of lieutenant-general of the horse. This meant that Cromwell was available to take a leading role in the Battle of Naseby in Northamptonshire (June 1645), which was to be the decisive engagement of the war. The following month he took part in the defeat of royalist forces at Langport in Somerset. The fall of Bristol in September removed the danger that the royalists might be able to bring in reinforcements to threaten the rear of the New Model Army, as it headed into the southwest to mop up resistance. Between then and June 1646, when Charles I surrendered to the Scots at Newark, Cromwell was almost continuously on campaign. His recorded comments on the events of this period suggest an increased sense of confidence in God’s support for the parliamentarian cause. For him military success served to underline the righteousness of the godly party, irrespective of particular denominational allegiances. After Naseby and Bristol he wrote to the Speaker of the Commons to remind MPs of the debt they owed to soldiers from a wide range of Protestant groups, and to make a plea for religious liberty. ‘Honest men served you faithfully in this action,’ he wrote after Naseby. ‘He that ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, and for the liberty he fights for.’ When Parliament had the letters printed, however, these appeals were deleted. It fell to Cromwell’s allies at Westminster unofficially to produce a complete version of his remarks. Here were the grounds for later division. As the first Civil War closed, powerful forces at Westminster were moving towards an attempt to impose religious order and uniform

Abbott, Writings and Speeches, Volume 1, p. 360.

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ity through the medium of a Presbyterian Church settlement. This went hand in hand with a desire to reduce the burden of taxation, which had increased in order to finance the war effort. With the fighting over, many MPs saw no reason to delay the disbandment of the army. In addition, there remained the question of what to do with the King: how to treat the defeated sovereign and what limitations to place upon him. All of these issues were potential sources of conflict. The war had seen Cromwell emerge as a genuinely national figure, but its ending also presented him with significant challenges to overcome.

Chapter 2 From regicide to Lord Protector, 1646–58 2.1 Between Parliament and the army In the months immediately after the end of the first Civil War, the dominant grouping at Westminster had little common ground with Cromwell. Although by no means all of them were Presbyterian by religion, they have correctly been labelled ‘political Presbyterians’ because of their support for the objectives of Parliament’s Scottish allies. These men, led by Denzil Holles MP, favoured the imposition of a Presbyterian Church settlement for two main reasons. It was designed to satisfy the Scots and to hold in check the anarchic tendencies that they perceived in the multiplicity of religious sects tolerated in the New Model Army. Hand in hand with a desire for religious uniformity and social order went a willingness to see the King return to power with minimal conditions. As part of the post-war settlement the political Presbyterians sought to demobilise the New Model Army, leaving a smaller military force that would be easier to control. They aimed to place the remaining soldiers under Presbyterian officers and to dispatch it to Ireland to deal with surviving royalist resistance there. Initially Cromwell seemed prepared to accept the disbandment of the army. He visited the army headquarters at Saffron Walden in Essex, in May 1647, to bring the message that it should recognise the authority of Parliament. The situation was changed, however, by evidence of increasing unrest in the ranks of the military. The reason for this was a growing awareness that Parliament would not meet the main material grievances of the army: for the payment of wage arrears and an indemnity against prosecution for acts committed during the war. It became clear that an attempt to disband the army without attention to these demands would result in open revolt. This placed Cromwell in an extremely difficult position as a mediator between the two sides. At this point a further complication was provided by the action of a relatively junior officer, Cornet Joyce, who took the King from his parliamentary guards at Holdenby (or Holmby) House in Northamptonshire, early in June 1647. Cromwell’s own role in this episode is far from clear. He had met Joyce a few days before but there is no evidence that he gave orders to seize Charles. The army now moved south

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from its base at Newmarket in order to put pressure on Parliament and Cromwell went to join it. It occupied London in early August after a mob, inspired by the political Presbyterian faction, invaded the Commons. Throughout this period, however, Cromwell’s aim was to contain the extreme elements in the army and to include both King and Parliament in a political settlement. His views were embodied in a document known as The Heads of the Proposals, drawn up by his son-in-law, Henry Ireton and others, which was notable for its moderation. It offered a restoration of the monarchy, on condition that Parliament was called at least every two years, and that the armed forces should be placed under parliamentary control. There was to be a broad national Church, without coercive powers, and with freedom for Protestants to worship as they wished. Although initially he seemed favourable, it became apparent that the King had no intention of treating these proposals as a serious basis for negotiation. Charles aimed to recover his power by exploiting the divisions in the parliamentarian ranks. He began to move towards an agreement with the Scots, who could not accept the Heads because they did not enshrine the notion of a Presbyterian national church. More immediately the Heads faced opposition from a new grouping on the left, who sought a more radical reconstruction of the political order. These were the Levellers, a civilian political movement, which also began to gain ground in the army. The Levellers held that the popular will was the basis of sovereignty and feared that the gains of the war were threatened by the willingness of senior military figures to engineer a royal restoration. Their desire for democratic change was outlined in The Case of the Army Truly Stated and developed into a detailed programme of reform in a longer document, The Agreement of the People. In October/November 1647 they were given an opportunity to put their case in a series of meetings at the army headquarters at Putney. These encounters between Cromwell, Ireton and representatives of the radical movement within the army developed into a sustained series of debates on the theoretical basis of political power. Cromwell sought to facilitate army unity and was frequently more moderate in his contributions than the uncompromising Ireton. The meetings failed, however, to restore harmony and when discussion turned to the issue of the electoral franchise, Cromwell was clearly aligned with the socially con 

The text is printed in J. P. Kenyon, ed., The Stuart Constitution, 1603–1688 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), pp. 302–08. For the text of the Agreement and the Putney debates see Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution, pp. 308–17.

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servative position of his son-in-law. Whereas the Leveller representatives held that participation in politics was a birthright, Cromwell maintained that it was linked to the possession of property, and that any departure from this principle would lead to anarchy. The meetings came to an end inconclusively, with an agreement for three separate rendezvous of the army in mid-November. Before these could take place the situation was transformed by the escape of the King from captivity at Hampton Court. It has been suggested that Cromwell played a part in orchestrating this episode, which ended with the King’s apprehension on the Isle of Wight by the governor, Robert Hammond, who was also one of Cromwell’s relatives. His involvement has never been proven, although the drama certainly made it easier to restore order in the army. When some regiments rallied near Ware in Hertfordshire, with copies of the Agreement of the People in their hats, Cromwell and Fairfax nipped the revolt in the bud, ordering the execution of one of the ringleaders. With army discipline restored attention now focused on the question of relations with the King. 2.2 From monarchy to republic Following his flight to the Isle of Wight, Charles decisively alienated Cromwell and the army leadership by negotiating with the Scots. By the so-called Engagement, concluded in December 1647, Charles signalled a willingness to establish Presbyterianism in England, in return for Scottish military assistance to restore him to power. At the beginning of 1648 the Commons voted not to continue negotiations with the King. In spite of his public support for this step, there have been suggestions that Cromwell held secret talks with the King on the Isle of Wight in April, in a vain attempt to detach him from the Scots. This is one of several periods in Cromwell’s life where his movements remain tantalisingly unclear. The story is accepted by John Adamson but dismissed by other biographers, including Barry Coward. He may have been in Hampshire on family business connected with the planned marriage of his son, Richard. From the end of April Cromwell was taken out of Westminster, first by the outbreak of rebellion in South Wales and then by a Scottish invasion of northern England. The decisive encounter of this second civil war took place at Preston in August, where Cromwell smashed the Scottish army. He interpreted the victory as confirmation of God’s blessing on his cause, and shared in the widespread anger felt by parliamentar

J. S. A. Adamson, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’ in J. S. Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, p.78; B. Coward, Oliver Cromwell (London: Longman, 1991), p. 59.

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ians against those who had brought about renewed conflict. To Cromwell and other army leaders, the second civil war had been a treacherous endeavour to overturn the result of the first, which had led to further bloodshed. He did not, however, play a central role in the events of November-December 1648, which led to the trial and death of the King. He spent most of this period at the siege of Pontefract in Yorkshire, leaving others to take the initiative. It was Ireton who persuaded the Army Council in mid-November to accept a Remonstrance calling for the King to be brought to justice. In order to do this it would be necessary to use force against a substantial section of Parliament, which remained opposed to such a drastic course of action. Although summoned back to London by Fairfax at the end of November, Cromwell delayed. It is not clear whether he was still open to the possibility of further negotiations with the King, or simply distancing himself from revolutionary steps that he now knew to be unavoidable. At any rate he did not reach the capital until after the event known as ‘Pride’s purge’. On 6 December Colonel Thomas Pride, acting under the authority of Ireton, turned away or arrested all except 156 MPs, who could be relied upon to support the trial of the King. The survivors became known as the Rump Parliament. It is not clear whether Cromwell had been consulted in advance. It was only at the end of December that he unequivocally gave his support to the judicial process. By this stage he seems to have become fully convinced that this was God’s will and an unalterable necessity. He played an active part in the sessions of the court and in persuading waverers to support the execution of the King, which took place on 30 January 1649. Early in February Cromwell accepted appointment as chairman of the Council of State, which took on executive responsibility. He showed some regard for the traditional authority of Parliament by persuading some of the members excluded at Pride’s purge to return and by speaking against the proposal to abolish the House of Lords. Nevertheless the upper house was abolished, together with the monarchy, and in May a Commonwealth was proclaimed. Notwithstanding his hesitation regarding some aspects of it, Cromwell had played a key role in a truly revolutionary sequence of events. 2.3 Campaigning in Ireland and Scotland The new republic rested on a very narrow basis of support. At one end of the spectrum the royalists had been irrevocably alienated, whilst at the other end, Leveller discontent resurfaced. To the latter the new regime was a profound disappointment,

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the illegitimate product of a coup by the army grandees. In his determination to reassure conservative interests about the direction of the new republic, Cromwell urged a strong line against radical dissent. He reportedly told the Council of State that ‘you have no other way to deal with these men but to break them or they will break you.’ In May he and Fairfax crushed a Leveller mutiny at Burford in Oxfordshire, executing three of the ringleaders. The restoration of army discipline cleared the ground for the next of Cromwell’s military campaigns, an expedition to reduce Ireland to subjection. It was necessary for the fledgling republic to take action, as Ireland was a potential base for a royalist revival. Memories of the 1641 rebellion, which was widely viewed in England as a massacre of innocent Protestants by savage Irish Catholics, injected a sense of mission into Cromwell’s campaign. He landed at Dublin in August 1649, after months of careful preparation, and captured the key east coast towns of Drogheda and Wexford in the next two months. The brutality that accompanied these successes remains a controversial aspect of Cromwell’s career and will be further explored in Chapter 3. Thereafter the English advance was slowed down and heavy losses incurred at the siege of Clonmel in southwest Ireland in April 1650. None the less, when Cromwell returned home the following month, the bulk of Irish resistance had been overcome and he was greeted as a popular hero. Before long, however, Cromwell was called upon to deal with a further threat to the security of the Commonwealth. Charles Stuart, eldest son of the executed King, had reached an agreement with the Scottish government, who were prepared to support his claim to the English throne in return for his acceptance of the Presbyterian agenda. The renewal of the Scottish challenge forced the republican government to contemplate a pre-emptive strike. Fairfax as Lord General refused to lead such a campaign against fellow Protestants, and so Cromwell took his place in late June. Nevertheless he was much less enthusiastic for military action than he had been in the case of the Irish, whose Catholic allegiance placed them beyond redemption in his eyes. Marching north, he found the Scottish army, headed by David Leslie, in an advantageous position south of Edinburgh. His victory at Dunbar on 3 September 1650, against superior numbers, was a remarkable success. At Worcester, a year to the day after Dunbar, Cromwell completed the destruction of the royalist cause by trapping and annihilating a Scottish army led by Charles Stuart.



Abbott, Writings and Speeches, Volume 2, pp. 41–2.

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2.4 From the Rump to Barebones Parliament The victory at Worcester, described by Cromwell as ‘for aught I know, a crowning mercy’, marked the end of his military career and the start of his full-time involvement in politics. In the next eighteen months he found himself trying to act as mediator between two opposing forces, the Rump Parliament and the military. Pride’s purge had made little difference to the fundamental social and religious conservatism of parliamentary attitudes, nor had it diminished levels of hostility to the army. Most MPs were deeply unsympathetic to the programme of reform for which the army was pressing: broader toleration of Protestant groups, changes to the legal system, a redistribution of parliamentary seats and the calling of new elections. Parliament’s slowness in making progress in these areas filled the army with a disappointment which Cromwell shared. The godly cause, for which the New Model Army had taken up arms, seemed doomed to frustration. Yet he was reluctant to use force against Parliament, recognising that it embodied, however unsatisfactorily, a notion of constitutional legitimacy. At a meeting of MPs and army officers at the house of the Speaker of the Commons, William Lenthall, in December 1651, Cromwell sided with his long-standing ally Oliver St John who preferred a political settlement with ‘something of monarchical power’ (Abbott, 2: 505–07). In spite of his ingrained suspicion of the Stuart family, he seems to have viewed a monarchical element as a bulwark of stability—an argument that was rejected by the more radical army officers. Continuing discontent with the Rump’s negative attitude towards political reform provided the background to one of the most controversial actions of Cromwell’s career. On 20 April 1653 he attended Parliament, accompanied by a detachment of musketeers whom he left outside the Commons. In the chamber he delivered an angry speech in which he denounced individual MPs for their allegedly immoral conduct, and declared that ‘you have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately’. He then called in the soldiers to disperse the members and ordered the removal of the mace, symbol of the Speaker’s authority, which he famously described as a ‘bauble’ (Abbott, 2: 641–44). The reasons for Cromwell’s conduct have been intensely debated by historians and the arguments surrounding the expulsion of the Rump will be considered at greater length in Chapter 4. The Lord General’s behaviour invited ironic parallels with Charles I’s attempted arrest of the five members in January 1642. In the short term the demise of the Rump pushed the frail vessel of the republic out into uncharted 

Abbott, Writings and Speeches, Volume 2, p. 463.

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waters. It meant that future attempts at a constitutional settlement would attract the enmity of the expelled ‘Commonwealthsmen’, as well as the established opposition of unreconciled royalists and radicals of the Leveller persuasion. It would forever attach the label—however unjustified—of ‘military dictator’ to Cromwell’s reputation. Responsibility for government now devolved upon a ten man Council of State, whose membership included Cromwell. Although it was still expected that a new Parliament would one day be elected, it was decided in the interim to summon an assembly composed of nominated members. This body, largely selected by the army officers, was to consist of 144 members drawn from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Some of the more ideological Protestants in the ranks of the military, such as Major General Thomas Harrison, believed that such an assembly would play a pre-ordained role in the events leading up to the expected second coming of Christ and his saints. The assembly has commonly been known as the Little Parliament or Barebone’s Parliament after one of its members, a leather dealer named Praise-God Barebone. Cromwell welcomed the assembly in a highly emotional speech, in which he told the members that they were called upon to undertake God’s work. The majority of its members were not in fact extreme religious zealots. Although their status was slightly lower than that of most seventeenth century parliamentarians, they were still mostly drawn from the gentry and they were certainly not intent on social revolution. It passed a number of moderate reforms, including provisions for civil marriage and for the registration of births, marriages and deaths. Nonetheless Barebone’s Parliament was damaged by the proposals of an unrepresentative radical minority, who sought far-reaching changes, including sweeping law reform and the abolition of tithes and rights of lay patronage to church livings. Their ambitions placed in jeopardy Cromwell’s vision of godly reformation supported by the forces of conservatism and property. Although he claimed to have had no prior knowledge of it, in December 1653 he accepted without hesitation the plans of moderates in the assembly to return their power to him. Shortly after the resignation of Barebone’s Parliament a group of army officers, headed by Cromwell’s close colleague, John Lambert, presented him with a new constitution. This was the Instrument of Government, under whose terms Cromwell took office as head of state with the title of Lord Protector. .



The text is printed in Ivan Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (London: Everyman, 1989), pp. 8–28.

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2.5 The establishment of the Protectorate The central principle of the Instrument of Government was the rule of ‘a single person and a Parliament’. The Lord Protector was to govern with the assistance of a Council of State and with Parliaments that would be elected every three years and sit for a minimum of five months. Until the meeting of the first Protectorate Parliament, which was scheduled for September 1654, Cromwell was authorised to issue ordinances with the force of law, although these would have to be ratified later by Parliament. The Instrument laid down criteria for those who were to be elected, and permitted the Council of State to exclude those who were judged to fall short. The Council in fact possessed a more significant constitutional role than the royal Privy Council of the prewar period. The Protector was to share control of the armed forces with the Council when Parliament was not sitting; when the latter was in session he would require its consent. The Council had the right to select the Protector’s successor on his death. The Instrument was a conservative document, intended to provide a viable civilian basis for government, in many ways reminiscent of The Heads of the Proposals. The title of Lord Protector was itself taken from English history, traditionally meaning an individual who governed during the minority or incapacity of a sovereign. Cromwell’s experience of Parliament in his new capacity was to prove disappointing. The first Protectorate Parliament, which met in September 1654, was dominated by members of the gentry, whose social, political and religious attitudes differed little from those of most of their seventeenth century predecessors. Their main concerns were to restrict the freedom of the religious sects and to secure a revision of the Instrument of Government. This outcome was unsurprising given the restricted nature of the franchise on which the Parliament was elected. MPs showed no enthusiasm for Cromwell’s efforts to improve the quality of the church ministry. Before Parliament met the Protector and Council had used their power to pass ordinances to this end. The first of these established a commission known as the ‘Triers’, whose task was to vet applicants to the ministry; whilst the second ordinance created officials (the so-called ‘Ejectors’) to purge ignorant, inadequate and scandalous appointees. Parliament demonstrated quite different priorities, proposing legislation ‘for the restraining of atheism, blasphemy, popery, prelacy, licentiousness and profaneness’. It also showed hostility to the size, cost and influence of the army, upon whose support Cromwell’s hopes of godly reformation depended. By January 1655 an irrecon See www.olivercromwell.org.uk/protectorate/protectorate.htm for the text with commentary. It is also printed in Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution, pp. 342–48.

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cilable conflict had arisen and Cromwell dissolved Parliament at the earliest point permitted under the Instrument of Government. The spring of 1655 saw the Protectorate grappling with new challenges at home and abroad. In March a royalist rising in Wiltshire, led by Colonel John Penruddock, was suppressed. The government was never in real danger of being toppled but this uprising, combined with reports of a resurgence of royalist plotting on the continent, caused concern. A month later, in a completely unrelated development, news arrived of a massacre of Protestants in the mountains of Piedmont, known as the Vaudois, by Catholic troops. This reinforced Cromwell’s belief in an international Catholic threat to Protestant interests, reviving memories of the Irish rebellion of 1641. In July news reached Cromwell of a major setback for his overseas policy, with the defeat of an English expeditionary force to the Spanish-occupied Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The purpose of this ‘Western Design’ had been to secure a base for attacks on Spanish ships and trading interests in the region. A successful occupation of Jamaica, which was to prove more important in the long run, could not compensate for this humiliating reverse. The coincidence of these events helped to create a general sense of crisis for the new regime. It was against this background that Cromwell embarked on his most overtly authoritarian bid to establish a godly society. 2.6 The rule of the major-generals In August 1655 Cromwell began the process of dividing the country into eleven military areas, each one to be governed by a major-general. Their first task was to maintain security with the assistance of regional militias, which were to be established in place of the national standing army. These forces were to be funded from a ‘decimation tax’ levied at the rate of 10% on the estates of former royalists. In addition the major-generals were to promote the moral reform of society, a task in which the first Protectorate Parliament had signally failed. They were therefore to clamp down on blasphemy and swearing, to suppress horse racing, stage plays and gambling, and to control the number of alehouses. In practice the major-generals’ impact on the areas they were sent to supervise was less thoroughgoing than their harsh image suggested. Cromwell’s anxiety to maintain as far as possible the co-operation of local gentry meant that he sometimes intervened to protect individual royalist families from the rigours of the decimation tax. Nonetheless the rule of the major-generals was widely unpopular. It was viewed as the unwarranted intrusion of centralised, military power into communities tradi-

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tionally run by local elites. The experiment was short-lived. In the summer of 1656 the widening of the war with Spain compelled Cromwell to recall Parliament as the most reliable way to raise the necessary funds. The major-generals played a part in managing the elections, which returned the second Protectorate Parliament in September 1656. In addressing the MPs Cromwell defended them as having ‘been more effectual towards the discountenancing of vice and settling religion, than anything done these fifty years’. Nevertheless they were quietly abandoned the following January, in response to evidence of parliamentary hostility to their rule. 2.7 The offer of the Crown The crucial issue of the second Protectorate Parliament was the need to move the regime towards a more stable, civilian basis, which would be more acceptable to the country’s traditional rulers, the landed gentry. At the same time, for Cromwell it was vital not to alienate the army, upon whose support the continuation of his project for godly reformation depended. Ultimately it would prove impossible to reconcile these two imperatives. The first parliamentary session, which lasted from September 1656 to May 1657, began inauspiciously. Before Parliament met the Council exercised its legal right to exclude over a hundred MPs whom it considered would refuse to cooperate with the government. It is true that progress was made during the autumn on some issues, including legal reform and the regulation of alehouses. These hesitant steps towards co-operation between government and legislature were however undermined by a resurgence of religious intolerance on the part of MPs. The cause of conflict was Parliament’s determination to punish a Quaker ex-soldier, James Nayler, for an alleged act of blasphemy. In October 1656 the latter reenacted Christ’s entry into Jerusalem by riding into Bristol on a donkey, accompanied by supporters strewing palms at his feet. Parliament took up the case, insisting on the flogging, mutilation and imprisonment of the culprit. Behind this harsh over-reaction lay the fears of the propertied élite regarding the phenomenon of Quakerism, one of the most radical Protestant sects to emerge in the mid-seventeenth century. Parliamentarians feared the socially disruptive implications of the religious licence claimed by men like Nayler. Although Cromwell did not condone Nayler’s actions, he questioned the grounds on which Parliament had assumed a judicial role. He 

Cromwell, speech at the opening of Parliament, 17 September 1656, quoted in Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, p. 100.

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clearly signalled his anxiety regarding the possible wider application of this kind of procedure. The case prompted consideration of a further issue: the absence of a second chamber to act as a check on the Commons. This concern was addressed in February 1657 when Sir Christopher Packe MP presented proposals for constitutional revision. It is likely that this initiative was taken with the connivance of civilian members of the Protector’s circle, such as Lord Broghill and Bulstrode Whitelocke. The objective was to curb the power of the military and to ground the Protector’s authority on a more traditional constitutional basis. The proposals, embodied in the Humble Petition and Advice, sought to transform the Protectorate into a limited, hereditary monarchy and to create a second chamber composed of nominated members. Cromwell initially seemed favourable to the Petition, telling army critics of the document that its provisions would offer a safeguard for their cherished goal of liberty of conscience. The most controversial aspect, however, was clearly the offer of the crown. On 8 May, after a long delay, Cromwell finally rejected the constitutional package. The Petition was presented to him again two weeks later, with the section on kingship removed. Instead, Cromwell was to be given the right to nominate his successor as Protector. He would also be able to make nominations to an ‘Other House’ of between 40 and 70 people, although these would have to be approved by the Commons. He accepted this modified constitution and was ceremonially reinstalled as Protector in June. 2.8 To the grave—and beyond The second Protectorate Parliament convened for another session in January 1658. It was much less co-operative, partly because critics of the regime, who had been excluded from the first session, were now admitted to the Commons. Their ranks included unreconciled republicans who were in no way pacified by the new constitution. They were angered by the creation of a second chamber, seeing it as a thinly veiled return to the House of Lords, whose abolition they had supported in 1649. The ‘Other House’ was itself a disappointment for Cromwell as many of his former civilian collaborators, such as Lord Saye and Sele, refused his invitations to join it. Only 42 of the 63 individuals nominated actually consented to participate. In the Commons Cromwell’s appeals for unity were ignored, as republican MPs joined with disaffected elements in the army to promote a petition calling for an end to the Protectorate and a return to single chamber government. Faced with this display of 

For the text see Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution, pp. 350–57.

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opposition, Cromwell abruptly dissolved Parliament at the beginning of February, after a sitting that had lasted just two weeks. There is general agreement among historians that Cromwell’s last months were a period of depression and disappointment for the Protector. The regime faced severe financial difficulties, largely as a result of the heavy cost of maintaining a large military establishment, which was required to garrison Scotland and Ireland. The Humble Petition and Advice had reduced the assessment of taxation and the government was forced to seek loans to cover its expenditure. The defeat of Spanish forces and the capture of Dunkirk in June 1658 offered small consolation for these underlying problems. Evidence of dissent within the army—six officers were cashiered in February for opposition to the Protectorate—added to Cromwell’s troubles. His words to Parliament, that he would have preferred ‘to have been living under a woodside to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken such a place as this was’, summed up his sense of disillusionment. In his final months, illness and bereavement drained Cromwell’s energy. The worst blow was the death from cancer of his favourite daughter, Elizabeth Claypole, in August. Cromwell died on 3 September 1658, the anniversary of his victories at Dunbar and Worcester. The succession of his son Richard, whom he had nominated at a very late stage, was smooth. Although recent writing has been more generous to the generally disregarded second Protector, it remains true that Richard was poorly equipped to offer leadership. He lacked his father’s strength of character and his unique prestige with the military, which had enabled Oliver to remain in power. Unable to work with Parliament, Richard caved in when the army leaders, bereft of better inspiration, demanded the return of the Rump in the spring of 1659. His resignation in May brought the Protectorate to an end. Less than a year later the monarchy was restored in the person of Charles II, who was invited back by the former Cromwellian military commander in Scotland, General George Monck. Oliver’s body remained in Westminster Abbey, where it had been buried, until after the Restoration. In an act as futile as it was vindictive, it was exhumed by the victorious royalists on 30 January 1661, the anniversary of Charles I’s execution, and hanged at Tyburn, the traditional place of public execution in London. Alongside were the bodies of two other prominent republicans, Cromwell’s son-in-law, Henry Ireton, who had died in 1651, and John Bradshaw, president of the court that had condemned Charles to death. The remains of other luminaries of the regime and members of the 

Cromwell, speech to Parliament, 4 February 1658, quoted in Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, p. 189.

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Protector’s family were also removed from the Abbey. These included the body of Cromwell’s elderly mother, who had lived with Oliver and his family until her death at the age of 89 in November 1654. The final burial place of Cromwell’s body remains a matter of conjecture, although it is most likely that it lies under the site of the Tyburn gallows. No conclusive evidence has been discovered to support any of the various alternative stories, such as the tradition that the corpse was secretly interred on the battlefield of Naseby. The former Protector’s head was displayed in public for some years until, after a series of adventures, it was buried in Sidney Sussex, the college Cromwell had attended at Cambridge. The precise location is a secret known only to the college authorities. Such was the ignominious fate of the remains of England’s first republican head of state.

Part 2 Issues and debates Chapter 3 Cromwell as military commander 3.1 Introduction Historians have frequently expressed surprise and admiration for the way in which Cromwell emerged as a successful military leader in middle age, with no relevant experience prior to the civil war. The tradition that he spent some time on the Continent as a participant in the thirty years war (1618–48) has never been substantiated. He was not unusual among leading parliamentarians in his lack of military training, but in his time he was exceptional in the amount of battlefield success that he enjoyed. At the same time the relative shortness of Cromwell’s martial career has often been remarked upon. He saw action for the first time in 1642 and fought no battles after Worcester in 1651. Moreover he spent the whole of the first civil war as a subordinate to others, notably Sir Thomas Fairfax, the overall commander of the New Model Army. Only from the time of the Preston campaign in 1648, when he headed a force of almost 9,000 men, was Cromwell given command of substantial numbers. As Austin Woolrych has pointed out, this makes it difficult to compare him realistically with other celebrated generals of the early modern era, such as Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, who commanded much larger forces over a longer period. Nonetheless, Cromwell’s reputation as a military figure stands high. Professor Woolrych, who was a Second World War veteran as well as a professional historian, argued that he was ‘a natural soldier, who could have distinguished himself in any type or scale of warfare’.2 Another soldier turned historian, Frank Kitson, has described 



King of Sweden from 1611 until his death in battle in 1632, Gustavus Adolphus became a Protestant hero for his resistance to the Holy Roman Empire. The Lion of the North was famed for his leadership skills and aggressive fighting methods. He turned the Swedish army into a disciplined, well co-ordinated force, in which infantry, cavalry and artillery were effectively integrated. Austin Woolrych, ‘Cromwell as a soldier’, in John Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, p. 117.

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him as ‘the father of the British army’ for the way in which he established principles of discipline, training and logistic support. This chapter examines the qualities that gave Cromwell this stature, and assesses the other factors that enabled him to triumph on the battlefield. It also gives some attention to less successful episodes in his military career. Finally it looks at one particular episode in his career as a general, the controversy surrounding the conduct of his Irish campaign in 1649–50. 3.2 Secrets of success It is widely accepted that Cromwell was a talented learner who applied the lessons that he derived from practical experience. He was not an innovator but he had a keen eye for what worked and what did not. As a cavalry leader—a role in which he excelled—he adopted the Swedish practice of grouping his troops in three ranks, which bore down on their opponents with great force, holding their fire until the last moment. The idea was to break the enemy ranks with the momentum of the charge, and then to cut them down in flight. The royalist commander, Prince Rupert also used this technique, but Cromwell perfected it by maintaining the discipline of his own side throughout. Unlike the royalists, they did not waste their energy in unrestrained pursuit and become detached from the main action. A good example is the battle of Marston Moor in July 1644, when Cromwell regrouped his units after a first successful charge, leading them back to attack the royalists who had overwhelmed Fairfax on the parliamentarian army’s eastern wing. Similarly at Dunbar in September 1650, as the Scottish army began to disintegrate, Cromwell asserted his control by checking his men long enough to sing Psalm 117, the shortest of the psalms, thus providing an opportunity to regroup in orderly fashion. Disciplined action of this kind testifies to Cromwell’s ability to motivate and hold the loyalty of those under his command. This was largely due to the shared sense of morally righteous purpose that he was able to communicate. Writing to the Speaker of the Commons after the fall of Bristol in September 1645, he described his men as ‘instruments to God’s glory, and their country’s good’. Central to Cromwell’s leadership was his defence of his men’s right to worship as they wished. He also gave attention to their material needs, constantly urging sympathetic members of the local elites to provide essential supplies. His personal courage was another important ingredient.  

Frank Kitson, Old Ironsides: the military biography of Oliver Cromwell (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004), p. 224. W. C. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 1, p. 377.

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At Winceby in October 1643, for example, he fought on after his horse was killed, returning to the fighting on a borrowed mount. A claim that he was daunted by a minor wound at Marston Moor can safely be dismissed as the testimony of a hostile witness. Alan Marshall has argued that Cromwell’s personal qualities were appropriate to the kind of small-scale, face-to-face warfare in which he took part. In the early modern era the element of ‘public performance’ in battle was crucial to success as a commander. It has often been argued that Cromwell’s skills lay in the tactical rather than the strategic aspects of war. Marshall describes him as more ‘a heroic front-line warrior’ than ‘a modern chief executive of war’ (267). Yet he also acknowledges the excellent planning and use of intelligence that underpinned Cromwell’s victory over a much larger Scottish force at Preston in August 1648. He showed good judgement in engaging one part of the invading army after another, dealing with the strongest section first, which enabled him to concentrate his forces with maximum effect. He struck hard, cutting off the Scots from their supply lines and closing the possibility of retreat to the north. As Kitson observes, this was wiser than positioning himself between the Scots and London, which would have enabled the enemy to combine their forces and to select an advantageous location for the final showdown. Shrewd assessment of a battlefield situation was supplemented by careful advance planning. Cromwell left nothing to chance, ensuring the provision of adequate quantities of food, arms and equipment for his forces. This was especially important in his Scottish and Irish campaigns, where he was fighting in a hostile land, far from his base. Cromwell made good use of the navy in transporting supplies and artillery to the war zone. In the case of the Irish expedition, he used his political leverage to secure access to funds for paying his troops and bribing coastal garrisons to desert the enemy cause. He also used his diplomatic skills to the full in an endeavour to undermine the royalist coalition, scoring a particular success with the interception of a key individual, Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, who was won over to the parliamentarian side.

   

Kitson, Old Ironsides, p. 219. Alan Marshall, Oliver Cromwell Soldier: the military life of a revolutionary at war (London: Brasseys, 2004), pp. 268–9. Kitson, Old Ironsides, p. 158. Ian Gentles, The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645–1653 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 354–55.

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3.3 Fortune favours the bold Without seeking to deny Cromwell’s undoubted military talents, it is also important to recognise the role of favourable external factors in producing a successful outcome. Several historians have drawn attention to the weaknesses of the Scottish invasion force of 1648, which helps to explain its poor performance in the Preston campaign. The Scots suffered from divided political leadership and inadequate supplies. By trying to live off the land the army effectively alienated local people in the north of England from the royalist cause. Similarly in the case of Dunbar, it is true that the English position, trapped on a narrow coastal strip and weakened by sickness, was unpromising. On the other hand the Scottish army was disadvantaged by its exposure to bad weather on top of Doon Hill, overlooking the English forces, and was forced to descend to lower ground where it was unprepared for Cromwell’s surprise attack under cover of darkness. Enemy weaknesses were also a factor in the outcome of the Irish campaign. J. S. Wheeler has argued that the division of the Irish forces between Gaelic and Old English elements was as important as English power and Cromwell’s military abilities. He maintains that the English could have been thwarted, had the Irish coalition functioned properly. In evaluating Cromwell’s military performance we should also be aware of the contribution of others who, perhaps because they did not attain comparable prominence after the war, have sometimes been neglected. An important example is the victory of the English commander of Dublin, Michael Jones, at Rathmines in August 1649. This was gained before Cromwell arrived in Ireland and was crucial to the latter’s success. David Scott, author of a standard text on the period, has described it as the decisive battle of the Irish campaign. More controversial is Cromwell’s role in the Battle of Naseby in June 1645. Traditional accounts such as that of Peter Young and Richard Holmes tended to ascribe credit primarily to Cromwell. This interpretation was endorsed by Austin Woolrych, who described Cromwell’s control of his regiments, on the right wing of the formation, as having ‘saved the day for the parliament’. Both accounts highlight the success of Cromwell’s charge against     

Kitson, Old Ironsides, p. 150; Gentles, New Model Army, p. 265. J. S. Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999), p. 3. David Scott, Politics and War in the three Stuart Kingdoms, 1637–49 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 197. Peter Young and Richard Holmes, The English Civil War (London: Eyre Methuen, 1974), pp. 248–49. Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, 1625–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p.318.

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Sir Marmaduke Langdale’s cavalry, which faced him, and his attack on the royalist infantry in the centre of the field. Other historians have placed Sir Thomas Fairfax at the centre of events. Ian Gentles has drawn attention to his skilful direction of the various components of the New Model Army. He quotes George Bishop, author of a contemporary account, who described Fairfax as being ‘to and again in the front, carrying orders, bringing on divisions in the midst of dangers, with gallant bravery and routed that enemy’. Fairfax synchronised the advance of the parliamentarian horse and foot and brought forward his reserves at the right moment.  Frank Kitson, who calls Fairfax a ‘master tactician’, supports this interpretation. Although Cromwell and other junior commanders turned individual situations within the battle to their advantage, ‘in the final analysis this was Fairfax’s battle and on 14 June 1645 he won the war for Parliament’. It is also worth noting the (admittedly relatively few) occasions when Cromwell was involved in unsuccessful actions, such as the indecisive second Battle of Newbury in October 1644. Woolrych explains the failure of a numerically superior parliamentary army to exploit its opportunities with reference to poor co-ordination by the overall commander, the Earl of Manchester. Other historians have taken a more critical approach to Cromwell’s performance. Young and Holmes, for example, argue that Cromwell’s slowness to intervene was a factor in the disappointing outcome. They dismiss attempts to defend him on the grounds that he came under fire from the royalist-controlled Donnington Castle. In contradiction of this claim they argue that his cavalry presented a moving target at long range. It may simply be that his morale or fighting spirit, or that of his troops, was low at that time. Such observations are a useful reminder of the fallibility of even an outstanding leader. 3.4 Ireland and the ‘curse of Cromwell’ No area of Cromwell’s military activity has attracted more controversy than his Irish expedition of 1649. Two episodes in particular, his conduct of the sieges of Drogheda and Wexford, have given rise to the long-standing Irish tradition of the ‘curse of    

Gentles, New Model Army, pp. 59–60. Kitson, Old Ironsides, p.125. See also Andrew Hopper, ‘Black Tom’: Sir Thomas Fairfax and the English Revolution (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), p.67 for a positive account of Fairfax’s role at Naseby. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 291. Young and Holmes, English Civil War, p. 220. Kitson, Old Ironsides, p. 99 makes the same point.

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Cromwell’. His actions have been condemned, not only by commentators writing from an Irish nationalist perspective, but also by a broad spectrum of politically uncommitted opinion. The slaughter of more than 3,000 at Drogheda, and of almost a further 2,000 at Wexford, is hard even for Cromwell’s admirers to defend. In 1999, however, an Irish local historian, Tom Reilly, produced a revisionist interpretation, Cromwell: an honourable enemy, which remains contentious. What was the basis of the book’s argument? In common with a number of other historians Reilly distinguished between the fall of the two towns. In the case of Drogheda, the garrison of which was massacred after it had turned down an invitation to surrender, he argued that this was in line with the rules of warfare practised in the seventeenth century. Other writers have made this point but Reilly went further in claiming that earlier accounts, based on unreliable evidence, had wrongly asserted that large numbers of civilians, including members of the Catholic clergy, had also been killed. With regard to the priests and friars who suffered, he contended that there was reason to believe that they were bearing arms or at least were associated with the town’s garrison, and that the English soldiers’ failure to discriminate was understandable. Reilly also argued that Cromwell’s harshness was designed to speed up the Irish campaign by encouraging other towns to surrender. It therefore suited Cromwell for exaggerated stories of massacres to be related. This meshed with the royalists’ desire, for their own reasons, to depict him in the worst possible light. Wexford, on the other hand, was a less clear-cut case. Negotiations with the governor, Colonel David Synnott, had taken place, and Cromwell had offered terms to the garrison, when a section of parliamentarian troops took over the castle and began killing the defenders. In a somewhat confused situation these men may have been unaware of the state of talks with the governor. Relatively few innocent civilians perished and in any case the killing did not take place on Cromwell’s orders. Reilly argued that Cromwell’s reputation was damaged by the work of hostile writers, and that his national prominence after 1649 may partly explain the fact that blame was attached to him as an individual. Other historians have mitigated Cromwell’s guilt without embracing Reilly’s markedly generous interpretation. J.S. Wheeler has observed that ruthless behaviour was not exceptional in Ireland at the time. One of Cromwell’s colleagues, Sir Charles Coote, Lord President of Connaught, viewed the campaign as a war of extermination. After Cromwell returned to England, areas outside the English-held towns were  

Tom Reilly, Cromwell: an honourable enemy (Dingle: Brandon, 1999), p. 117, p. 109, p. 84. Ibid, p. 192.

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declared ‘free-fire zones’, where any person or habitation could be destroyed. Austin Woolrych maintains that Cromwell followed the rules that prevailed at the time. At New Ross (October 1649), Fethard and Caher (February 1650), whose governors surrendered promptly, lives were spared, including those of Catholic priests. The Drogheda massacre was permitted by the same code, although Woolrych contends that Cromwell did not enforce it with the same harshness elsewhere. This can however be disputed. Cromwell’s treatment of Basing House in Hampshire, after its capture in October 1645, was on a smaller scale, but its fate perhaps gives a clue to his underlying attitudes. Basing had withstood three sieges and its owner, the Marquis of Winchester, refused to capitulate. Cromwell was therefore within his rights in allowing the slaughter of many of the defenders after the walls had been breached. As Woolrych acknowledges, the ferocity with which the attackers behaved may be partly explained by the fact that the Marquis and a number of the defenders were known to be Catholics. Among those who perished were six priests. The house was sacked and reduced to rubble and many of the occupants, including women, were stripped of their clothes. The victims included the royal architect, Inigo Jones, himself a life-long Catholic, who was said to have escaped naked apart from a blanket. It seems clear that Cromwell’s conduct in Ireland was underpinned by a strong element of religious prejudice. In assessing his approach to the campaign one should not underestimate the deep-seated fear and hatred of Catholicism that was common to Protestant Englishmen of the period. Memories of the Irish Catholic uprising of 1641, which Cromwell believed himself to be avenging, had entered the popular consciousness. This was what he had in mind when, in one of his more notorious statements, he wrote to the Speaker of the Commons after the fall of Drogheda that ‘this is a righteous judgement of God upon these barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood’. This was in spite of the fact that the people of Drogheda had not actually participated in the 1641 rising, and that the garrison consisted largely of Protestant English royalists. Catholicism was seen as a generalised, ideological enemy, rather as communism was viewed in the west, three centuries later, at the height of the cold war. Later in the same letter he gave some support to the claim that his actions were partly motivated by a desire to shorten the war in Ireland, when he expressed a hope that ‘it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but   

Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland, pp. 4-5. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 471, p. 475. Ibid, p. 325.

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work remorse and regret’. This is a rare expression of unease, which needs to be weighed against Cromwell’s record in Ireland, not only as a military commander but also as a political leader in later years. As head of state from 1653–58, he presided over a land settlement which entailed the compulsory migration of large numbers of native Irish to the poorer areas of Connaught, and their replacement by Protestant English settlers. It has been calculated that the Catholic share of Irish land fell from 59% in 1641 to a mere 22% in 1660. These measures were accompanied by harsh repression of the practice of the Catholic religion. Cromwell explicitly stated in a letter to the governor of New Ross in October 1649 that ‘if by liberty of conscience you mean a liberty to exercise the mass, I judge it best to use plain dealing, and to let you know, where the Parliament of England have power, that will not be allowed of’. These facts make it difficult to accept Reilly’s benign conclusion that if Cromwell ‘were to see Ireland today there can be very little doubt that he would be devastated and ashamed of the results of his work’. Most historians would agree with J. S. Wheeler’s conclusion that, even by seventeenth century standards, the events at Drogheda and Wexford were morally indefensible. Indeed, Wheeler further suggests that Cromwell’s merciless tactics may have stiffened Irish resistance and thus helped to prolong the war. Whilst some towns surrendered quickly, others did not. Cromwell had to abandon the siege of Waterford in December 1649 and sustained heavy losses at Clonmel the following spring. Although the capture of Drogheda and Wexford gave the Cromwellian forces undoubted tactical advantages, in the longer term the use of terror may have been self-defeating. The practical and the moral dimensions of Cromwell’s military operations in Ireland will continue to be a matter of debate.

    

Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 2, p. 127. Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p.146. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 2, p. 146. Reilly, Cromwell: an honourable enemy, p. 198. Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland, p. 160.

Chapter 4 Seeking power or seeking the Lord? 4.1 Introduction This chapter is concerned with Cromwell’s transition from military to political leadership up to the establishment of the Protectorate in December 1653. Its underlying theme is the quest for a stable political settlement, acceptable to the victors of the struggle against Charles I. This process raised fundamental questions about the future of the country. What attitude should be taken towards the defeated King and the institution of monarchy? How were the wishes and interests of Parliament, and the classes represented there, to be reconciled with those of the New Model Army, as a divergence between the two emerged in the wake of victory in the field? As we have already noted, for much of this period Cromwell did not have exclusive responsibility for the direction of policy. He was not the overall commander of the army until June 1650, when Sir Thomas Fairfax declined to lead English forces against fellow Protestants in Scotland, and therefore a vacancy was created. Just over three years later he accepted appointment as head of state. It was, by any standards, a remarkable evolution. In this chapter we will examine the answers offered by historians to two related questions: • Did Cromwell deliberately seek power for himself, or did he reluctantly assume increasing levels of responsibility under the pressure of events? • What were the decisive influences on Cromwell’s changing attitudes towards the political institutions and destiny of the country? 4.2 Self-seeker or reluctant constable? Cromwell’s royalist opponents, and republicans who parted company with him after the civil wars, were inclined to see him as an ambitious hypocrite who cloaked his selfish designs beneath professions of deep religious conviction. The description of him in 1649 by the Leveller pamphleteer, Richard Overton, is well known: ‘he will

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lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes and call God to record, he will weep, howl and repent, even while he doth smite you under the first rib’. Few historians would now endorse these hostile stereotypes, and a consensus has arisen that he was sincere in his religious beliefs. Even one of the more critical analyses of Cromwell, that of Ronald Hutton, concedes it is unlikely he can have conspired over such a long period to gain power, since this was a wholly unpredictable outcome, at least until the early 1650s. The author of a more sympathetic study of Cromwell, J.C. Davis, has developed this theme in some depth. He points to the way in which Cromwell’s writings and speeches, throughout his career, are permeated by a sense of God’s providential direction. References to God’s will and guidance recur with an insistence that is unusual, even for the seventeenth century. For this to be an insincere mask would have required an implausibly sustained degree of artifice on his part. Moreover Davis notes that Cromwell followed the logic of his proclaimed belief in divine providence even when things went wrong, accepting God’s will as readily then as in times of triumph. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to interpret Cromwell’s actions in more than one way. As Ronald Hutton has pointed out, there is a tantalising absence of definite evidence at a number of critical turning points in his career. This has allowed an element of doubt to creep in, even if he cannot be positively convicted of actively seeking to advance himself. It is possible to take Cromwell at his own valuation, as a political innocent who benefited passively from circumstances. As he famously remarked, ‘no one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.’ Alternatively he can be seen as a more knowing and guileful figure, deliberately distancing himself from events in which he was involved. Many years ago Christopher Hill wrote of Cromwell’s characteristic caution, in seeking to discern God’s purpose before committing himself to a course of action. Hill argued that Cromwell exercised extreme care because of the importance of the cause for which he was fighting. However he acknowledged that ‘to contemporaries “waiting on the Lord” might seem like waiting to see which way the cat would jump’. In order to take this discussion further, this chapter will review the controversies which have surrounded several key episodes in Cromwell’s career: his role in the emergence of the Self-Denying Ordinance in      

D. M. Wolfe, ed., Leveller Manifestoes of the Puritan Revolution (London: Nelson, 1944), p. 370. Ronald Hutton, Debates in Stuart History (London: Palgrave, 2004), p. 114. J. C. Davis, Oliver Cromwell (London: Arnold, 2001), pp. 128–9. Hutton, Debates in Stuart History, p. 115. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 1, p. 472. Christopher Hill, Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958 (London: Historical Association, 1958), p. 25.

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1644–45; in the events which led to the trial of Charles I in 1647–48; the dissolution of the Rump Parliament in April 1653; and the closure of Barebone’s Parliament and the creation of the Protectorate in December 1653. 4.3 The Self-Denying Ordinance The passing of the Self-Denying Ordinance proved to be of critical importance in Cromwell’s career. It removed his opponents in the army command from their posts, whilst his own prospects were unaffected; and it led to the reorganisation of the parliamentary forces into the New Model Army. Essentially the proposal was that members of the Lords and Commons should give up their civil and military offices. Behind this strategy were several of Cromwell’s parliamentary allies. Their principal targets were those military leaders, such as Manchester and Essex, who were not pursuing the war with sufficient determination. It carried a risk that Cromwell himself, as an MP, might have to give up his position as lieutenant-general. In the event he secured an exemption from the ordinance, through the device of having his military appointment periodically renewed. As it worked to his eventual advantage it is tempting to believe that Cromwell must have engineered the outcome. It has however proved difficult to substantiate this suspicion. Cromwell called on members of both houses to withdraw from military command in a speech to the Commons on 9 December 1644. This was the theme of a resolution simultaneously introduced in the Commons by Zouch Tate MP and, in the House of Lords, by Viscount Saye and Sele. This certainly looked like collusion. Nonetheless most historians have agreed that Cromwell could not possibly have foreseen the eventual outcome. The House of Lords rejected the original resolution and, when it was finally passed in April 1645, the ordinance was substantially changed. It now contained an explicit provision for the reappointment of those who had resigned their commissions. Austin Woolrych, for example, concludes that it is most likely that Cromwell was prepared to stand down from the army as the price of securing the resignations of the peace party leaders. It was the course of events that saved his military career. The shock of the royalists’ sack of Leicester in May 1645 ensured that Cromwell was appointed to lead the parliamentarian cavalry in time for the Battle of Naseby. Ian Gentles believes that Cromwell was probably sincere when he spoke 

Austin Woolrych, ‘Cromwell as a soldier’ in John Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Longman, 1990), p. 102. A similar conclusion is reached by Barry Coward, Oliver Cromwell (London: Longman, 1991), p. 39.

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for the principle of self-denial in December 1644. His involvement in the subsequent spring campaigning season awakened his fighting spirit and he now strove to retain his command. The historian John Adamson has provided a slightly different gloss on events. He argues that Cromwell took a calculated risk in supporting the principle of self-denial. Exemption from the provisions of the ordinance was a possibility from the start, but he and his parliamentary allies could not at once push for this on his behalf. The reason was that their priority was to defeat a proposal for the exemption of the Earl of Essex. If they had applied for Cromwell’s exemption at the same time, this would have exposed them to charges of double standards. Adamson also dismisses the claim that Cromwell sought to surrender his appointment in a meeting with Fairfax in April 1645. Instead his allies sought his exemption shortly before his commission was due to expire on 12 May. By contrast Manchester and Essex had resigned their posts once the passage of the ordinance became inevitable. The episode demonstrates Cromwell’s developing capacity to survive in the faction politics of the Civil War period. Even if he did not have a long-term plan to secure his career, he certainly showed a sureness of touch in his dealings with others, and an ability to use parliamentary alliances to his advantage. As we shall see, a willingness to take a chance was to characterise his behaviour on other occasions. 4.4 Closing the net on the King The absence of direct evidence, at certain critical moments, is a problem for scholars examining the complex manoeuvres involving Parliament, the army and the King in 1647–49. One source of controversy is the incident in June 1647, when Cornet Joyce removed Charles I from Holdenby House in Northamptonshire and transferred him to Newmarket. The background to this episode is the start of a breakdown in relations between Parliament and the army. It has often been pointed out that this was a major step for a comparatively junior officer to take, and it is the case that he had discussions with Cromwell only five days earlier. Austin Woolrych considers that Cromwell and Joyce had agreed that it was necessary to prevent the King’s seizure by forces more loyal to Parliament—an eventuality that was feared at that point. However, in common with the majority of other historians, he accepts Cromwell’s later denial that  

Ian Gentles, The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland, 1645–1653 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 27. J. S. A. Adamson, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament’ in Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, pp. 63–4.

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he had authorised Joyce to remove Charles from Holdenby. He considers it unthinkable that Cromwell should have ordered such a momentous step without consulting his own superior, Fairfax. A slightly different interpretation appears in the work of Barry Coward. He acquits Cromwell of initiating the action although he regards it as likely that Joyce ‘came merely to get Cromwell’s blessing for his exploit’. It is, as J. C. Davis notes, one of several ‘coincidences’ in Cromwell’s career, which make it harder to dismiss allegations that he was a calculating politician, but he cannot be convicted of having directed events. Another mysterious episode is the circumstances surrounding the flight of the King from Hampton Court to the Isle of Wight in November 1647. In another ‘coincidence’, the commander of the guards at Hampton Court was Edward Whalley, a cousin of Cromwell, and the governor of the Isle of Wight was also one of his relations, Robert Hammond. Moreover Cromwell had written to Whalley, warning him of a threat to the King’s life, and Whalley had shown the letter to Charles. On arrival on the island Charles became Hammond’s prisoner; he had in effect exchanged one prison for another. Had Cromwell, as his enemies alleged, engineered this in order to end a negotiation with the King, which was increasingly unacceptable to radicals in the army? Did he seek to frighten Charles into flight, knowing that he would end up trapped on the island and with his reputation now severely damaged? The advantages for Cromwell, faced as he was with the task of maintaining the unity of the army, were clear. It is, however, surely implausible that Cromwell could have foreseen that the King would end up in Hammond’s custody. Charles’ own intentions were unclear and in any case there is evidence that Cromwell had not given up the idea of negotiating with him. It is however worth noting Ronald Hutton’s more sceptical point, that although there is no positive evidence of Cromwell’s involvement, clearly many of his contemporaries believed that he was the kind of person who might be expected to behave in such a devious manner. A further debate has focused on Cromwell’s behaviour in the closing months of 1648, in the lead up to the trial and execution of the King. At what stage did he make up his mind that this was a necessary course of action? One of the problems is his decision to remain in the north of England, in charge of the siege of Pontefract, until     

Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution 1625—1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 363. Coward, Oliver Cromwell, p. 50. Coward inaccurately locates Holdenby in Nottinghamshire. Davis, Oliver Cromwell, p. 147. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 394; Davis, Oliver Cromwell, p. 148. Hutton, Debates in Stuart History, p. 116.

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the end of November. During this period his son-in-law, Henry Ireton, was taking the lead in the events leading to Pride’s purge. Cromwell returned to London only when ordered to do so and he journeyed slowly. This has raised legitimate questions regarding his attitude to the purge of Parliament and the plans to put the King on trial. Most historians concur that he arrived in London after the purge had taken place, although even here there is some doubt regarding the precise date. It has always seemed unlikely that he did not have some idea of what was being planned in the capital. Did he deliberately seek to distance himself from actions taken by others? Was it, as Woolrych argues, that he had doubts at this stage concerning the course that Ireton and the army leaders in London were taking? David Underdown, the author of the most detailed study of the episode, suggests that it is most likely that Cromwell preferred to arrive after the point of no return had been passed. He had qualms about the use of force against constitutional authority but could find no alternative to the purge without splitting the army. The siege of Pontefract, according to this interpretation, was a minor action, which could easily have been left to others to manage. A dissenting note has been struck by Ian Gentles, who argues that Cromwell’s responsibilities in the north were militarily significant. He suggests that Cromwell was already an implacable opponent of Charles and that he did not loiter at the siege simply in order to avoid making a decision. As evidence that Cromwell had already made up his mind about putting Charles on trial, Gentles cites his attempts to persuade the imprisoned Duke of Hamilton to admit that he had invaded England on the King’s personal invitation. This line of argument has not been universally accepted. It may be that Cromwell’s delay in coming south was motivated in part by a belief that he could still act as a mediator, arranging some kind of settlement that fell short of putting the King on trial. Barry Coward argues that in his first weeks back in London, he was serious about securing an agreement, perhaps involving Charles’ abdication in favour of his youngest son, the Duke of Gloucester. Only when these negotiations collapsed as a result of the King’s intransigence, in late December, did Cromwell commit himself to the more radical option urged by Ireton. He then became an enthusiastic supporter of the King’s trial, driven on by his religious conviction that Charles had sinned by instigating the second civil war. The idea that Cromwell was hesitant about committing himself to regicide and the    

Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 425. David Underdown, Pride s Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 150. Gentles, New Model Army, pp. 284–5. Coward, Oliver Cromwell, pp. 64–5.

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end of the monarchy is plausible. His social background, as a member of a family previously associated with the institution of monarchy, is relevant here. It may well have made him pause as he contemplated such a drastic step. It is also worth stressing that Cromwell’s role in the events of the winter of 1648–49 should not be exaggerated. Although undoubtedly a prominent individual, he acted as a member of a group. His reputation has been distorted by the fact that he was no longer alive at the time of the Restoration in 1660, and it was in the interests of surviving republicans to award him a disproportionate share of the blame for what had been done eleven years earlier. 4.5 The dissolution of the Rump Parliament Cromwell’s abrupt dissolution of the Rump Parliament on 20 April 1653 has deeply divided opinion, both at the time and subsequently. His defenders traditionally took a negative view of the Rump as a self-serving, unprogressive assembly, which was deservedly expelled on the brink of securing an extension of its life. An alternative line of argument has been that the dissolution was clear evidence of Cromwell’s desire for personal power. Republican opinion at the time was appalled by the naked use of military force, which seemed to recall the most autocratic actions of Charles I. Cromwell’s critics were not persuaded by his professed reluctance to take action: ‘I have sought the Lord night and day, that he would rather slay me than put me upon the doing of this work.’ Historians have however discounted the suggestion that Cromwell’s action was part of a deep-laid plot. Had this been the case, he would surely have had a clear plan for the next stage, and this was plainly absent. Nor is there clear evidence for a variation on this theory, which suggests that MPs were planning to remove Cromwell from the command of the army. There is broad agreement among scholars that he acted spontaneously; as Woolrych observes, the public statement made by Cromwell and the army officers two days after the dissolution can neatly be summarised as ‘Lord only knows where we go from here.’ The starting point for study of this episode is Blair Worden’s book, The Rump Parliament. Worden rejected the argument, which had been generally accepted up to that point, that the members of the Rump were preparing to perpetuate their own right to sit, using the device of ‘recruiter’ elections. This would have entailed the holding of elections only in seats where there was a vacancy, thus enabling the existing MPs   

Martyn Bennett, Oliver Cromwell (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 153–4. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 2, p. 642. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 536.

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to continue undisturbed. On the contrary, the bill before the Rump on 20 April provided for new general elections. Most historians have agreed with this interpretation but it is widely acknowledged that it leaves a number of unresolved difficulties. As is often the case in Cromwell’s career, there is a crucial problem of evidence. Cromwell removed the bill from the Commons chamber when he terminated its proceedings and it has never been seen again. In addition, he was inconsistent in the arguments that he used in defence of his actions in later years. Nor did the expelled MPs, who became determined opponents of Cromwell as Lord Protector, ever put forward a coherent reply to his evasive, contradictory efforts at self-justification. Perhaps, as Worden has argued, both sides had reasons to cover their tracks. Why then did Cromwell dissolve the Rump? Worden’s explanation focuses on the influence of the religious radicals in the army, who confirmed his disillusionment with the Rump’s failure to enact reforms. There is little doubt that it had failed to live up to the expectations of those who sought the extension of religious liberty of conscience. In part, as the historian of seventeenth century parliaments, David Smith, has argued, this was because it had to secure its survival in face of a series of external threats, from the Leveller movement in 1649 to the royalist invasion of 1651. An analysis of 123 acts passed in three sample periods (January to June 1649, January to June 1651, January to April 1653) is illuminating. It reveals that no fewer than 74 measures dealt with issues of security, finance or taxation, whereas only three were concerned with reform of the legal system and five addressed religious issues. A symbol of this clash of priorities was the Rump’s decision not to renew the Commission for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales, a cherished instrument of those who sought to promote moral and religious regeneration. Several historians have drawn attention to Cromwell’s frustration at the disappointment of his hopes for godly reformation. Barry Coward, for example, points out that Cromwell had come under growing pressure from religious radicals who were convinced that their vision of a godly society was in jeopardy, and he concluded that decisive action was necessary to recover God’s favour for the cause that he represented. Austin Woolrych has directed our attention back to Parliament’s plans for elec    

Blair Worden, The Rump Parliament 1648–1653 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), p. 345. Blair Worden, ‘The Bill for a New Representative: the dissolution of the Long Parliament, April 1653’, English Historical Review, Vol. 86 (1971), p. 495. Worden, The Rump Parliament, pp.379–80. D. L. Smith, The Stuart Parliaments 1603–1689 (London: Arnold, 1999), p. 137. Coward, Oliver Cromwell, pp. 85–7.

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tions. Cromwell may have feared that elections, held without safeguards to exclude ungodly members, would produce a House of Commons no less resistant to his religious aspirations. He may have suspected that the bill, as originally drafted, contained a provision to guarantee some of the existing members seats in the new parliament, and to exclude army officers from standing for election. Ultimately MPs decided to pass the bill without this clause, but Cromwell did not know that it had been dropped when he intervened in the House on 20 April, and he only discovered the omission later. As Woolrych acknowledges, this is merely a hypothesis, but it would help to explain Cromwell’s subsequent concealment of the bill and his awkward attempts at self-justification. 4.6

Barebone’s Parliament and the establishment of the Protectorate

The failure of the assembly that was installed in place of the Rump Parliament is rightly identified as a major watershed in Cromwell’s career. The creation of the body usually known as Barebone’s Parliament represented an attempt to place responsibility for affairs in the hands of a single chamber, whose members were to be deliberately selected for their ideological loyalty to the godly cause. It was the high point of radical Puritanism and was recognised as such in the emotionally charged speech delivered by Cromwell at its installation in July 1653. Within six months, however, Barebone’s Parliament had collapsed and Cromwell had been invited to assume quasimonarchical powers as Lord Protector. For the rest of his career he would devote a large part of his energies to a search for political stability—to devise and implement a settlement that would safeguard the gains of the puritan revolution yet also reassure the forces of tradition and conservatism. Candidly describing the Barebone’s experiment as ‘a story of my own weakness and folly’, henceforth he would pin his hopes to the checks and balances provided by a written constitution. The extent to which this represented a betrayal of the radical ideals for which he and others had fought the civil wars will be considered in the next chapter. This section is concerned with two questions: why did Barebone’s Parliament fail to live up to expectations, and how did Cromwell come to accept appointment as head of state in December 1653? As J. C. Davis has reminded us, Cromwell did not put his faith in the creation of formal constitutional structures when he inaugurated Barebone’s Parliament.   

Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, pp. 533–5. For a fuller analysis see the earlier, more specialised Austin Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), Chapter III. See, for example, Hutton, Debates in Stuart History, p. 119. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 4, p. 489.

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His speech to the assembled members was essentially an exhortation to follow the word of God, and was quite unlike the speeches traditionally made at the opening of Parliament. It bore out Cromwell’s famous phrase from the Putney debates of November 1647 that he was not ‘wedded and glued to forms of government’. He did however make it clear that the assembly was intended to be an interim body, whose term would end in November 1654, and he envisaged an eventual return to conventional elected parliaments. Cromwell distanced himself from the everyday working of the assembly and its council of state, and did not attempt to dictate its membership, acting simply as one of a group of army officers who made nominations. All of this suggests that Cromwell was far from the ambitious, power-hungry self-seeker portrayed by his enemies; but it may help to explain the eventual failure of the project. Barebone’s Parliament lacked a clear sense of direction and there was no real attempt to manage its proceedings. It divided along factional lines, with the moderates eventually deciding to surrender their authority rather than continue trying to work with their more radical colleagues. Nevertheless, as Austin Woolrych’s detailed study of the assembly has convincingly shown, we should beware of writing it off as an unmitigated failure. Most of its members were not impractical mystics and they made a serious attempt to deal with pressing issues of financial administration and legal, religious and social reform. A series of unfortunate wrangles however began to persuade Cromwell that Barebone’s Parliament was unfit to be entrusted with executive power. One issue was its failure to end the war with the Dutch, which had begun during the rule of the Rump, and to which Cromwell was opposed. A vocal section of the assembly, influenced by the teachings of the Fifth Monarchy sect, saw conflict with the Dutch as part of a broader ideological struggle with the forces of Roman Catholicism in the world. They held this view in spite of the fact that the official religion of the Dutch was Protestant. Cromwell disagreed with this approach, seeing it as naïve and contrary to England’s best interests, and increasingly bypassed Barebone’s Parliament by opening up his own channels of communication with Dutch diplomats. By the autumn divisions had opened up within the Parliament on several issues of    

Davis, Oliver Cromwell, p. 184. Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 1, p. 527. Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, pp. 290–310. This fundamentalist Protestant group, which included one of Cromwell’s army colleagues, MajorGeneral Thomas Harrison, believed that Christ’s return to earth was imminent, and that this would be followed by the actual, visible rule of the saints. This was an extreme version of a common puritan belief in biblical prophecies about the second coming.

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domestic policy. The most serious was the question of tithes, the historic system of taxation used to maintain the parish clergy. The most radical Protestants were opposed to tithes as an obstacle to their concept of entirely voluntary churches, separate from the state and supported solely by their own congregations. A larger number of moderates, however, were prepared to reform the system of tithes but were opposed to outright abolition. A smaller section of conservatives viewed tithes as an established form of property right and were not prepared to see them tampered with. They were also worried by radical proposals to abolish the right of lay patrons to appoint parish clergy. Law reform was another contentious issue. Only a minority of members shared the purist approach of the Fifth Monarchists, who sought the codification of the law on strictly biblical principles, and the abolition of the ancient Court of Chancery. Their views however received such prominence that they frightened more moderate parliamentarians. Crucially, these controversies caused Cromwell to fear that his hopes of godly reform were being jeopardised by unrealistic fanatics. These developments were the more alarming because radicals within the assembly were linked to extremist preachers outside, who were denouncing the army leadership as corrupted by power and place. Barebone’s Parliament came to an abrupt end on 12 December when the moderate majority in effect orchestrated a coup by meeting early in the morning, when many of the radicals were absent, and deciding to surrender their authority to Cromwell. It seems clear that the moderates had consulted beforehand with Major-General John Lambert, the author of the Instrument of Government, and with other army officers who were opposed to the continuation of the Parliament. There is greater uncertainty over Cromwell’s role in the unfolding of events. He subsequently claimed that he had no prior knowledge of the intention to wind up the Parliament. Scholars have disagreed over whether to take his claim at face value. Barry Coward considers it hard to believe that he was unaware of what was planned. Woolrych by contrast is more prepared to accept Cromwell’s word. This is because Cromwell had earlier refused a request from Lambert to dissolve the Parliament, and therefore it was sensible for the latter to keep his plans secret from his superior. There is however agreement among historians that Cromwell had been made aware of the contents of the Instrument of Government, the founding document of the Protectorate, which he accepted, with some agreed modifications, soon after the resignation of Barebone’s Parliament. This   

These divisions are fully described in Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, pp. 314–46. Coward, Oliver Cromwell, p. 97. Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate, p. 346; Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p. 558; Cow-

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is not the same as alleging that Cromwell had deliberately sought the highest office for himself. His often quoted words as Protector, that he accepted public responsibility in the manner of ‘a good constable to keep the peace of the parish,’ are borne out by his conduct. If not necessarily surprised by the eventual collapse of Barebone’s Parliament, there is no reason to believe that it was an outcome for which he actively planned.



ard, Oliver Cromwell, pp. 97–8. Cromwell, speech to Commons committee, 13 April 1657, quoted in Ivan Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (London: Everyman, 1989), p. 133.

Chapter 5 The Protectorate at home 5.1 Introduction After some years of relative neglect, when historians were much more concerned with debating the origins of the civil war, the Protectorate has increasingly come under the spotlight. Much of the research into the period, however, remains buried in scholarly articles and monographs, which deal in depth with particular aspects of Cromwellian government. It is only recently that attempts have been made to assess the regime as a whole, notably Barry Coward’s overview, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Historians agree that there is still a great deal to do, and as yet no detailed study of the working of the government has appeared. This chapter addresses the following key questions: • How powerful was Oliver Cromwell between 1653 and 1658, and how important a role did he play in the domestic policies of the Protectorate? • What was the nature of the regime? Is there any truth in the depiction of the Protectorate as a military dictatorship? How tolerant were its religious policies? • Was the collapse of the Protectorate after Oliver Cromwell’s death predetermined, or did it possess the makings of a viable civilian government? 5.2

Cromwell as Protector

Although the title of Lord Protector was an historic one, Cromwell’s position after December 1653 was a cause of concern to many of his contemporaries. It was not clear to them whether the laws and conventions that theoretically had applied under monarchical rule bound him. Indeed, the offer of the crown in 1657 was to a large extent an attempt by conservative members of Parliament to regularise and delimit his position as head of state. Historians too have debated the extent to which Cromwell exercised 

The title had, for example, been held by the noblemen who governed successively during the minority of Edward VI (1547–53), the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Northumberland.

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real power as Protector. The Protectorate was the only period when Britain was governed in accordance with a single, written constitutional document. No doubt in reaction to the perceived abuse of royal power under the early Stuarts, the Instrument of Government prescribed a deliberate distribution of power between the Protector, the Council and Parliament. In relation to the latter Cromwell was clearly in a dominant position. Beyond the formal requirement that Parliaments must be elected every three years, and sit for a minimum of five months, the Protector was free to call or dissolve them as he wished. Cromwell’s experience of his first Protectorate Parliament was so negative that he exercised his power of dissolution in January 1655 at the earliest moment allowed—after five lunar months rather than calendar months. The Humble Petition and Advice enhanced the House of Commons’ legal powers in certain respects, giving it the right to approve nominations to the new second chamber and restricting the Council’s right, laid down in the Instrument of Government, to exclude MPs. It was however powerless to prevent a further dissolution in February 1658 after renewed conflict with the Protector’s agenda. The Protector’s powers in relation to the Council have provoked greater debate among historians in recent years. On paper the Instrument of Government gave the Council a number of powers that had not been enjoyed by its royal predecessors. It obliged the Protector to ‘govern … by the advice of the Council’. He did not possess an unrestricted power to appoint councillors, and it was given the power to appoint his successor on his death. The Protector had to cooperate with the Council on financial policy and, when Parliament was not sitting, he was expected to consult it over decisions on foreign policy and the deployment of troops. Some historians have argued that Cromwell resented the restrictions on his personal power. Derek Hirst, for example, quotes his description of himself to his second Parliament as tied by ‘swaddling bands’. It may however be, as Hirst acknowledges, that such protestations were a convenient way of deflecting the criticisms of his domestic opponents, as when he attributed his failure to abolish tithes to opposition from within the Council. How much power did Cromwell really have? Peter Gaunt has carried out the most extensive research into his relationship with the Council. He paints a picture of a Protector whose freedom of action was significantly circumscribed, especially in the intervals between Parliaments, and who was genuinely uneasy at the potentially corrupting influence of untrammelled power. Gaunt argued that the councillors acquired an unjustified reputation for being no more than the Protector’s ciphers because their 

Quoted in Derek Hirst, ‘The Lord Protector, 1653–1658’ in J. S. Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Longman, 1990), p.137.

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deliberations took place behind closed doors, so that even highly placed contemporaries were unclear about their role. In reality Cromwell worked with the Council, respected its independence and even allowed it to prevail on occasion over his personal wishes. Gaunt portrays him, for example, as having strong reservations about the Council’s large-scale exclusion of MPs from the second Protectorate Parliament in 1656, and suggests that his poor attendance at the time was a sign of his wish to distance himself from the proceedings. In recent years, however, there have been signs that a revision of this interpretation is under way. One of the problems with the study of government under the Protectorate is the incomplete nature of the Council’s records. Blair Worden has pointed out that many important items at official meetings were not minuted, and that a number of informal meetings were held. In addition it appears that Cromwell—in common with many rulers before and since—held meetings with small groups of councillors and with non-office holders. Worden emphasises the gap between the forms of government and the actual practice of power. His work restores Cromwell to the centre of decision-making, demonstrating that the Council frequently sought to know the Protector’s ‘pleasure’ and then simply rubberstamped his commands. Worden notes the unusual amount of time that Cromwell spent in discussing and arguing with others, but also points out that he rarely gave way in argument. He overruled opposition to his decisions to dissolve both Protectorate Parliaments. The main apparent exception to this was the occasion when he abandoned his opposition to the calling of Parliament in the summer of 1656. Yet it is clear that, although the views of councillors were important, Cromwell did not give way to a formal meeting of the Council as a whole. Worden argues that what mattered throughout the Protectorate was the presence on the Council of a number of key military figures, such as Lambert, Fleetwood and Disbrowe, who used their influence behind the scenes. Similarly Barry Coward reminds us that many army leaders, notably Fleetwood and Disbrowe, were related to Cromwell by marriage. Several ‘civilian’ members of the administration were also personally linked to the Protector. John Thurloe, the influential secretary to the Council, had been Cromwell’s legal agent since at least 1647, whilst its president, Henry Lawrence, had been his landlord when he lived in St Ives in the 1630s.   

Peter Gaunt, ‘“The Single Person’s Confidants and Dependents”? Oliver Cromwell and his Protectoral Councillors’, Historical Journal, Volume 32 (1989), reprinted in D. L. Smith, Cromwell and the Interregnum (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 93–119. Blair Worden, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Council’ in Patrick Little, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate (Woodbridge: the Boydell Press, 2007), pp. 91–104. Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 29.

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The tendency of the latest research therefore is to re-establish Cromwell as an active, powerful individual at the centre of affairs. This does not however mean that we should see him as an arbitrary despot. No one is suggesting a return to the distorted perspectives found in accounts of Cromwell written in the 1930s and 1940s, when some writers tried to draw parallels with dictators such as Hitler and Stalin. As J. C. Davis has reminded us, where possible, Cromwell sought to build consensus for a preferred course of action. A good example is his indirect approach to the readmission of a Jewish community to England in 1655-56. This was a major step as the Jews had been expelled from England as long ago as 1290 and Cromwell’s initial feelers on their behalf revealed continuing anti-semitic prejudices, both inside and outside the government. Cromwell put a petition by a leading Amsterdam rabbi, Menasseh ben Israel, before the Council and arranged meetings between councillors and a variety of interest groups, seeking to influence them to approve readmission. After failing to gain the united support of the Council, he did not use his executive powers to secure the outcome he intended. Instead he tacitly granted the Jews toleration so that a community became established in London without a formal legal process. It should of course be noted that the constitution under which the various institutions of the Protectorate operated was a ‘work in progress’. In some respects the Humble Petition and Advice enhanced Cromwell’s powers by giving him the right to nominate his successor and to choose the initial members of the new second chamber of Parliament. In addition some of the powers previously exercised jointly by the Protector and Council, such as the declaration of war and peace and control of the local militias when Parliament was not sitting, were now allocated to the Protector alone. Yet, as both Gaunt and Worden agree, Cromwell’s declining health and energy in his final year meant that his control over events was in any case diminishing. By contrast Coward portrays a Protector who remained capable of decisive action, and who continued to nurture a clear vision for his country’s future. Whatever the truth may be, it seems clear that a great deal depended on the personality and capacity for government of the Protector himself.     

This interpretation is present, for example, in the commentary of W.C. Abbott in his edition of The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 3, pp. xi, 134. J. C. Davis, Oliver Cromwell (London: Arnold, 2001), pp. 173–5. The fullest discussion is in D. S. Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews to England 1603–1655 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 189–241. Gaunt, ‘The Single Person’s Confidants and Dependents’ , p.118; Worden, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Council’, p.96. Barry Coward, Oliver Cromwell (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 155–8.

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5.3 The Protectorate: a military regime? Historical debate has ranged beyond the personal role of the Protector to a broader assessment of the nature of the regime itself. A key question is the extent to which the Protectorate was a military government. At one level the answer seems obvious. The head of state owed his elevation to his leadership of the army, and representatives of the army’s command held posts on his Council. Government for the first three and a half years of the Protectorate was carried on under a constitution drafted by senior officers. For more than a year, from October 1655 to January 1657, England and Wales were placed under the authority of major-generals, each taking responsibility for a particular region. Austin Woolrych comprehensively challenged the notion of a military dictatorship in an important essay, published in 1990. He argued that with a standing army of between 11,000 and 14,400 in England and Wales, at a time when the population was approximately 5.5 million, the creation of such a state was a practical impossibility. Local government remained largely in the hands of the traditional justices of the peace. Fewer than 90 of England’s 2,500 JPs during the Protectorate were serving army officers. Woolrych also rejected the suggestion that the regime seriously intended to create a thoroughgoing despotism. There were few political prisoners, and only those who actively participated in attempts to overthrow or assassinate the Protector suffered the death penalty. The use of torture, which had been sanctioned by the state prior to the civil wars, was not revived. More detailed research into the rule of the major-generals has broadly confirmed the essence of Woolrych’s argument. They were certainly not efficient representatives of central government, effectively implementing a programme of godly reform across the country. Anthony Fletcher characterised the scheme as a short-lived expedient, which failed to win the active co-operation of the county elites and therefore did not have a lasting effect on local communities. In the most comprehensive study of the episode, Christopher Durston convincingly demonstrated the patchiness of the majorgenerals’ campaign against alehouses and other ‘immoral’ pastimes of which radical puritans disapproved. They had some success in safeguarding the regime against its 



Austin Woolrych, ‘The Cromwellian Protectorate: a military dictatorship?’ History, Volume 75 (1990), reprinted in Smith, ed., Cromwell and the Interregnum, pp. 63-89. A convenient summary of the argument is to be found in Woolrych, Britain in Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 698–702. Anthony Fletcher, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the localities: the problem of consent’, in C. Jones, M. Newitt and S. Roberts, ed., Politics and People in Revolutionary England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986), reprinted in Smith, ed., Cromwell and the Interregnum, pp. 123–37.

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royalist opponents, but in the pursuit of wider objectives of godly reform, inadequate administrative machinery and a lack of consistent support from London undermined them. Crucially, they proved unable to collect sufficient revenues to fund the militias who were to support their rule. They also failed to prevent the election in summer 1656 of a Parliament that was fundamentally unsympathetic to them—a development that paved the way for their abandonment the following year. Durston concluded that for the experiment to succeed would have required a level of surveillance and oppression that was in any case beyond the capacity of an early modern state. Not all historians have interpreted the policies of the Protectorate in so benign a light. A great deal depends on the emphasis given to particular episodes. Woolrych, for example, tends to excuse infringements of civil liberties perpetrated by the Cromwellian government as regrettable necessities. An example is the case of George Cony, a merchant who refused to pay customs duties on the grounds that they were Protectoral ordinances, not backed by the authority of an Act of Parliament. Cony and his defence lawyers were imprisoned in May 1655 until they submitted. Woolrych justifies the regime’s breach of the rule of law on the basis that it could not be expected to ignore a public challenge to its legitimacy or a refusal to pay taxes. He mentions that the judge concerned, Chief Justice Henry Rolle, subsequently resigned but does not note that this occurred after he had been brought before the Council for allowing the case to proceed. Other historians have been more critical of the regime for its abuse of the judicial process. Ronald Hutton is sceptical of Cromwell’s recurrent claim to have divine authority for his actions. He cites Cromwell’s statement to his second Parliament, that ‘if nothing should be done but what is according to law, the throat of the nation may be cut, till we send for some to make a law’, as evidence of the Protector’s arbitrary cast of mind. It is certainly ironic that a ruler who spoke so much of liberty should have been so willing to curtail accepted legal safeguards for individual freedoms. The military aspects of Cromwellian rule loom much larger if we shift our focus to other parts of the British Isles. It has been estimated that in 1654, 42,000 out of a total of 53,000 English troops were serving outside England and Wales and the   

Christopher Durston, Cromwell’s Major-Generals: Godly Government during the English Revolution (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), especially pp. 178–9 and pp. 228–30. Woolrych, ‘The Cromwellian Protectorate’, p.67. The circumstances of Rolle’s resignation are however detailed in Woolrych’s later work, Britain in Revolution, p.624. Ronald Hutton, Debates in Stuart History (London: Palgrave, 2004), pp. 209–11. The quotation is from Cromwell’s speech to Parliament, 17 September 1656, quoted in Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, p. 100.

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greater part of them were based in Scotland and Ireland. The two countries were governed in a very different manner from England, largely because they had been subdued by force in the early years of the Interregnum and the Protectorate continued to see them primarily as a potential security problem. Scotland received more generous treatment than Ireland because it was essentially a Protestant nation, even if the English leadership viewed its dominant brand of Presbyterianism unsympathetically. Scottish civilians were given a share in the administration, alongside English military officers, especially after 1655, when the key governmental figures were Lord Broghill and General George Monck. The size of the garrison fell over the lifetime of the Protectorate, and land seizures and fines imposed on royalist gentry were on a very limited scale. Attempts to assimilate Scottish legal procedures to English law were largely abandoned. Nonetheless, as even Woolrych’s relatively positive assessment concedes, the continuing cost of the military establishment remained a source of grievance to the Scots. David Stevenson has drawn attention to the difficulty that the regime faced in finding Scottish and English civilian administrators who were willing to participate in government. As a result it continued to depend heavily on army personnel. Ultimately Scotland and England were bound in a union born of military conquest, and the Scots accepted their lot without enthusiasm. The situation in Ireland had some parallels with that in Scotland, although puritan fear and contempt for the Catholic religion meant that it was treated much more harshly. The principal achievement of the Protectorate was the negative one, of the large-scale expropriation of the Catholic landed elite, and its replacement by a Protestant settler class. Unlike Scotland, which was formally united with England by ordinance in April 1654, legislation on Anglo-Irish union was never completed. With the replacement of Major-General Fleetwood as the effective head of the Irish administration by Cromwell’s son, Henry, an attempt was made to place the government on a civilian rather than a military basis. This was never fully achieved, however, partly because the authorities in England failed to give consistent support to Henry Cromwell’s reforming initiatives. The leading scholar in the field has made clear that the Protector himself did little to overcome neglect of Ireland by the English Council and Parliament. The cost of maintaining the occupying army remained an issue. In spite of troop reductions, in 1658 it still absorbed more than seven times the cost of   

Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, p.665. David Stevenson, ‘Cromwell, Scotland and Ireland’ in J. S, Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, pp. 178–80. T. C. Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland: English government and conquest in Ireland 1649-1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 293–4.

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the civil administration, resulting in an estimated deficit of £96,000. The Protectorate was caught in a vicious circle in both Scotland and Ireland: neither nation could pay its own way without significant cuts in the size of the military establishment, and the security situation never allowed this to happen. 5.4 Cromwell and religious toleration Cromwell’s insistence on ‘liberty of conscience’ marked him out as unusual among the ruling class of seventeenth century England. It was a persistent theme of his writings and speeches from the civil war period to the end of his life. Addressing the first Protectorate Parliament, Cromwell identified it as one of the four themes that were in his opinion ‘fundamental’ to good government and thus non-negotiable. Liberal writers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in tracing the origins of the religious toleration that had become an established feature of society in their times, were inclined to see the Protectorate positively as a forerunner of later developments. Samuel Rawson Gardiner, for example, although more restrained than some of his contemporaries, argued that Cromwell’s religious policies were as undogmatic and undenominational as was possible for the period. Many Nonconformist writers, for whom the gradual erosion of the power and privilege of the Anglican Church was one of the great achievements of the Victorian era, went further in viewing Cromwell’s career as an inspiring example of Christian morality in politics. More recently, we have been warned not to confuse Cromwell’s ‘liberty of conscience’ with modern notions of toleration. The central work is Blair Worden’s essay, ‘Toleration and the Cromwellian Protectorate’, published in 1984. Through a close reading of what these terms meant in the seventeenth century, Worden was able to caution students of the period against an anachronistic reading of Cromwell’s policies. To godly puritans toleration, in the sense of permitting people to believe whatever they wished, was a dangerous concept. It carried the risk of people placing their souls in jeopardy by embracing not just theological error but outright heresy. Cromwell 

 

Cromwell, speech to Parliament, 12 September 1654, quoted in Roots, Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, p. 51. The other fundamentals were government by a single person and a Parliament, frequent elections in order to avoid perpetual Parliaments, and shared control of the army by Protector and Parliament. Timothy Lang, The Victorians and the Stuart Heritage: Interpretations of a discordant past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 206-7, 193–7. Blair Worden, ‘Toleration and the Cromwellian Protectorate’, in W.J. Sheils, ed., Persecution and Toleration: Studies in Church History, Volume 21 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), pp. 199–233.

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was therefore prepared to support diversity of belief among groups such as Baptists, Independents and Presbyterians, whose religion was biblically based, but he was shocked by some of the more extreme manifestations of Christianity that emerged in the 1650s. Thus in the case of James Nayler, the Quaker prosecuted for blasphemy, Cromwell questioned Parliament’s right to act as a court to try a religious case, but did not defend Nayler’s actions. Indeed he wrote to the Speaker on 25 December 1656 that ‘we detest and abhor the giving or occasioning the least countenance to persons of such opinions and practice, or who under the guilt of such crimes as are commonly imputed to the said person’. As has long been recognised, Prayer Book Anglicans and Roman Catholics were explicitly banned from the public exercise of their faith under the Protectorate. This is to be explained by these groups’ association with the royalist cause, combined with the well known puritan ideological hostility to ‘popery’. Cromwell’s concept of ‘liberty of conscience’ was grounded in a sincere belief that differences between mainstream Protestants should be respected, and that the state should not override their consciences as part of a drive for conformity. He viewed this, however, as a preliminary to the eventual union of all godly people. The centrality of this objective has been confirmed by other historians, notably J.C. Davis, who emphasises Cromwell’s ‘antiformalism’. This belief, which paralleled Cromwell’s lack of deep attachment to specific forms of government, rested on a conviction that the godly should rise above differences on mere outward forms in order to focus on what united them. He was frustrated by the narrowness of those sects who, having secured liberty of conscience for themselves, were reluctant to concede it to others. Increasingly he was driven to assume the role of a constable, keeping the peace between different competing groups. Davis suggests that in practice Cromwell may have discreetly extended a broader tolerance than Worden would allow. The Protector maintained personal links with figures as disparate as the Quaker, George Foxe and the Anglican Archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher. More surprisingly he protested against the execution of the Jesuit priest, John Southworth, and restored the Catholic Lord Baltimore to his rights as proprietor of the North American colony of Maryland. At the same time, and much more centrally to his purpose, Cromwell sought to maintain a national church framework within which the godly could come together. Jeffrey Collins’ examination  

Abbott, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume 4, p.366. J. C. Davis, ‘Cromwell’s religion’ in J. S. Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution, pp. 196–8.

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of the two bodies established to oversee the appointment and removal of clergy, the ‘Triers’ and ‘Ejectors’, has demonstrated Cromwell’s personal involvement in state supervision of the ministry. Collins estimates that Cromwell made approximately 40% of all the nominations of parish clergy on which the Triers deliberated. Political loyalty was one of the criteria for confirmation or dismissal from a parish living. Although England and Wales experienced a degree of relative religious freedom, the Protectorate certainly did not mark a break with the principle that there should be a single national church. The limitations of Cromwell’s concept of tolerance are also illustrated by examining the background to the readmission of the Jews to England. On the surface this appears a generous gesture to which modern liberal sympathies can easily relate. It is important, however, to place the episode in the context of seventeenth century puritan thought. The leading historian of the subject has argued that many puritans viewed the conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a necessary precondition of Christ’s return to the earth. Cromwell was reported as saying that ‘he had no ingagment [commitment] to the Jews but what the Scripture held forth, and since there was a Promise of their Conversion, means must be had to that end, which was the preaching of the Gospel’. It is also possible that Cromwell had more practical motives, in that Jewish contacts provided him with a useful foreign intelligence network and with access to banking interests. The exact weighting of these factors is impossible to determine with certainty. It seems clear, however, that the readmission of the Jews can be related to Cromwell’s vision of a united godly nation. This makes more sense than any claim that he was a man ahead of his time, who favoured a pluralistic society of the kind that we would recognise today. 5.5 Was the Protectorate doomed to fail? Historians continue to debate the viability of the political structures created under the Protectorate. Lacking the legitimacy that came automatically to a monarchical regime, there was inevitably a question mark over its long-term durability. At one extreme there is a well established school of thought, which views the Protectorate as 

 

J. R. Collins, ‘The Church Settlement of Oliver Cromwell’, History, Vol. 87 (2002), pp. 29–31. For a critical view of the effectiveness of Cromwellian policy, see Christopher Durston, ‘Policing the Cromwellian Church: the activities of the county ejection committees, 1654–1659’ in Little, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate, pp. 195–205. Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmission of the Jews, pp. 196, 224–5. Abbott, Writings and Speeches, Volume 4, p. 52.

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based solely on Cromwell’s unique ability to impose his personality on events, and to command the loyalty of civilian and military elements in the government. After the succession of his inadequate heir, Richard Cromwell, the much derided ‘Tumbledown Dick’, it was only a matter of time before the army grandees withdrew their support and the foundations of the regime began to crumble. In the words of Christopher Hill, ‘Oliver could ride the two horses, like a trick rider at the circus, though he could never transfer his weight from one to the other, transform military rule into parliamentary government’. He owed his position to his status with the army, which his successor did not possess, and so the Protectorate was bound to fall. A related interpretation is that the Protectorate was an essentially conservative regime, bereft of new ideas for the future, and already ossifying into a pale copy of the monarchy, making a royal restoration unavoidable in the long term. An alternative view is that the regime was evolving along increasingly secure lines by 1658. The Humble Petition and Advice, effectively a re-founding of the Protectorate, enabled it to move away from its military origins and broaden its basis of support. The reasons for its collapse are to be found not in any inherent structural weaknesses but in the miscalculations and conflicts of those who assumed responsibility after Cromwell’s death. How should we assess Cromwell’s Protectorate in the longer term and his own role in it? One of the most interesting areas of research in recent years has concerned the visual symbolism of the various Interregnum regimes between 1649 and 1660. The Protectorate’s failure to develop a coherent iconography—reflected, for example, in its coinage, official portraits and public rituals—suggests a government of an essentially provisional kind. Laura Knoppers’ study, Constructing Cromwell, illustrates the variety of public representations of the Protector, ranging from the quasi-royal to the plain and unostentatious, which perhaps reflected his own personal preferences. Nevertheless, the dominant imagery of the regime, which became more pronounced with the passage of time, was unquestionably monarchical in character. Roy Sherwood, the author of two detailed studies of this aspect of the Protectorate, has argued that the growth of a ‘court’, with household officials and a ceremonial borrowed from the royal past, was part of a search for legitimacy. This process reached its culmination in Cromwell’s second investiture as Protector in June 1657, which featured all the major symbols of regality apart from the crown itself. Cromwell’s  

Christopher Hill, Oliver Cromwell 1658-1958 (London: Historical Association, 1958), p. 21. L. L. Knoppers, Constructing Cromwell: ceremony, portraits and print, 1645-61 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

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funeral was consciously modelled on that of James I in 1625. Cromwell’s own motives in this aspect of his rule remain controversial. It may simply be, as Barry Coward has argued, that the regime clothed itself in familiar garb in order to reassure the property owning classes of its socially conservative credentials. The projection of a dignified image, at a time when republican forms of government were an unknown quantity, was also important in dealings with representatives of foreign powers. Paul Hunneyball makes this point in his study of Cromwell’s refurbishment of the former royal palaces. He has shown that Cromwell personally overrode objections from the Council to authorise large amounts of expenditure on renovation work. The Protector was well aware of the significance of outward appearances in creating an impression of power and prestige. A deeper question is Cromwell’s attitude to the concept of kingship itself. Historians have correctly identified Parliament’s offer of the crown to Cromwell in spring 1657, and his reaction to this opportunity, as a critical turning point for the Protectorate. The fact that Cromwell took three months to announce his refusal of the offer worried committed republicans. It may be that Cromwell was seriously tempted to accept but was deflected, against his own wishes, by opposition from key figures in the army, who regarded such a step as a betrayal of the cause for which they had fought the civil wars. Christopher Hill, for example, described Cromwell as being ‘blackmailed’ by the threat of military revolt. This interpretation has been challenged as historians have come to place greater emphasis on Cromwell’s sense of divine providence. Blair Worden has argued for a link with Cromwell’s reaction to the failure of the ‘Western Design’, the attempt to conquer the Spanish-held Caribbean island of Hispaniola (modern day Haiti and Dominican Republic), which ended in disaster in April 1655. The Protector feared that this was a sign that England was losing God’s favour. He drew a parallel with the Old Testament story of Achan, a character in the Book of Joshua, who brought down God’s wrath on the people of Israel by stealing valuable items after the fall of Jericho. According to Worden, Cromwell’s sense of divine judgement influenced his attitude to the crown two years later. He was convinced that the outcome of the civil wars indicated that God had condemned the notion of kingship. Addressing Parliament, he alluded to the Biblical story: ‘I would not seek to    

Roy Sherwood, The Court of Oliver Cromwell (London: Croom Helm, 1977) and Oliver Cromwell: King in all but name (Stroud: Sutton, 1997). Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate, p. 33 Paul Hunneyball, ‘Cromwellian Style: the architectural trappings of the Protectorate regime’ in Little, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate, pp. 76–7. Hill, Oliver Cromwell 1658–1958, p.21.

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set up that that providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust, and I would not build Jericho again’. A variation on this reading has been advanced by Patrick Little, who agrees that Cromwell ultimately declined the crown in response to the promptings of his own conscience, but suggests that he was seriously inclined to accept it. Little believes that Cromwell connived at the initial offer and at an attempt by Thurloe to win support for it by playing up stories of imminent royalist insurrection and foreign invasion. In the end we shall probably never gain a full understanding of the thought processes that led Cromwell to refuse the crown. All the major accounts of the episode concur, however, that he was at least tempted by the offer as a means of widening support and placing his government on a more stable foundation. The issue highlights a fundamental problem of the Protectorate: the tension between radical puritanism, represented in the army, and the conservative forces in Parliament, which sought to ‘civilianise’ the regime and to reduce the power of the military. How far was this resolved by Cromwell’s acceptance of the Humble Petition and Advice, shorn of its monarchical element? To some scholars, the new settlement offered a viable way forward, combining guarantees for liberty of conscience, the goal dearest to Cromwell’s heart, with the possibility of a more secure and ‘normal’ constitutional framework. There were isolated signs of discontent within the army. General Lambert, the only prominent military figure to refuse his support for the remodelled Protectorate, was compelled to resign his public offices. In February 1658 Major William Packer and five captains were cashiered after expressing discontent with the regime. Afterwards Cromwell was able to secure widespread declarations of loyalty from army units across the British Isles. The ‘optimistic’ case for the final year of Cromwell’s Protectorate has been put most strongly by Austin Woolrych. He contends that the Humble Petition and Advice provided a workable balance between the powers of the Protector, Council and Parliament and that it might have succeeded, had it been given more time to bed down under a firm ruler. More tentatively David Underdown has argued that, although negative memories of the major-generals’ rule remained strong, there is evidence of passive support for the regime among the country gentry. By 1657 many members of old county families were resuming their participation in the   

Blair Worden, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Sin of Achan’, reprinted in Smith, ed., Cromwell and the Interregnum, pp. 35–59. The quotation is at p. 59. Patrick Little, ‘Offering the Crown to Cromwell’, History Today, Vol. 57 (2), February 2007, pp.24– 31. Austin Woolrych, ‘Last quests for settlement 1657–1660’ in G. E. Aylmer, ed., The Interregnum: the quest for settlement 1646–1660 (London: Macmillan, 1972), p. 185.

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commissions of the peace, and civil war divisions were being overcome at local level. Although the country’s ‘natural rulers’ would have preferred a royal restoration, they were realistic enough to recognise that this could be achieved only through further bloodshed and disturbance. Indeed there is little evidence that the royalists were capable of mounting a serious challenge until some time after Cromwell’s death. It is however possible to advance a much more negative prognosis for the Protectorate. Jason Peacey has claimed that the Humble Petition and Advice created a constitution that lacked clarity and consistency, and saddled a future Protector with a number of restrictions on his freedom of action, for example in relation to the selection of councillors. It also limited the Protector’s ability to scrutinise returns to the Commons, and was less clear than the Instrument of Government on his power to block legislation, and on the size of the Commons and distribution of parliamentary seats. Peacey’s verdict is that it was ‘too vague to be a serious written constitution’ and, whilst it did not make Richard Cromwell’s fall inevitable, it made his task more difficult.  Oliver Cromwell’s failure to work with his second Protectorate Parliament was a worrying development, indicative of his failure to overcome the tensions between military and civilian, radical and moderate elements. Analysis of this aspect of Cromwell’s rule has moved beyond the explanation offered many years ago by Hugh TrevorRoper, that he was quite simply a ‘natural backbencher’ who lacked sophisticated skills of parliamentary management. Trevor-Roper drew an unfavourable comparison with the achievements of Elizabeth I’s councillors, who used their influence and royal patronage to secure co-operative assemblies. Certainly, the government failed to give a clear lead to the Protectorate Parliaments. Cromwell’s opening speeches tended to deal with general themes and there was no attempt to lead Parliament through a clearly laid out programme of legislation. Councillors who served as MPs often failed to provide coherent management of the Commons, although there was some improvement in the second Protectorate Parliament. The reasons for disharmony between Protector and Parliament went deeper than this. David Smith has argued    

David Underdown, ‘Settlement in the Counties 1653–1658’ in Aylmer, ed., The Interregnum, p. 177. Jason Peacey, ‘The Protector Humbled: Richard Cromwell and the constitution’ in Little, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate, pp. 33–4. Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘Oliver Cromwell and his Parliaments’ in Ivan Roots, ed., Cromwell: a profile (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 91–135. Peter Gaunt, ‘Oliver Cromwell and his Protectorate Parliaments’ in Ivan Roots, Into Another Mould: Aspects of the Interregnum (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1981), pp.82–4, 92–7.

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that there was a fundamental conflict, which in the end was incapable of resolution, between two of Cromwell’s principal objectives. His pursuit of ‘liberty of conscience’ and ‘godliness’ was ultimately incompatible with his desire to reunite the nation after the civil wars by working with the representatives of the social and political elite. Cromwell believed that Parliament had an important part to play in promoting the growth of a godly commonwealth, and was constantly disappointed by its failure to live up to the role in which he had cast it. As the continued use of the Anglican rite of worship demonstrated, the radical puritan religious agenda remained the concern of a minority and was never embraced by the nation as a whole. What kind of legacy did Cromwell leave to his successor? Ronald Hutton has argued that the highly personal nature of his rule, in which loyalty to Cromwell was a crucial element, militated against the long-term survival of the Protectorate. His selection of subordinates seems to have been based on a desire to maintain a balance between competing groups rather than a drive to pursue consistent policies. In Ireland, for example, he gave responsibility to Fleetwood and his son, Henry, without giving firm support to either. He introduced Richard Cromwell into front-line politics at a late stage and did little to build support for him. This lack of coherence at the centre of government is corroborated by Patrick Little’s study of the relationship between London and the Councils in Ireland and Scotland. No less important, the regime had failed to overcome its very serious financial problems. It has been estimated that, at the time of Cromwell’s death, government debt stood at almost two million pounds. Parliamentary grants had been inadequate and the regime had reached the limits of borrowing. With the soldiers’ pay falling further into arrears, there was a desperate need to secure new resources. The continuation of the war with Spain, and the regime’s inability to make a substantial reduction in the size of the army establishment in the British Isles, meant that bankruptcy was a very real danger. The Protectorate’s problems were not necessarily insoluble but they should certainly not be underestimated.

   

D. L. Smith, The Stuart Parliaments 1603-1689 (London: Hodder, 1999), p.139. The argument is developed more fully in D.L. Smith, ‘Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate Parliaments’ in Little, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate, pp. 24–31. Hutton, Debates in Stuart History, pp. 127–9. Patrick Little, ‘The Irish and Scottish Councils and the dislocation of the Protectoral Union’ in Little, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate, pp. 135–6, 143. Ronald Hutton, The Restoration: a political and religious history of England and Wales, 1658–1667 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 12–13.

Chapter 6 Cromwell and the international scene 6.1 Introduction ‘So brave things he did and made all the neighbour princes fear him’. This was the assessment of Cromwell’s foreign policy made by the celebrated diarist, Samuel Pepys, writing in the summer of 1667. England’s low international status had just been demonstrated by the spectacle of Dutch warships sailing up the River Medway and inflicting serious damage on the royal fleet. By contrast the respect in which the country had been held a decade earlier was widely recognised, even by commentators who disapproved of the domestic record of the Cromwellian regime. Historians have also agreed that England’s reputation reached unprecedented heights under the Protectorate, although they have taken differing views on whether its foreign policy was truly in the national interest. Some commentators have suggested that it was based on a misconceived sense of religious mission rather than a pragmatic calculation of England’s strategic and commercial requirements. This chapter will focus on two issues that have caused controversy. Was Cromwellian overseas policy motivated primarily by puritan ideology, centring on a desire to put England at the forefront of a crusading alliance of Protestant powers? Did the regime’s diplomatic, naval and military activities further national interests beyond the achievement of mere prestige? 6.2 Cromwellian foreign policy: religious mission or diplomatic realism? There can be no doubt that the government of the Protectorate consciously pursued an assertive foreign policy. Buttressed by the expansion of the navy, which had begun under the Rump Parliament, England intervened abroad to make its influence felt. Cromwell himself declared that ‘God has not brought us hither where we are but to  

Diary of Samuel Pepys, entry for 12 July 1667, quoted in Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 694. The standard work is Bernard Capp, Cromwell’s Navy: the fleet and the English Revolution, 1648– 60 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

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consider the work that we may do in the world as well as at home’. His motto, pax queritur in bello—‘let peace be sought in war’—was borne out in a series of successful naval and military actions. The most noteworthy were Admiral Robert Blake’s destruction of the Spanish treasure fleet at Santa Cruz in the Canaries (May 1657) and the taking of Dunkirk from Spain following the Battle of the Dunes (June 1658). This was the first time that a continental possession had come under English control since the loss of Calais, exactly a century earlier. The only significant defeat was the failure to capture San Domingo in the West Indies (April 1655). Although it was disappointing at the time, in the longer run the conquest of Jamaica was to provide compensation for this setback. In European diplomacy, the Protectorate ended the war with the United Provinces, which had been started under the Rump, in April 1654. The following year Cromwell led the regicide, Protestant republic into alliance with monarchical, Catholic France. He worked closely with the latter’s chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, in making war on Spain. The Protectorate became a major player in the Baltic, concluding a trade treaty with the region’s most important player, Charles X of Sweden, in July 1656 and being sought as a military alliance partner. Months before Cromwell’s death England acted as mediator in a conflict between Sweden and Denmark, helping to negotiate the Treaty of Roskilde. This record explains the tribute paid by the royalist Sir Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who wrote that Cromwell’s ‘greatness at home was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad. It was hard to discover which feared him most, France, Spain or the Low Countries, where his friendship was current upon the value he put upon it’. Why, then, was the foreign policy of the Protectorate also subjected to intense criticism? One of the most outspoken attacks on Cromwellian policy, which has enjoyed an extraordinarily long life, was the work of a former republican, Slingsby Bethel, who published his book, The World’s Mistake in Oliver Cromwell, in 1668. Many of Bethel’s arguments have reappeared, in a more restrained manner, in the work of later writers. His case was that the Protector was locked into an outdated ideological world-view, influenced by the struggle between Catholic and Protestant forces in the Elizabethan era. This led Cromwell incorrectly to identify Spain, which was by   

C. H. Firth, ‘Selections from the Papers of William Clarke, secretary to the council of the army’, Camden Society (London: Royal Historical Society, 4 volumes, 1891–1901), Volume 3, p. 207. The name given to the union of the Dutch provinces—Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Groningen, Friesland and Overyssel—formed in 1579. Quoted in Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 120.

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now in decline, as England’s main enemy and to ally himself with the rising power of France. He abandoned the policy of maintaining a balance between the two states, which had been followed by his predecessors. Bethel also alleged that Cromwell allowed the Dutch, England’s main commercial rival, to gain an advantage, and by making war on Spain he saddled his country with a great burden of debt. Similarly in the Baltic he chose the wrong side, allowing the growing power of Sweden to become the dominant presence in the region. The claim that Cromwellian foreign policy revolved around outdated ‘Elizabethan’ religious ideas was not confined to seventeenth century polemicists. The historian Menna Prestwich, for example, has described the Baltic policy of the Protectorate as ‘muddled and ineffective’. Cromwell failed to promote English trading interests, missing the opportunity to undermine the commercial position of the Dutch. Prestwich was also critical of the war with Spain, highlighting the disruption of long established patterns of English trade and the consequent lack of support for the Protectorate from the merchant community. More recently Ronald Hutton has expressed amazement at the flimsy grounds on which Cromwell committed the country to war, against the advice of some members of the Council. When challenged about the potential costs, the Protector is reported to have responded that God would favour so worthy a cause, and in any case the conflict would cost little more than paying off warships not needed in peacetime. Cromwell’s religious beliefs certainly played an important part in his public discussion of international affairs. For example, he later justified the decision to launch the ‘Western Design’ with reference to ‘Queen Elizabeth of famous memory’ and to the Spaniard as England’s ‘natural enemy’, driven by ‘superstition and the implicitness of his faith in submitting to the see of Rome’. In his study of mid-seventeenth century English foreign policy, Steven Pincus has argued that Cromwell was seriously influenced by an ideological hostility to Spain, seeing it as the embodiment of a design to establish a universal Catholic monarchy. This interpretation remains controversial and other historians have denied that religious ideology was the determining factor in English foreign policy in the 1650s. Cromwell’s frequently expressed    

Menna Prestwich, ‘Diplomacy and trade in the Protectorate’, Journal of Modern History, Volume 22 (June 1950), p. 116. Ronald Hutton, The British Republic 1649–1660 (London: Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2000), p. 109. Cromwell, speech to Parliament, 17 September 1656, quoted in Ivan Roots, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (London: Everyman, 1989), p. 81. Steven Pincus, Protestantism and Patriotism: ideologies and the making of English foreign policy, 1650–1668 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 184–5.

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admiration for the former Swedish king and Protestant hero, Gustavus Adolphus, was a conventional attitude held by English Protestants of his day—as unremarkable as a late twentieth century liberal praising the example of Nelson Mandela. It does not mean that he regarded a European Protestant crusade as practical politics. The strongest rebuttal of Slingsby Bethel’s argument is to be found in an essay written by the scholar Roger Crabtree. He turns around the claim that Cromwell helped to tip the European balance of power against England by aligning the country with a strong power, France, against a declining one, Spain. Instead he contends that in the seventeenth century the generally accepted approach was to seek the advantages—military, financial or territorial—of an alliance with a powerful state. Countries sought security by seeking to place themselves on the winning side in any conflict. Crabtree illustrates his argument that Cromwellian policy was based on a self-interested assessment of England’s position with reference to the acquisition of Dunkirk. Cromwell’s critics saw this as an expensive and vulnerable outpost, which it was not feasible to retain in the long run. However Crabtree endorses the view of Thurloe, the secretary to the Council, that Dunkirk was a valuable bridgehead on the continent, whose possession made it less likely that France would conclude a separate peace with Spain to England’s disadvantage. It would also act as a ‘bridle on the Dutch’, another potential rival for England, and give greater security to the country’s trade. Some historians have gone further in arguing that religion was peripheral to the making of Cromwellian foreign policy. Christopher Hill, for example, stated that from the end of 1653 ‘English foreign policy was now conceived in hard practical terms of national and commercial interest’. The Western Design was part of a conscious programme of expansion, intended to establish a secure base in the West Indies, from which to challenge the Spanish commercial monopoly in the region. Although Hill acknowledges that Cromwell was sincere in his anti-Catholicism, he argues that it was primarily useful as propaganda when it came to mobilising parliamentary opinion behind the conflict with Spain. Similarly Hill interprets Cromwell’s Baltic policy as motivated mainly by a desire to secure access for English merchants on the same terms as their Dutch competitors. He quotes the Protector as publicly ordering his emissary to Sweden, Bulstrode Whitelocke, ‘Bring us back a Protestant alliance’, but this dimension does not feature in the records of the two men’s private discussions.  

Roger Crabtree, ‘The Idea of a Protestant Foreign Policy’ in Ivan Roots, ed., Cromwell: a profile (London: Macmillan, 1973), pp. 167–8, 171–2. For the case against the acquisition of Dunkirk see Hutton, British Republic, p. 111. Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Pelican Books, 1972), pp. 149–58.

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Whitelocke’s instructions were to build a relationship with Sweden in order to secure access to the Baltic for English merchants, against the opposition of Denmark. He was also to reach agreement on reciprocal trading privileges, fishing rights off the English and Scottish coasts and similar issues. The general trend in recent writing on the period has been to emphasise the self-interest—even if it may have been misguided—that underpinned Cromwellian policy. The government chose to fight Spain partly because of the prospect of capturing treasure ships and because of the need to find employment for the navy, which would otherwise have been redundant after the end of the Dutch War. Similarly in the case of the Baltic, a reading of Cromwell’s dealings with the representatives of Sweden makes clear that he was not blinded by hopes of a Protestant alliance against the Catholic Habsburg Empire. As Michael Roberts argued, the Protector was well aware that it was not in England’s interests to see Sweden acquire a stranglehold on the Baltic. His government consented to a trade treaty with Sweden but successfully resisted diplomatic pressure to develop this into a full military alliance. This would have entailed the risk of England becoming involved, on the Swedish side, in conflict with the latter’s Dutch rivals in the Baltic. It might also have obliged England to commit troops to help Charles X in his campaign in Poland, which he launched in 1655. In any case the depletion of naval stores and the financial pressures faced by the Protectorate precluded such action. Austin Woolrych has suggested that Cromwell became increasingly pragmatic with the passage of time. He may have been tempted initially by the idea of a grand league of Protestant powers but the failure of the Western Design taught him to adopt a more realistic approach to international affairs. In the Baltic, as Cromwell appreciated, the best course was to maintain as far as possible a balance between all the states with an interest in the region: England, Sweden, Denmark and the United Provinces. Nor should we overlook a further consideration in the shaping of foreign policy: at stake was the very survival of the Protectorate itself, as the government sought to counter the danger of a Stuart restoration. This threat was not to be met solely by repressive measures against royalists at home, and by the highly developed intelligence network operated by Thurloe. The regime also enlisted diplomacy in the inter  

Michael Roberts, ed., Swedish Diplomats at Cromwell s Court, 1655–1656: the missions of Peter Julius Coyet and Christer Bonde (London: Camden Society, 4th Series, Vol. 36, 1988) p. 7. Michael Roberts, ‘Cromwell and the Baltic’, English Historical Review, Volume 76 (July 1961), pp. 420–2. Austin Woolrych, Britain in Revolution 1625–1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 636–7, 681–2.

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ests of its security. Thus a key issue in the negotiation of the Anglo-Dutch peace agreement was the family tie between the English royal family and the house of Orange. The Dutch agreed to a clause in the treaty banning any member of the latter from holding the office of stadholder (head of state) in the United Provinces. Similarly, as several historians have suggested, a deciding factor in the decision to ally with France was the fear that it presented a more plausible launching pad than Spain for a Stuart invasion of England. It harboured Henrietta Maria, mother of Charles II and other prominent royalists. After the Restoration Thurloe stated that the main reason for choosing France over Spain was the need to deprive Charles of foreign assistance. It was important for the Protectorate to secure guarantees against the threat of a Frenchbacked attempt at a royalist counter-coup. The testimony of foreign representatives in London frequently reflects a sense of insecurity at the heart of the regime, which sits uneasily alongside the aggressiveness that it manifested in other areas of activity. Thus the Swedish diplomat, Christer Bonde, reported in March 1656 that ‘this is a state which stands on a very uncertain footing, and they therefore act with a good deal of timidity, and are fearful of anything either inside or outside the country which may turn to their disadvantage’. Perhaps, in Cromwell’s efforts to meet the danger of a royalist revival, we can observe an intersection of religious and secular considerations. By depriving Charles Stuart of a potential base in Holland or France, and compelling him to look to distant Spain for support, Cromwell saw himself as moving in step with providence, which had repeatedly witnessed against the defeated dynasty. Roger Crabtree has argued that Cromwell looked for signs that he was acting in accordance with God’s plan, which entailed testing those signs in accordance with worldly considerations. In Derek Hirst’s neat phrase, ‘providence and partisanship pushed him forwards.’ This would certainly square with the understanding of Cromwell’s approach to other issues, as outlined earlier in this book. The inseparability of the divine will and everyday experience lay at the heart of his world-view. It should however be noted that the conduct of foreign policy was not the exclusive responsibility of the Protector. Although he played a crucial role in a number of key decisions, such as that for war with Spain, the Council and its committees were also involved in policy making. Moreover, foreign policy was not the cool working out of long-term strategy in accordance with   

Roberts, ed., Swedish Diplomats, p. 269. Crabtree, ‘Idea of a Protestant Foreign Policy’, p. 179, p. 182. Derek Hirst, ‘The Lord Protector 1653–1658’ in J. S. Morrill, ed., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Longman, 1990), p. 147.

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settled principles but, as Barry Coward has reminded us, frequently it was a matter of responding to circumstances as they arose. Perhaps we should beware of seeking to impose too coherent a pattern on the decision-making processes of this, or indeed of other governments.

18 Barry Coward, Oliver Cromwell (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 170–1.

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Part 3 The Legacy Chapter 7 Cromwell’s reputation in historical perspective 7.1 A barren legacy? In his study of Cromwell, Christopher Hill gives his subject a leading role in the making of modern Britain. He suggests that a number of highly significant developments would not have come about in the same way without his involvement in the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century. These include the building of the British Empire; the conquest of Ireland; the union of England and Scotland; parliamentary government; religious toleration and a free market economy unfettered by government intervention. Most historians have shared Hill’s perception that Cromwell was a remarkable and indeed unique individual, but they have rarely ascribed to him such long-term significance. It has become customary to point to the rapid collapse of the political structures and ideals that Cromwell embodied. The Protectorate survived him by barely nine months, succumbing in May 1659 to the army grandees’ inability to work constructively with his son and heir, Richard. A year later, after the recall of the Rump Parliament had betrayed the sterility of republican ideas of government, the monarchy was restored. It is true that Charles II did not have at his disposal all the instruments of power enjoyed by pre-civil war sovereigns. Nonetheless, the collapse of Cromwellianism was clearly demonstrated. The principle that the Protector had most at heart, that of liberty of conscience for puritans, was brutally abandoned as the Church of England and its bishops returned to dominate the religious life of the nation. Ministers who refused to conform to the doctrines of the Anglican Prayer Book were removed from their parishes and the cause of civil liberty and equality for all Protestants took another century and a half to recover. 

Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Pelican Books, 1972), p. 254.

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In the popular mind there was little overt affection for the Protectorate. It was frequently caricatured as a period of military government by narrow-minded religious fanatics, intent on suppressing the harmless pastimes of the people. As the personification of this era, Cromwell himself was regarded in a generally negative light. In the long run, the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89 was celebrated as more significant and—at least outside Ireland and Scotland—as having been achieved much more peacefully than the conflicts of the mid-seventeenth century. The accession to the throne of William and Mary, with the support of Parliament, was viewed for generations as the decisive event in the forging of a constitutional monarchy. This, rather than the bloodstained dead end of the regicide and subsequent republican experiment, was the country’s true destiny. 1688 witnessed the triumphant affirmation of a legitimate form of government, rooted in tradition and embodying the notion of a strong executive, but limited by the right of a representative assembly to give consent to taxation. Even an historian like Barry Coward, whose work highlights the importance of Cromwell’s career, is inclined to stress the temporary nature of his achievement. Coward identifies a number of critical developments: the establishment of political stability after the disruption of the civil wars; the acceptance of republican government by the country gentry; the unification of England, Scotland and Ireland; the enhancement of national prestige through an assertive foreign policy. All of these were notable outcomes of the 1650s, but they did not survive beyond the end of the decade. Indeed the most enduring legacy of Cromwellian rule was one that the Protector did not positively seek. Whereas Cromwell had sought the union of all godly Protestants within the framework of a broad national church, what actually occurred was the development of a ‘dissenter’ or ‘nonconformist’ identity, separate from—and frequently at odds with—the state-sponsored Anglican ecclesiastical establishment.  The disappointing nature of this legacy makes it harder to understand the remarkable hold that Cromwell has exercised over the public imagination, and the impressive revival of popular and scholarly interest in his personality and career since the mid-nineteenth century. The remainder of this chapter will consider the changing nature of Cromwell’s reputation since his death, and suggest reasons why he continues to fascinate and influence successive generations.  

This is the argument, for example, of Tim Harris, Revolution: the great crisis of the British monarchy, 1685-1720 (London: Allen Lane, 2006), pp. 513–15. Barry Coward, Oliver Cromwell (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 160–77. The separation of Anglicanism and Nonconformity is also discussed in Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 194.

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7.2 Cromwell in folklore and tradition Cromwell has been the subject of a remarkable body of traditional stories, to be found throughout the British Isles. In quantity they probably exceed those told of any other figure from the country’s history. The list of popular nicknames for Cromwell is itself remarkable: Old Noll, Copper-face, The Copper-Nosed Saint, Crum-Hell, Great Leviathan of Men, Brother Fountain, His Noseship, Lord Achon, The Sagest of Usurpers, The Town Bull of Ely and many more.  Few of these names, or the stories surrounding Cromwell, are flattering to his memory. Growing up close to Lincoln in the 1970s, I can recall a frequently repeated tradition that he had stabled his horses in the nave of the cathedral during the civil war. A stained glass window in the chapter house, dating from the late nineteenth century, depicts a citizen of Lincoln, known as Original Peart, pleading with Cromwell not to destroy the cathedral. It has in fact been established beyond reasonable doubt that both stories were fiction. It is true that parliamentarian troops caused damage to the building but the anecdote about the horses comes from a notoriously unreliable royalist pamphleteer. The story about Cromwell and Peart is equally doubtful, having first been related to the diarist, de la Pryme, half a century after the civil war. Cromwell was not in fact in command at the time of the occupation of Lincoln.  In the south of Lincolnshire another strange tradition regarding Cromwell has survived. Its origin is to be found in his assault on the small royalist-held town of Crowland (Croyland) in April 1643. To this day a statue of a human figure, holding a round object, is to be seen on the celebrated fourteenth century triangular bridge in the middle of Crowland. This has often been said to show Cromwell holding a penny loaf. It is unclear why the local community would have wished to commemorate him in this manner. The visitor’s guide suggests, much more plausibly, that the figure is a medieval representation of God, holding the world. It is likely that it was transferred to the bridge from Crowland Abbey, after its despoliation in the dissolution of the monasteries, a century before the civil wars.  The place of Cromwell in folklore was most fully explored by the writer Alan Smith, in an article published in 1968.  He assembled an impressive array of stories,    

Information taken from a longer list in ‘Schott’s Original Miscellany’, published in The Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2004, p. 22. Some of the names clearly allude to Cromwell’s allegedly prominent nose. Francis Hill, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 163. Rev Stanley Swift, Visitor’s Guide to Croyland Abbey and Trinity Bridge (n.d.), p. 24. Alan Smith, ‘The Image of Cromwell in Folklore and Tradition’, Folklore, Volume 79 (1968), pp. 17–39.

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rhymes and other references, drawn from across the country, although with a marked preponderance in favour of Yorkshire and the Midlands. Overwhelmingly the image conveyed was a negative one, of a destructive individual, responsible for the wrecking of castles and churches, and also capable of incredible feats, such as riding his horse up a staircase in pursuit of an opponent. Smith treated most of these traditions with justifiable scepticism. In a number of instances acts of violence had been personally attributed to Cromwell, when they were in fact the responsibility of parliamentarian troops with no direct connection to him. In some cases of damage to church buildings, local tradition had confused Oliver with his Tudor era namesake, Thomas Cromwell, who had carried out the dissolution of the monasteries.  Little has been said, however, to explain why such traditions have been so enduring and widespread. It may be that, as the best known representative of the parliamentarian side in the civil wars, he came to stand for all the depredations of the era. His subsequent rise to power—a unique ascent by a commoner in his country’s history— assured his place in the popular memory. He was also—at least until 1651, when his movements became confined largely to the London area—unusually well travelled for a leader in the early modern period. Peter Gaunt’s painstaking reconstruction of Cromwell’s itinerary demonstrates that there were few parts of the British Isles that he did not visit on campaign. His journeys took him from his native East Anglia to Devon and Cornwall, from Hampshire to the Scottish lowlands. His expedition to Ireland in 1649 left a folk memory in a class of its own. There was therefore every opportunity for tales to develop around Cromwell’s name. Perhaps, too, the fact that he was associated, more than any other individual, with the shocking act of king killing ensured his notoriety on a wider scale. It is certainly striking that he was invoked as a kind of bogeyman in some rural areas as late as the nineteenth century. In the popular mind he remained a larger than life figure for a remarkable length of time. 7.3 A controversial reputation The evolution of Cromwell’s posthumous reputation has attracted a great deal of   

These points are also explored in ‘Churches and the civil war’, published by the Cromwell Association, to be found at http://www.olivercromwell.org/faqs5.htm Peter Gaunt, The Cromwellian Gazetteer: An Illustrated Guide to Britain in the Civil War and Commonwealth (Stroud: Sutton, 1987), pp. 224–7. Alan Smith cites examples of this from Lincolnshire and from Flora Thompson’s description of her childhood in Oxfordshire in the 1880s, in her book, Lark Rise to Candleford. See Smith, ‘Image of Cromwell’, p. 32.

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scholarly interest in recent years. It has been thoroughly documented by two historians in particular, Timothy Lang and Blair Worden. During the century and a half after Cromwell’s death, in general he was viewed with hostility. To royalists he was of course beyond the pale, as the architect of the regicide and a shameless usurper, even if, as we have seen, they allowed him some grudging respect for his successes abroad. The persistence of the monarchical, Anglican ancien regime, which remained largely unchallenged until the first third of the nineteenth century, meant that the dominant ideology of the state was profoundly unsympathetic to the ideas of the puritan revolution. Nor did the heirs of the pure republican tradition have much affection for Cromwell. From their perspective he was the lost leader, who had betrayed the radical ideals of the 1640s by dissolving parliaments and assuming quasi-royal powers. Even those who placed a high premium on religious tolerance gave him little credit. Eighteenth century rationalists looked back on Cromwell as the leader of a narrowly fanatical faction, who had denied the power of reason in human affairs. As Timothy Lang has argued, it was only as Protestant nonconformists were assimilated into mainstream society, instead of being seen as the heirs to a disruptive puritan inheritance, that a more positive view of Cromwell became possible. This began to happen in the early Victorian era, as the state gradually lost its exclusively Anglican character and nonconformists acquired equal civil and religious rights with members of the established Church. As nonconformists won social acceptance and shared in the rising prosperity and peace of mid-nineteenth century Britain, they became less wary of celebrating a figure who had hitherto been a symbol of division and conflict. It was now possible to take a more positive view of the values of puritanism, in which the nonconformist movement of industrial Britain located its origins. Whilst militant radicals looked back on Cromwell as a man of action, who had saved his country from royal and spiritual tyranny, a more moderate school of thought praised his championship of liberty of conscience. In the closing decades of the Victorian era, as the British Empire reached its peak, Cromwell won regard for his military skills, strong national leadership and assertive overseas policies. These developments were assisted by the publication of Thomas Carlyle’s edition of Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, which appeared in 1845. In spite of the eccentric nature of the commentary supplied by Carlyle, this landmark publication enabled a new generation to read Cromwell’s 



The fullest studies are: Timothy Lang, The Victorians and the Stuart Heritage: Interpretations of a Discordant Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 184–217 and Blair Worden, Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity (London: Allen Lane/Penguin, 2001), Chapters 8 to 11. Lang, Victorians and Stuart Heritage, p. xii.

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own words and prompted serious study of his career and values. This process of rehabilitation culminated in high profile commemorations of the tercentenary of Cromwell’s birth in 1899, in which representatives of the nonconformist community were prominent. More contentious was the campaign led by the Liberal imperialist and former Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, for a Cromwell statue at Westminster. The project faced opposition from the Irish Nationalists, for whom it raised unwelcome ancestral memories. In this they were joined by Conservative MPs, who were seeking to cause embarrassment for partisan purposes. Rosebery’s colleague, John Morley, later recalled how their opponents had mocked ‘peace Liberals’ for their decision to honour Cromwell ‘the jingo in international policy’ and ‘the armed destroyer of the House of Commons’. It was a mark of the continuing controversy that surrounded Cromwell’s reputation that the statue had to be privately funded by Rosebery, and unveiled in a decidedly low-key manner. Cromwell continued to be a controversial figure in the twentieth century. Members of the political left were divided over his legacy. It was possible both to admire the anti-establishment crusader of the 1640s and to condemn the authoritarian conservative of the post-civil war era. The growth of interest in the Leveller movement in the mid-twentieth century did not favour Cromwell’s admirers, who could easily be reminded of their hero’s ruthless suppression of dissent in the army in the spring of 1649. The issue is neatly summed up in Christopher Hill’s anecdote about a Cromwell Association speaker challenging his audience with the rousing words: ‘The question we must all ask ourselves is, On which side would I have stood at Naseby?’ A voice from the hall replied, ‘Yes, and on which side would you have stood at Burford?’ The former Labour Party leader, Michael Foot, who came from a radical Liberal West Country family, remained a staunch defender of Cromwell’s reputation. Others have tended to look back with admiration to the Levellers as precursors of modern democratic thought and have therefore been less inclined to see Cromwell as an authentic popular hero. Tony Benn, for example, in an address at Burford in May 1976 to mark the anniversary of the Leveller executions, acknowledged that ‘Oliver Cromwell’s place in English history is secure’. Nonetheless he went on to argue that the ideas of the Levellers had ‘shown greater durability than the institutional changes that he carried through in his short reign as Lord Protector’.    

John Viscount Morley, Recollections (London: Macmillan, 1918), Vol. 2, p. 48. Hill, God’s Englishman, p. 266. Kenneth Morgan, Michael Foot: A Life (London: Harper Collins, 2007), pp. 7–9. Tony Benn, The Levellers and the English Democratic Tradition (Nottingham: Spokesman Books, Spokesman Pamphlet 92, 2000), p. 13.

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7.4 Towards a more balanced assessment? The Victorian era saw the beginning of a truly academic approach to Cromwell and his times. The key figure, whose contribution remains highly relevant today, was Samuel Rawson Gardiner, author of a multi-volume study of the civil wars and Protectorate. After his death in 1902 his associate, C. H. Firth, completed Gardiner’s work by covering the final years of Cromwell’s rule. From their work a more balanced assessment of the Protector began to emerge. Although essentially sympathetic to Cromwell, they recognised the limitations of his achievement. By his efforts he had made a revival of absolute monarchy impossible. Cromwell’s vision of a godly commonwealth was, however, too narrowly based to win broad national support. As a result, in spite of his worthy intentions, he failed to bring about a secure transition to representative civilian government. All subsequent work on Cromwell has owed an enormous debt to the pioneering researches of Gardiner and Firth. They pointed the way towards a scholarly use of the archives and the need to avoid seeing Cromwell through the distorting lens of competing partisan ideologies. Historians now view Cromwell with proper professional detachment. The best of the many biographical studies to appear in the final decades of the twentieth century, and the opening years of the twenty-first, attempted to place him firmly in the context of his times. Cromwell’s religious beliefs and his strong sense of God’s providence are now taken seriously. There is greater understanding of the difficulties that he faced in seeking to reconcile the need for a stable post-war settlement with the goals of the radical puritan minority. His career is increasingly studied from a British/Irish perspective rather than a purely English one. Important work has been done on the mechanics of government during the Protectorate, illuminating Cromwell’s relationship with his Council and his Parliaments. In the end, however, it is an open question whether we are really approaching a complete understanding of Cromwell the man. Ronald Hutton has observed that in some ways he continues to defeat scholars because of the sheer volume of spoken and written words that he left to posterity. It means that historians have tended to produce studies that are broadly sympathetic to Cromwell, because they depend so heavily on his own version of his career and beliefs. For many key issues in Cromwell’s life, the materials do not exist that might enable scholars to construct a credible alternative interpretation. No one today would wish to return to the simplistic stereotypes that once reduced Cromwell to a one-dimensional hero or villain. There remain, how

Ronald Hutton, Debates in Stuart History (London: Palgrave, 2004), pp. 130–1.

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ever, enough areas of controversy to ensure that debate on his character, motives and achievements will continue to occupy historians in the future.

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A Chronology of Oliver Cromwell’s Career 1599 1616–17 1620 1628 1631–36 1636 1640 1642 1643 1644

April

1645 1646 1647

June May May–June

1648

1649 1649–50 1650–51 1651 1653

1654 1655

August

August January January July Nov–Dec

June August– October Oct–Nov November May– October December January May

September April July– December April September January March

Cromwell born at Huntingdon Education at Cambridge Married Elizabeth Bourchier MP for Huntingdon Lived in St Ives, Cambridgeshire Moved to Ely MP for Cambridge Raised troop of horse at start of civil war Joined army of the Eastern Association Lieutenant-general of the Eastern Association army Battle of Marston Moor Conflict with Manchester leading to Self-Denying Ordinance and creation of the New Model Army Battle of Naseby End of first civil war Involvement in dispute between Parliament and the Army Removal of the King from Holdenby House Negotiations with the King on basis of The Heads of the Proposals Involved in the Putney debates Flight of the King to the Isle of Wight Campaigns in south Wales and against Scottish invasion Cromwell at Pontefract; Pride’s purge of the Commons Trial and execution of the King Suppression of Leveller mutiny at Burford, Oxfordshire Cromwell in Ireland Campaign in Scotland; Battle of Dunbar Sept 1650 Royalist invasion repulsed at Battle of Worcester Cromwell dissolves the Rump Parliament Barebone’s Parliament. Cromwell accepts the Instrument of Government in December; becomes Lord Protector End of the Anglo-Dutch War Opening of first Protectorate Parliament Dissolution of Parliament Suppression of Penruddock’s rising

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1655

1656 1657 1658

July

News of failure of the ‘Western Design’ expedition to the West Indies October Orders issued to the major-generals; Anglo-French treaty and war with Spain started September Opening of second Protectorate Parliament December Case of James Nayler before Parliament February Humble Petition and Advice proposed May Cromwell refuses the crown Jan–Feb Final session of second Protectorate Parliament September Death of Cromwell

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Bibliography General Woolrych, Austin, Britain in Revolution 1625-1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). The most comprehensive and accessible modern guide to the background to Cromwell’s career. Hill, Christopher, God’s Englishman: Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Pelican Books, 1972). A lively analysis of Cromwell’s career. Coward, Barry, Oliver Cromwell (London: Longman, 1991). A reliable short biography of Cromwell. Davis, J.C., Oliver Cromwell (London: Arnold, 2001). Contains a series of interpretative essays on different facets of Cromwell’s personality and career.

More specialised studies Kitson, Frank, Old Ironsides: the military biography of Oliver Cromwell (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004). The best available guide to Cromwell’s career as a soldier. Gentles, Ian, The New Model Army in England, Ireland and Scotland 1645–1653 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). A detailed study of the fighting force with which Cromwell’s fortunes were inextricably associated. Wheeler, J.S., Cromwell in Ireland (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999). A solid study by a military historian of Cromwell’s most controversial campaign. Worden, Blair, The Rump Parliament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974). The standard work on the assembly that Cromwell tried to work with from 1648-53. Coward, Barry, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). Contains a chronological study of the Protectorate and a series of chapters exploring its impact and significance. Little, Patrick, ed., The Cromwellian Protectorate (Woodbridge: the Boydell Press, 2007). A collection of essays on different aspects of the 1650s. Durston, Christopher, Cromwell’s Major-Generals: Godly Government during the English Revolution (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001). The standard work on the phase of direct military rule under the Protectorate.

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Morrill, J.S., Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (London: Longman, 1990). A stimulating and wide-ranging collection of essays on Cromwell’s career. Smith, D.L. Cromwell and the Interregnum (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003). An excellent collection of essays, focused on the 1650s. Some overlap with those in Morrill’s volume. Hutton, Ronald, Debates in Stuart History (London: Palgrave, 2004). Contains a thoughtprovoking essay on different interpretations of Cromwell. Roots, Ivan, ed., Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (London: Everyman, 1989). An accessible selection of Cromwell’s speeches, drawn mainly from the period of the Protectorate.





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