Our eminent and distinguished historians explain why they consider studying Oliver Cromwell, and his place in history, is still relevant today, 400 years after his death.
Dr Alan Marshall"He is a man of the sword as well as of the tongue, and hence it is that he has climbed by such great strides’ noted the Venetian ambassador of Oliver Cromwell and most of all it is Oliver’s use of language that attracts me. There is the stern, forceful, Biblical, prose in his letters, and we can even hear, in the imagination at least, a rotund orality in his speeches, but it is the evidence of that ever-persuasive tongue that carried him upwards that inevitably leads us into continual speculations on both the man and his life. Cromwell, with his religious vision, hasty temper, military skills, pithy quotes, king-killing, and Machiavellian political nous, wins hands down for his complexity, as well perhaps for a unique ability to raise the hackles of both contemporaries and historians alike who dare to try to deduce his motives. And rightly enough I think, it might well be thought that this is in itself no small achievement: for Oliver is endlessly fascinating, and still provides us with a range of unending historical questions."
Prof. Blair Worden
"Cromwell's historical stature speaks for itself. An obscure figure until middle age, he rose to supremacy by destroying both sides in the civil war, first the king, then the parliament. His crack army won extraordinary victories, destroyed the ancient constitution, and conquered the three kingdoms of Britain. A minor power under the Stuarts, England was a great one during his protectorate. He has been the towering figure in national memory, adulated as hero and hated as villain. The challenge is to get behind the worship and the vilification and recover the inner man. What were the motivating forces that drove him, what the abilities that sustained him, what the limits that exposed his rule to swift destruction after his death? And, perhaps most difficult and interesting of all, what was the relationship between his political deeds and calculations and the religious beliefs he ardently professed and championed?"
Dr David Smith"Oliver Cromwell is a unique figure in British history. In a country that makes much of the continuity of its monarchy, Cromwell is the only example in our history (with the very short-lived exception of his son) of a republican head of state. He divided opinion among his contemporaries, and has continued to do so ever since. For some, he is a hero: a champion of liberty who stood up against the tyranny of Charles I. For others (especially in Ireland), he is a villain: a religious zealot and would-be dictator who brutally rode roughshod over anyone who opposed him. Some see him as idealistic and genuinely principled; others as a hypocrite and a Machiavellian power-seeker. One thing is clear: regardless of whether you love him or loathe him, it is impossible to ignore Oliver Cromwell. To me, this is the source of his unending fascination as an historical figure."
