Gentles' biography does not go into too much detail on this, but maybe in the future he will. In the case of the English revolution we witnessed allbeit slowly the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Cromwell whatever his faults played an extremely important role in that process. He further suggests that Cromwell played a key part in the development of Irish nationalism. To conclude, I would recommend this book to general readers and more academically minded students, as it is an intelligent and well researched introduction to Oliver Cromwell.
It has extensive footnotes and a lengthy bibliography, a good list of abbreviations, a detailed index, good maps and battlefield plans. It is only inevitable that Gentles revisits similar areas to other historians such as Christopher Hill, John Morrill and Barry Coward, but whether or not this biography transcends those written previously, it is certainly a valuable addition to the literature.
- Bye-Bye Baby Fat?
- Oliver Cromwell - Graham Goodlad - Google Книги;
- Youth and early public career;
- Vibro-impact Dynamics.
Skip to main content. God's Warrior and the English Revolution. Keith Livesey, review of Oliver Cromwell: God's Warrior and the English Revolution , review no. He goes on to make the key point that: His paternal lineage came from Glamorgan, and although it was apparently chance that a victorious Parliament turned him into a major landowner there and in Monmouthshire, it was not that he used his new property to sponsor local religious radicals to whom he was already acting as patron.
The most remarkable aspect of his ancestry was that it gave him an almost certainly bogus claim to descent from various early medieval Welsh kings and lords. While it suited Cromwell to pose as a man of the people, or at least of the mere gentry, for much of the time, he could not resist also flaunting the only eminence that his lineage could bestow. The two most important contributions of this chapter are its proof of the success that resulted — by the time of his death those around Oliver were acting like genuine courtiers — and details of the staff whom he installed.
Overwhelmingly, he chose his own relatives and civilian political leaders, ignoring both old friends from his East Anglian past and army officers; which suggests that he had lost interest in his roots and was trying to distance himself from the soldiers on whom he actually depended, in order to make himself appear more acceptable to the bulk of the population. It emphasises how much a financial stake he had in that venture, having donated a large part of his capital to funding the suppression of the Catholic rebellion that broke out there in This outlay was supposed to be secured against land confiscated from the rebels, but, as Little emphasises, was a huge gamble because those rebels might either win the struggle or obtain a negotiated peace.
Little proves that he never lost interest in the recovery of Ireland, up to the moment when he undertook the job himself, and that he kept himself well informed on it. The essay also stresses, however, that his material interest in it was itself propelled by ideological fervour, in that his bitter hatred of Roman Catholicism, the other face of his evangelical Protestantism, caused him to plunge into the venture to crush the Irish rebels in the first place. This seems to have been intended to distract the soldiers and prevent them from going into mutiny against the initiative.
Little argues persuasively that Cromwell was fully involved in the ploy, as part of an initial readiness to assume the crown, and only turned against that plan when he discovered how many godly people opposed it and came to see it as a sin. The first contention seems sound: He shows well how the younger Cromwell spent the first half of the Protectorate learning the ropes of local government and service as an MP, and the second half taking his place in national affairs.
It is time to sum up, and here I declare a personal interest. I am predisposed to praise much of this book because many of its themes have already been aired in my own work: I would only add two comments to the picture. It also, however, highlights very starkly, the limitations of traditional political history and biography.
- The Yellow Fairy Book (Dover Childrens Classics)?
- Television and the Performing Arts: A Handbook and Reference Guide to American Cultural Programming.
- Equally Yoked (Laurel Shadrach Series Book 3);
- Oliver Cromwell | Biography, Accomplishments, Significance, & Facts | tandjfoods.com?
- iVASIoN 2014 (i14) (French Edition)?
- The Old Hag and The Spider!
- Formative influences.
If this is true of a figure so well recorded, both in his own words and those of others, what hope is there for most of the rest? Skip to main content. New Perspectives edited by: Professor Ronald Hutton University of Bristol. A month later Charles vainly attempted to arrest five of them for treason: Cromwell was not yet sufficiently prominent to be among these.
But when in the king left London to raise an army, and events drifted toward civil war , Cromwell began to distinguish himself not merely as an outspoken Puritan but also as a practical man capable of organization and leadership. In July he obtained permission from the House of Commons to allow his constituency of Cambridge to form and arm companies for its defense, in August he himself rode to Cambridge to prevent the colleges from sending their plate to be melted down for the benefit of the king, and as soon as the war began he enlisted a troop of cavalry in his birthplace of Huntingdon.
As a captain he made his first appearance with his troop in the closing stages of the Battle of Edgehill October 23, where Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex , was commander in chief for Parliament in the first major contest of the war. During Cromwell acquired a reputation both as a military organizer and a fighting man. From the very beginning he had insisted that the men who served on the parliamentarian side should be carefully chosen and properly trained, and he made it a point to find loyal and well-behaved men regardless of their religious beliefs or social status.
Appointed a colonel in February, he began to recruit a first-class cavalry regiment. While he demanded good treatment and regular payment for his troopers, he exercised strict discipline. If they swore, they were fined; if drunk, put in the stocks; if they called each other Roundheads —thus endorsing the contemptuous epithet the Royalists applied to them because of their closecropped hair—they were cashiered; and if they deserted, they were whipped.
So successfully did he train his own cavalrymen that he was able to check and re-form them after they charged in battle. Throughout he served in the eastern counties that he knew so well. These formed a recognized centre of parliamentary strength, but, unwilling to stay on the defensive, Cromwell was determined to prevent the penetration of Yorkshire Royalists into the eastern counties and decided to counterattack.
By re-forming his men in a moment of crisis in the face of an unbeaten enemy, he won the Battle of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire on July On the same day he was appointed governor of the Isle of Ely , a large plateau-like hill rising above the surrounding fens, that was thought of as a possible bastion against advancing Royalists. In fact, however, Cromwell, fighting alongside the parliamentary general Sir Thomas Fairfax , succeeded in stemming the Royalist attacks at Winceby in Lincolnshire and then successfully besieged Newark in Nottinghamshire.
He was now able to persuade the House of Commons, well pleased with these victories, to create a new army, that would not merely defend eastern England but would march out and attack the enemy. This new army was formed under the command of Edward Montagu, 2nd earl of Manchester , early in After an alliance had been concluded with the Scots, he was also appointed a member of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, which became responsible for the overall strategy of the Civil War.
Related reviews
But since he was engaged at the front during the campaigning season, Cromwell took little part in its deliberations. He was, however, defeated in the Battle of Marston Moor , July 2, , that in effect gave the north of England to Parliament. He did not believe that Manchester really wanted to win the war, and in mid-September he laid his complaints before the Committee of Both Kingdoms.
Manchester retorted by attacking Cromwell in the House of Lords. In December , Cromwell proposed that in the future no members of either house of Parliament should be allowed to hold commands or offices in the armed forces; his proposal was accepted, and it was also agreed that a new army should be constituted under Sir Thomas Fairfax.
Book Depository | Error
Cromwell, an admirer of Fairfax, put forward his name and then busied himself with planning the new army, from which, as a member of Parliament, he himself was excluded. But, significantly, the post of second in command was left open, and, when the Civil War reached its climax in the summer of , Fairfax insisted that Cromwell should be appointed to it. Thus he was able to join Fairfax in the siege of Oxford, from which Charles I escaped before it surrendered.
Cromwell was delighted with the way in which the war had gone since Fairfax had taken command of the new army and the lethargic earls of Essex and Manchester had been removed from their commands. He attributed these victories to the mercy of God and demanded that the men who had served the country so faithfully should have their due reward. But once the war was over the House of Commons wanted to disband the army as cheaply and quickly as possible.
The army was growing more and more restive, and, on the day Cromwell left London, a party of soldiers seized Charles I. Cromwell and his son-in-law, Henry Ireton , interviewed the king twice, trying to persuade him to agree to a constitutional settlement that they then intended to submit to Parliament.
At that time Cromwell, no enemy of the king, was touched by his devotion to his children. His main task, however, was to overcome the general feeling in the army that neither the king nor Parliament could be trusted. When, under pressure from the rank and file, General Fairfax led the army toward the houses of Parliament in London, Cromwell still insisted that the authority of Parliament must be upheld, and in September he also resisted a proposal in the House of Commons that no further addresses should be made to the king. Just over a month later he took the chair at meetings of the General Council of the Army which included representatives of the private soldiers known as Agitators [Adjutators] and assured them that he was not committed to any particular form of government and had not had any underhand dealings with the king.
On the other hand, fearing anarchy , he opposed extremist measures such as the abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords and the introduction of a more democratic constitution. General Fairfax first ordered Cromwell into Wales to crush a rising there and then sent him north to fight the Scottish army that invaded England in June. Though his army was inferior in numbers to that of the Scots and northern Royalists, he defeated them both in a campaign in Lancashire ; then he entered Scotland and restored order there; finally he returned to Yorkshire and took charge of the siege of Pontefract.
The correspondence he conducted during the siege with the governor of the Isle of Wight, whose duty it was to keep watch on the king, reveals that he was increasingly turning against Charles. Parliamentary commissioners had been sent to the island in order to make one final effort to reach an agreement with the king.
But Cromwell told the governor that the king was not to be trusted, that concessions over religion must not be granted, and that the army might be considered a lawful power capable of ensuring the safety of the people and the liberty of all Christians. While Cromwell, still not entirely decided on his course, lingered in the north, his son-in-law Ireton and other officers in the southern army took decisive action. They drew up a remonstrance to Parliament complaining about the negotiations in the Isle of Wight and demanding the trial of the king as a Man of Blood. While Cromwell still felt uncertain about his own views, he admitted that his army agreed with the army in the south.
Fairfax now ordered him to return to London, but he did not arrive until after Ireton and his colleagues had removed from the House of Commons all members who favoured continuing negotiations with the king. He was one of the commissioners in the High Court of Justice and, when the king refused to plead, he signed the death warrant. After the British Isles were declared a republic and named the Commonwealth , Oliver Cromwell served as the first chairman of the Council of State, the executive body of a one-chamber Parliament.
Detesting the Irish as primitive, savage, and superstitious, he believed they had carried out a huge massacre of English settlers in Fairfax had refused the command, so on June 25 Cromwell was appointed captain general in his place. He felt more tender toward the Scots, most of whom were fellow Puritans, than toward the Catholic Irish.
- Fat Burning Foods - An A-Z list of Foods that Burn Fat to Start a Healthy Diet;
- Can Democracy Survive Islam?: A Polemic.
- ?
- oliver-cromwell-routledge-historical-biographies!
- ?
The campaign proved difficult, and during the winter of Cromwell was taken ill. But he defeated the Scots with an army inferior in numbers at the Battle of Dunbar on September 3, , and a year later, when Charles II and the Scots advanced into England, Cromwell destroyed that army at Worcester.
Oliver Cromwell
This battle ended the Civil Wars. Cromwell now hoped for pacification, a political settlement, and social reform. It believed that the members were corrupt and that a new Parliament should be called. Once again Cromwell tried to mediate between the two antagonists , but his sympathies were with his soldiers.