OLIVER CROMWELL

[THE FUGITIVE]

Oliver Cromwell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oliver Cromwell (25 April 1599 â€" 3 September 1658)[a] was an English military and political leader. He served as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 until his death.

Cromwell was born into the middle gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell. Little is known of the first 40 years of his life as only four of his personal letters survive alongside a summary of a speech he delivered in 1628.[1] He became an Independent Puritan after undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, taking a generally tolerant view towards the many Protestant sects of his period.[2] He was an intensely religious man, a self-styled Puritan Moses, and he fervently believed that God was guiding his victories. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short (1640) and Long (1640â€"1649) parliaments. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the "Roundheads" or Parliamentarians. Nicknamed "Old Ironsides", he demonstrated his ability as a commander and was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to being one of the principal commanders of the New Model Army, playing an important role in the defeat of the royalist forces.

Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649, and he dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England as a member of the Rump Parliament (1649â€"1653). He was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649â€"1650. Cromwell's forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country, bringing to an end the Irish Confederate Wars. During this period, a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics (a significant minority in England and Scotland but the vast majority in Ireland), and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651.

On 20 April 1653, he dismissed the Rump Parliament by force, setting up a short-lived nominated assembly known as Barebone's Parliament, before being invited by his fellow leaders to rule as Lord Protector of England (which included Wales at the time), Scotland and Ireland from 16 December 1653.[3] As a ruler, he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. He died from natural causes in 1658 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The Royalists returned to power in 1660, and they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded.

Cromwell is one of the most controversial figures in the history of the British Isles, considered a regicidal dictator by historians such as David Sharp,[4] a military dictator by Winston Churchill,[5] but a hero of liberty by John Milton, Thomas Carlyle, and Samuel Rawson Gardiner, and a class revolutionary by Leon Trotsky.[6] In a 2002 BBC poll in Britain, Cromwell, sponsored by military historian Richard Holmes, was selected as one of the ten greatest Britons of all time.[7] However, his measures against Catholics in Ireland have been characterised as genocidal or near-genocidal,[8] and in Ireland his record is harshly criticised.[9]

Early years[edit]
Cromwell was born in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599[10] to Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. The family's estate derived from Oliver's great-grandfather, a Welshman named Morgan ap William. He was a brewer from Glamorgan who settled at Putney in London, and married Katherine Cromwell (born 1482), the sister of Thomas Cromwell, chancellor to Henry VIII. The Cromwell family acquired considerable wealth by taking over monastery property during the Reformation. Morgan ap William was a son of William ap Yevan of Wales. The family line continued through Richard Williams, alias Cromwell, (c. 1500â€"1544), Henry Williams, alias Cromwell, (c. 1524 â€" 6 January 1604), Henry VIII strongly suggested that the Welsh should adopt surnames in the English style rather than taking their fathers' names as Morgan ap William and his male ancestors had done. Henry suggested to Sir Richard Williams, who was the first to use a surname in his family, that he use Cromwell, in honour of his uncle Thomas Cromwell. For several generations, the Williams super-added the surname of Cromwell to their own, styling themselves Williams alias Cromwell in legal documents (Noble 1784, pp. 11â€"13), then to Oliver's father Robert Cromwell (c. 1560â€"1617), who married Elizabeth Steward (c. 1564 â€" 1654), probably in 1591. They had ten children, but Oliver, the fifth child, was the only boy to survive infancy.[11] Cromwell was also a distant relation of the Tudor Royal family and through them the Welsh princely family through his descent from Jasper Tudor through his younger daughter, Joan Tudor, as shown in the Genealogy of the Tudors. Jasper was the uncle of Henry VII and great uncle of Henry VIII.[12]

Cromwell's paternal grandfather Sir Henry Williams was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire. Cromwell's father Robert was of modest means but still a part of the gentry class. As a younger son with many siblings, Robert inherited only a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes.[13] Cromwell himself in 1654 said, "I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity".[14]

Cromwell was baptised on 29 April 1599 at St John's Church,[15] and attended Huntingdon Grammar School. He went on to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos. He left in June 1617 without taking a degree, immediately after the death of his father.[16] Early biographers claim that he then attended Lincoln's Inn, but the Inn's archives retain no record of him. Fraser concludes that it was likely that he did train at one of the London Inns of Court during this time.[17] His grandfather, his father, and two of his uncles had attended Lincoln's Inn, and Cromwell sent his son Richard there in 1647.[18]

Cromwell probably returned home to Huntingdon after his father's death. As his mother was widowed, and his seven sisters unmarried, he would have been needed at home to help his family.[19]

Marriage and family[edit]

Portrait of Cromwell's wife Elizabeth Bourchier, painted by Robert Walker
On 22 August 1620 at St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Fore Street, London,[15] Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier (1598â€"1665). Elizabeth's father, Sir James Bourchier, was a London leather merchant who owned extensive lands in Essex and had strong connections with Puritan gentry families there. The marriage brought Cromwell into contact with Oliver St John and with leading members of the London merchant community, and behind them the influence of the Earls of Warwick and Holland. A place in this influential network would prove crucial to Cromwell’s military and political career. The couple had nine children:[20]

Robert (1621â€"1639), died while away at school.
Oliver (1622â€"1644), died of typhoid fever while serving as a Parliamentarian officer.
Bridget (1624â€"1662), married (1) Henry Ireton, (2) Charles Fleetwood.
Richard (1626â€"1712), his father's successor as Lord Protector[21], married Dorothy Maijor.
Henry (1628â€"1674), later Lord Deputy of Ireland, married Elizabeth Russell (daughter of Sir Francis Russell).
Elizabeth (1629â€"1658), married John Claypole.
James (b. & d. 1632), died in infancy.
Mary (1637â€"1713), married Thomas Belasyse, 1st Earl Fauconberg
Frances (1638â€"1720), married (1) Robert Rich (1634â€"1658), son of Robert Rich, 3rd Earl of Warwick, (2) Sir John Russell, 3rd Baronet
Crisis and recovery[edit]
Little evidence exists of Cromwell's religion at this stage. His letter in 1626 to Henry Downhall, an Arminian minister, suggests that Cromwell had yet to be influenced by radical Puritanism.[22] However, there is evidence that Cromwell went through a period of personal crisis during the late 1620s and early 1630s. In 1628 he was elected to Parliament from the Huntingdonshire county town of Huntingdon. Later that year, he sought treatment for a variety of physical and emotional ailments, including valde melancholicus (depression), from the Swiss-born London doctor Theodore de Mayerne. In 1629 he was caught up in a dispute among the gentry of Huntingdon over a new charter for the town, as a result of which he was called before the Privy Council in 1630.[23]


Oliver Cromwell's house in Ely
In 1631 Cromwell sold most of his properties in Huntingdonâ€"probably as a result of the disputeâ€"and moved to a farmstead in nearby St Ives (then in Huntingdonshire, now in Cambridgeshire). This signified a major step down in society compared with his previous position, and seems to have had a significant emotional and spiritual impact. A 1638 letter survives from Cromwell to his cousin, the wife of Oliver St John, and gives an account of his spiritual awakening. The letter outlines how, having been "the chief of sinners", Cromwell had been called to be among "the congregation of the firstborn".[22] The language of this letter, which is saturated with biblical quotations and which represents Cromwell as having been saved from sin by God's mercy, places his faith firmly within the Independent beliefs that the Reformation had not gone far enough, that much of England was still living in sin, and that Catholic beliefs and practices needed to be fully removed from the church.[22]

Along with his brother Henry, Cromwell had kept a smallholding of chickens and sheep, selling eggs and wool to support himself, his lifestyle resembling that of a yeoman farmer. In 1636 Cromwell inherited control of various properties in Ely from his uncle on his mother's side, and his uncle's job as tithe collector for Ely Cathedral. As a result, his income is likely to have risen to around £300â€"400 per year;[24] by the end of the 1630s Cromwell had returned to the ranks of acknowledged gentry. He had become a committed Puritan and had established important family links to leading families in London and Essex.[25]

Member of Parliament: 1628â€"29 and 1640â€"42[edit]
Cromwell became the Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1628â€"1629, as a client of the Montagu family of Hinchingbrooke House. He made little impression: records for the Parliament show only one speech (against the Arminian Bishop Richard Neile), which was poorly received.[26] After dissolving this Parliament, Charles I ruled without a Parliament for the next 11 years. When Charles faced the Scottish rebellion known as the Bishops' Wars, shortage of funds forced him to call a Parliament again in 1640. Cromwell was returned to this Parliament as member for Cambridge, but it lasted for only three weeks and became known as the Short Parliament. Cromwell moved his family from Ely to London in 1640.[27]

A second Parliament was called later the same year, and became known as the Long Parliament. Cromwell was again returned as member for Cambridge. As with the Parliament of 1628â€"29, it is likely that Cromwell owed his position to the patronage of others, which might explain why in the first week of the Parliament he was in charge of presenting a petition for the release of John Lilburne, who had become a Puritan cause célèbre after his arrest for importing religious tracts from the Netherlands. For the first two years of the Long Parliament Cromwell was linked to the godly group of aristocrats in the House of Lords and Members of the House of Commons with whom he had established familial and religious links in the 1630s, such as the Earls of Essex, Warwick and Bedford, Oliver St John and Viscount Saye and Sele.[28] At this stage, the group had an agenda of reformation: the executive checked by regular parliaments, and the moderate extension of liberty of conscience. Cromwell appears to have taken a role in some of this group's political manoeuvres. In May 1641, for example, it was Cromwell who put forward the second reading of the Annual Parliaments Bill and later took a role in drafting the Root and Branch Bill for the abolition of episcopacy.[29]

Military commander: 1642â€"46[edit]
English Civil War begins[edit]
Main article: First English Civil War

Engraving of Oliver Cromwell
Failure to resolve the issues before the Long Parliament led to armed conflict between Parliament and Charles I in late 1642, the beginning of the English Civil War. Before joining Parliament's forces Cromwell's only military experience was in the trained bands, the local county militia. He recruited a cavalry troop in Cambridgeshire after blocking a valuable shipment of silver plate from Cambridge colleges that was meant for the King. Cromwell and his troop then rode to, but arrived too late to take part in, the indecisive Battle of Edgehill on 23 October 1642. The troop was recruited to be a full regiment in the winter of 1642 and 1643, making up part of the Eastern Association under the Earl of Manchester. Cromwell gained experience in a number of successful actions in East Anglia in 1643, notably at the Battle of Gainsborough on 28 July.[30] He was subsequently appointed governor of Ely and a colonel in the Eastern Association.[25]

Marston Moor 1644[edit]
By the time of the Battle of Marston Moor in July 1644, Cromwell had risen to the rank of Lieutenant General of horse in Manchester's army. The success of his cavalry in breaking the ranks of the Royalist cavalry and then attacking their infantry from the rear at Marston Moor was a major factor in the Parliamentarian victory. Cromwell fought at the head of his troops in the battle and was slightly wounded in the neck, stepping away briefly to receive treatment during the battle but returning to help force the victory.[31] After Cromwell's nephew was killed at Marston Moor he wrote a famous letter to his brother-in-law. Marston Moor secured the north of England for the Parliamentarians, but failed to end Royalist resistance.[32]

The indecisive outcome of the Second Battle of Newbury in October meant that by the end of 1644 the war still showed no signs of ending. Cromwell's experience at Newbury, where Manchester had let the King's army slip out of an encircling manoeuvre, led to a serious dispute with Manchester, whom he believed to be less than enthusiastic in his conduct of the war. Manchester later accused Cromwell of recruiting men of "low birth" as officers in the army, to which he replied: "If you choose godly honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them ... I would rather have a plain russet-coated captain who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else".[33] At this time, Cromwell also fell into dispute with Major-General Lawrence Crawford, a Scottish Covenanter attached to Manchester's army, who objected to Cromwell's encouragement of unorthodox Independents and Anabaptists.[34] He was also charged with familism by Scottish Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford in response to his letter to the House of Commons in 1645.[35]

New Model Army[edit]
Partly in response to the failure to capitalise on their victory at Marston Moor, Parliament passed the Self-Denying Ordinance in early 1645. This forced members of the House of Commons and the Lords, such as Manchester, to choose between civil office and military command. All of themâ€"except Cromwell, whose commission was given continued extensions and was allowed to remain in parliamentâ€"chose to renounce their military positions. The Ordinance also decreed that the army be "remodelled" on a national basis, replacing the old county associations; Cromwell contributed significantly to these military reforms. In April 1645 the New Model Army finally took to the field, with Sir Thomas Fairfax in command and Cromwell as Lieutenant-General of cavalry and second-in-command.[25]

Battle of Naseby 1645[edit]
At the critical Battle of Naseby in June 1645, the New Model Army smashed the King's major army. Cromwell led his wing with great success at Naseby, again routing the Royalist cavalry. At the Battle of Langport on 10 July, Cromwell participated in the defeat of the last sizeable Royalist field army. Naseby and Langport effectively ended the King's hopes of victory, and the subsequent Parliamentarian campaigns involved taking the remaining fortified Royalist positions in the west of England. In October 1645, Cromwell besieged and took the wealthy and formidable Catholic fortress Basing House, later to be accused of killing 100 of its 300-man Royalist garrison after its surrender.[36] Cromwell also took part in successful sieges at Bridgwater, Sherborne, Bristol, Devizes, and Winchester, then spent the first half of 1646 mopping up resistance in Devon and Cornwall. Charles I surrendered to the Scots on 5 May 1646, effectively ending the First English Civil War. Cromwell and Fairfax took the formal surrender of the Royalists at Oxford in June 1646.[25]

Cromwell's military style[edit]
Cromwell had no formal training in military tactics, and followed the common practice of ranging his cavalry in three ranks and pressing forward, relying on impact rather than firepower. His strengths were an instinctive ability to lead and train his men, and his moral authority. In a war fought mostly by amateurs, these strengths were significant and are likely to have contributed to the discipline of his cavalry.[37]

Cromwell introduced close-order cavalry formations, with troopers riding knee to knee; this was an innovation in England at the time, and was a major factor in his success. He kept his troops close together following skirmishes where they had gained superiority, rather than allowing them to chase opponents off the battlefield. This facilitated further engagements in short order, which allowed greater intensity and quick reaction to battle developments. This style of command was decisive at both Marston Moor and Naseby.[38]