The title for the annual essay competition for 2020 was:

‘A person to be truly admired for nothing but apostasy and ambition and exceeding Tiberius in dissimulation’ [Slingsby Bethal 1668].
Given that in 2002, Cromwell was voted the third greatest Briton of all time, how do you explain the contempt shown him by some of his contemporaries?

The winner of the competition was Ethan Aho from The Perse School in Cambridge. The essay will appear in our journal Cromwelliana in 2021 but is currently available to download here (pdf).

A very good runner-up was William Finlator of Magdalen College School, Oxford, and is also available to read here (pdf).

Congratulations to Ethan and William and thanks to all those who took part.

The Cromwell Association ‘A’ level Essay prize is a regular fixture in our calendar. The title of the 2021 essay will be announced here in the New Year.