Oliver Cromwell

[Quackers]

So what do you guys think? Proto-Fascist Dictator who massacred Irish Catholics or the Saviour of English liberties?

Personally I think this guy is one of the great Britons of all time. He managed to curb the power of the king and installed an Enlightend benign despot (himself) for a few short years before parliament is resumed. Also his actions laid down the British constitition IE) English Bill of Rights, Right to petition - which in turn inspired USA's own Bill of Rights.

 

[LightSpectra]

An impressive amount of historical inaccuracies in such a small post.

Genocide is never justifiable under any circumstances. He was a terrible dictator, and a terrible human being.

 

[Traitorfish]

A complex figure, far too complex to be summed up in either of the glib descriptions which you present. He was good, and he was bad, and, as much as anything else, he was misguided, just like most people are, and always have been. He merely had the power to show it in a way which most of us never will.

An impressive amount of historical inaccuracies in such a small post.

Irony abounds...

Genocide is never justifiable under any circumstances. He was a terrible dictator, and a terrible human being.

I think that it's highly questionable whether one can even very loosely consider the Protecorate campaigns in Ireland as "genocide", given the lack of apparent ethnic motivation. It was, first and foremost, a war of political ideology, Royalist against Parliamentarian. To a lesser degree, it was a conflict of religion, a coalition of Catholics and conservative Anglicans against one of radical Anglicans, Presbyterians and Independents. It may even be possibly be called a nationalist conflict, but that is still rather simplistic, given that many among the Irish had no desire to rid themselves of the Anglo-Scots Stewarts- that, in a large part, is later Nationalist revisionism.
Even to style it as "religious genocide" is questionable, given that it lacked the orchestrated mass-murder of civilians which is typical of such campaigns (not so on the part of the Irish Catholics, of course, who cheerfully butchered Protestant civilians throughout the conflicts). Indeed, the only such example I can think of on the Parliamentarian side is the Sack of Wexford, which was not ordered by Cromwell, nor had any explicit religous or religous motivation. If nothing else, to focus so exclusively on Cromwell's supression of Catholicism in Ireland fails to acknowledge the wider social and political situation of the era.
Again, it's a very complex issue, and such simplistic summaries help no-one.

I've always wondered why Cromwell has such a lingering infamy, when his contemporaries, not to mention those who followed, would do far worse and, at worst, be forgotten by history. I think, perhaps, that he's simply too modern for people to accept. Kings and emperors and lords may butcher and rape and pillage left, right and centre, with nothing to justify their actions but arrogance and power, but that's just history, that can be forgotten, even forgiven. But for a man to establish a military dictatorship as an attempt to realise an idelogical system? Well, now, that's politics, and we won't forgive that nearly so easily.

 

[Antilogic]

Enlightend benign despot (himself)

Sorry, this was just the funniest part of the post.

I remember listening to the people talking in Hyde Park, and there was this old racist English lady who was really peeved at the number of minorities in her country. Jamaican guy was dancing around having a good time with her while she yelled at the Spanish tourists, myself (silly American coming here for a study abroad!), and this drunk German guy. I think Cromwell was the only Briton she actually liked.

 

[Agent327]

... Royalist against Parliamentarian...

I've never understood why a) someone so disdainful of Parliament as Cromwell could be seen as an advocate of the same and b) dictators seem to generate such popularity - not too mention that dictators by definition are disdainful of parliamentary institutions, whatever laws they may make.

 

[Lord Baal]

I don't know that much about XCromwell, and I know that what little I've heard is highly polarised - one source treats him as a romantic hero, whereas another decries him as a brutal dictator - and therefore highly inaccurate. I do know enough to know that he was a pretty complex figure, and that neither of the OP's options really encapsulate him. Nor does LightSpectra's.

From what little I do know, I would say that, as dictators go, Cromwell was not that bad. Of course, I could be completely off here.

 

[Plotinus]

I'm going to choose to assume that the OP is meant to be a hilarious comedy character and not in earnest, because the alternative is too depressing.

It is true that Oliver Cromwell was a very complex individual who did both good things and bad things. However, look at it like this. He started off very well by removing a gibbering maniac from the throne. After he died, everyone was so enormously impressed by the protectorate system that Cromwell had put together that they abolished the whole thing and invited the gibbering maniac's even more gibbering sons to take over.

 

[Lord Baal]

I always assumed - again, limited knowledge here - that a large part of that had to do with the fact that there were absolutely no legal restrictions on the Lord Protector, but a great deal more on the King? Parliament - the guys disenfrachised by both the King and Cromwell - were the ones that invited him back after all, right?

 

[Masada]

Basically. Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament by forciably barring half of the members in order to gain the votes to execute Charles I and to push his own ideological agenda. He then progressively culled members from the resulting Rump Parliament in order to assert his own supremacy as Lord Protector and to load it with his Puritan 'saints'.

With his death the Protectorate collapsed in large part because of factional fighting in the New Model Army and in the Rump Parliament. His son Richard Cromwell was the comprimise candidate between the two major factions of the New Model Army, he wasn't capable of reining in them in and was in seven months ousted. The still Puritan 'saint' stacked Rump Parliament was returned to power by the military as the ultimate authority of the Commonwealth. After a period of indecision internal divisions inside the New Model Army began again to boil over, what happened next was that one of the factions led by Charles Fleetwood and John Lambert stopped the Rump Parliament from meeting and created his own governing body the 'Committee of Safety'. Sir Arthur Haselrig at this point decided to intervene on Parliaments behalf and appealed to the other generals, one of whom Monck in charge of the army of Scotland agreed and declared he was willing to support Parliament. Lambert and Fleetwood were forced to back down as Monck got closer and closer to London. At which point the petitioned the speaker to call the Rump Parliament again. When Monck arrived he allowed those members who had been excluded from the Rump Parliament to rejoin and he in effect reconstituted the Long Parliament. The Long Parliament then under Monck's urging decided to invite Charles II to take the throne to provide some measure of stability. It took two years for the Protectorate to fall after Cromwell's death.

It is true that Oliver Cromwell was a very complex individual who did both good things and bad things. However, look at it like this. He started off very well by removing a gibbering maniac from the throne. After he died, everyone was so enormously impressed by the protectorate system that Cromwell had put together that they abolished the whole thing and invited the gibbering maniac's even more gibbering sons to take over.

That better have been for comedic purposes.

 

[Plotinus]

That better have been for comedic purposes.

Naturally, although I think there's still a grain of truth in it (to the extent that whatever else Cromwell did as Lord Protector, he failed to hold back the pernicious forces of monarchy for more than a few years) - at least, more truth than there is in the OP. Regarding which it is true that Cromwell was not quite as nutty and extreme as he is sometimes portrayed (he was apparently happy for musicians to play at his daughter's wedding, for example, and even tolerated the celebration of Christmas) but to imagine him as some enlightened pioneer of human rights is absurd. He had nothing to do with the Petition of Right (it was passed in 1628, when Cromwell was an obscure minor figure of the gentry, long before his entry into public life) or the Bill of Rights (it was passed in 1689, over twenty years after his death, as part of the "Glorious Revolution" - nothing to do with the Civil War).

 

[Gwyddelig]

A complex figure, far too complex to be summed up in either of the glib descriptions which you present. He was good, and he was bad, and, as much as anything else, he was misguided, just like most people are, and always have been. He merely had the power to show it in a way which most of us never will.


Irony abounds...

I think that it's highly questionable whether one can even very loosely consider the Protecorate campaigns in Ireland as "genocide", given the lack of apparent ethnic motivation. It was, first and foremost, a war of political ideology, Royalist against Parliamentarian. To a lesser degree, it was a conflict of religion, a coalition of Catholics and conservative Anglicans against one of radical Anglicans, Presbyterians and Independents. It may even be possibly be called a nationalist conflict, but that is still rather simplistic, given that many among the Irish had no desire to rid themselves of the Anglo-Scots Stewarts- that, in a large part, is later Nationalist revisionism.
Even to style it as "religious genocide" is questionable, given that it lacked the orchestrated mass-murder of civilians which is typical of such campaigns (not so on the part of the Irish Catholics, of course, who cheerfully butchered Protestant civilians throughout the conflicts). Indeed, the only such example I can think of on the Parliamentarian side is the Sack of Wexford, which was not ordered by Cromwell, nor had any explicit religous or religous motivation. If nothing else, to focus so exclusively on Cromwell's supression of Catholicism in Ireland fails to acknowledge the wider social and political situation of the era.
Again, it's a very complex issue, and such simplistic summaries help no-one.

I've always wondered why Cromwell has such a lingering infamy, when his contemporaries, not to mention those who followed, would do far worse and, at worst, be forgotten by history. I think, perhaps, that he's simply too modern for people to accept. Kings and emperors and lords may butcher and rape and pillage left, right and centre, with nothing to justify their actions but arrogance and power, but that's just history, that can be forgotten, even forgiven. But for a man to establish a military dictatorship as an attempt to realise an idelogical system? Well, now, that's politics, and we won't forgive that nearly so easily.

Have a read of Mícheál Ó Siochrú's excellent book on the man in question. SFAIK it has rapidly become the bible on Ol' Warty. Basically Cromwell was bad but by the standards of the time not exceptional. Ó Siochrú argues that an unspoken guilty conscience about Drogheda followed him around for the rest of his days and that even by the standards of the day, Drogheda was just about on the wrong side of the line.

You're absolutely right about those that came later in the settlement period; men like Ireton, were immeasurably more brutal than Cromwell. conveniently for history though, he died of camp fever. What I do not agree with you on is the impact of the settlement period on Ireland generally. It's nice semantics to talk about a lack of organised slaughter but in reality, systematic destruction of peasants' crops, forcible evictions of entire communities and "free fire" zones produce the same end result - lots of dead people - somewhere between a third and half the population in fact. That didn't happen by accident. The Parlimentarians knew what the upshot of their actions would be and they undertook them advisedly. You can dress that up anyway you want. There was plenty of just plain stand up killing too without delegating by proxy to one of the other Horsemen of Apocalypse. Ludlow, Ireton and Hewson all shot civillians out of hand. Inchiquin massacred thousands on his own and Munroe killed another few thousand. So there's a few to add to your list of one...

On a more agreeable note; parlimentary democracy as we enjoy it today would not have evolved in Europe as quickly were it not for Cromwell IMO and I'm inclined to view him as one of those hopelessly divisive historical figures who's probably been blackened somewhat more than he deserves.

 

[Masada]

think there's still a grain of truth in it (to the extent that whatever else Cromwell did as Lord Protector, he failed to hold back the pernicious forces of monarchy for more than a few years)

He did just fine, the return of Charles II was the result not of an up-swell of monarchist fervor but was simply the product of the massive instability of the two years prior to the reconstitution of the Long Parliament. Charles II was a comprimise and was meant to have been kept on a tight lease - he certainly spent his reign trying, unsuccessfully, to slip it.

Regarding which it is true that Cromwell was not quite as nutty and extreme as he is sometimes portrayed (he was apparently happy for musicians to play at his daughter's wedding, for example, and even tolerated the celebration of Christmas)

He was a connoisseur of choral music and his favorite composer was a Catholic court musician Richard Deering.

but to imagine him as some enlightened pioneer of human rights is absurd

His civil reforms for religion and the courts were important, they remained largely intact after his death. His support of 'human rights' was spotty, he defended them quite vigorously before he dissolved the Long Parliament after which he effectively suspended them. I'm not inclined to believe they were generally enforced, although, they were certainly enforced in Draconian fashion against political enemies, malcontents and the like.

Have a read of Mícheál Ó Siochrú's excellent book on the man in question. SFAIK it has rapidly become the bible on Ol' Warty. Basically Cromwell was bad but by the standards of the time not exceptional. Ó Siochrú argues that an unspoken guilty conscience about Drogheda followed him around for the rest of his days and that even by the standards of the day, Drogheda was just about on the wrong side of the line.

Quite!

It's nice semantics to talk about a lack of organised slaughter but in reality, systematic destruction of peasants' crops, forcible evictions of entire communities and "free fire" zones produce the same end result - lots of dead people - somewhere between a third and half the population in fact. That didn't happen by accident.

It wasn't limited to Ireland, the Royalists systemically decimated Parliamentary areas and vice versa, although, Ireland got by far the worst dose.

somewhere between a third and half the population in fact.

England itself had some pretty nasty casualties, although, yet again though Ireland got the worst by far.

 

[Gwyddelig]

It wasn't limited to Ireland, the Royalists systemically decimated Parliamentary areas and vice versa, although, Ireland got by far the worst dose. England itself had some pretty nasty casualties, although, yet again though Ireland got the worst by far.

Absolutely. We in Ireland sometimes lose sight of the fact that we were hardly the only place in Europe where Very Bad Things happened on a semi-regular basis. Europe in the 17th century was just an appalingly fragmented, brutal place. Especially if you were a habitual "loser"...

 

[Quackers]

The Irish thing was awful but compared to the continent where the 30 years war ended (?) where something like 1/2 of all Germany males died!

 

[Gwyddelig]

The Irish thing was awful but compared to the continent where the 30 years war ended (?) where something like 1/2 of all Germany males died!

Like I said, it's not as if continental Europe at the time was funshine, dancing bunnies and rainbows either. That does need to be borne in mind when cursing Cromwell's name 300+ years after the fact. It's not as if there's large swathes of Catholic Europe simply itching to have a pee on Gustavus Adolphus' grave now is it?

 

[Quackers]

Like I said, it's not as if continental Europe at the time was funshine, dancing bunnies and rainbows either. That does need to be borne in mind when cursing Cromwell's name 300+ years after the fact. It's not as if there's large swathes of Catholic Europe simply itching to have a pee on Gustavus Adolphus' grave now is it?

Aye it puts into perspective Cromwell's "atrocities" at the time in comparison with the rest of Europe. I know an Irish Protestant he hates Cromwell because it played a role inciting the IRA and initiating the Troubles.

 

[lumpthing]

A complex figure, far too complex to be summed up in either of the glib descriptions which you present. He was good, and he was bad, and, as much as anything else, he was misguided, just like most people are, and always have been. He merely had the power to show it in a way which most of us never will.

This thread was worth looking at just to read that. (Not that the other posts weren't great too; certainly gave me some free education).

 

[Agent327]

... to imagine him as some enlightened pioneer of human rights is absurd. He had nothing to do with the Petition of Right (it was passed in 1628, when Cromwell was an obscure minor figure of the gentry, long before his entry into public life) or the Bill of Rights (it was passed in 1689, over twenty years after his death, as part of the "Glorious Revolution" - nothing to do with the Civil War).

Indeed.

 

[Dodge_272]

lol rump lol