by Jerome Gasson, Runner\u2013up in the 2017 Cromwell Association essay prize competition.<\/p>\n
In some ways, it is rather unhelpful trying to assess Cromwell as \u2018brave\u2019 and \u2018bad\u2019. Whether Cromwell was good or bad is just as much a moral question as a historical one. It is also difficult to critique Cromwell\u2019s bravery, as he did not shy away from the action in a political or military sense. However, it is possible to evaluate Hyde\u2019s assessment of Cromwell in other respects. Taking the History of the Rebellion<\/em> as a whole, by \u2018brave\u2019 and \u2018bad\u2019 Hyde seems to be characterising Cromwell as a \u2018great man\u2019 \u2013 an able schemer who managed to bend the will of the three (former) kingdoms to suit his political ends: \u2018to reduce three nations, which perfectly hated him, to an entire obedience \u2026 was an instance of a very prodigious address\u2019.1<\/sup><\/p>\n This is an active area of debate. On the one hand, there are various events throughout the 1640s and 50s that might suggest that Cromwell was plotting for political dominance, and the focus on the Protector as a dictator figure by some historians suggests that he was in control of events.2<\/sup> On the other hand, it is possible to see Cromwell as an unambitious innocent – \u2018no man rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going\u20193<\/sup> \u2013 and Cromwell\u2019s inconsistencies in the 1650s can be explained by his lack of control over even the central government. This essay will critique Hyde\u2019s assessment of Cromwell as a \u2018great man\u2019 in command of events through three key episodes in Cromwell\u2019s life \u2013 his rise from obscurity, the execution of Charles I and the Protectorate. By evaluating Cromwell\u2019s motivations and role in these events, this essay will attempt to show that while Cromwell certainly exhibited \u2018bravery\u2019 on the battlefield, Hyde\u2019s assessment of Cromwell is largely unjustified.<\/p>\n The circumstances of Cromwell\u2019s rise to prominence are good evidence that Cromwell was not greedy for power from the start. In the History of the Rebellion<\/em>, Hyde argued that his rise from obscurity must have involved deceit: \u2018from a private and obscure birth \u2026 [he] raise[d] himself to such a height \u2026 no man brought to pass what he desired more wickedly\u2019.4<\/sup> The Royalist exile James Heath wrote that \u2018 \u2019Twas at the time of his Adolescency that he dreamed \u2026 that he should be king of England\u20195<\/sup>, but this is clearly just a slander to blacken Cromwell\u2019s name and there is no evidence that he had higher aspirations until the Self-Denying Ordinance, which made all MPs and Lords renounce their command in the army. However, Cromwell was later granted an exemption. Historians such as Richard Wilkinson cite this as proof that Cromwell \u2018behaved deviously\u2019 because he \u2018undermined Manchester, his C-in-C\u2019.6<\/sup> The result of the ordinance was extremely advantageous to him, as he became the only man in both the army command and Parliament and it removed his superiors the earls of Essex and Manchester.<\/p>\n However, it appears that the Self-Denying Ordinance was primarily for self-defence rather than political advancement. He was under attack from the Earl of Manchester due to his own negligence at the Battle of Newbury, so the Ordinance appears to be a sacrifice that Cromwell was prepared to take to bury the quarrel and preserve his political career.7<\/sup> In any case the resignations of Essex and Manchester were not just from Cromwell\u2019s actions, because they were unwilling to serve under the non-aristocratic Sir Thomas Fairfax in the \u2018New Model Army\u2019 that was created at the same time.<\/p>\n So Cromwell was prepared to take risks, but this is far from plotting his own rise to power. In addition, previous military success was not purely down to personal \u2018bravery\u2019 or \u2018badness\u2019. Cromwell\u2019s victories in the First Civil War were mostly against numerically inferior opposition. The famous discipline of the \u2018ironsides\u2019 cavalry unit that he commanded from 1642 was just as much down to Cromwell\u2019s leadership as the religious fervour of the troops.8<\/sup> In addition, although personal charisma was important in Cromwell\u2019s election for the Long Parliament, we should not forget the fact that his followers were very important in making him eligible to stand in the first place by petitioning to get him created a freeman of Cambridge.9<\/sup><\/p>\n Cromwell\u2019s most wicked act in Hyde\u2019s eyes appears to be in signing Charles I\u2019s death warrant. But the idea that he was a \u2018bad\u2019 man trying to engineer Charles\u2019s downfall is wrong. The circumstances of the negotiations do seem to point to some sort of conspiracy \u2013 for example Cornet Joyce\u2019s kidnap of the king from Holmby house just five days after a meeting with Cromwell. This backs up Graham Goodlad\u2019s point that it is \u2018hard to dismiss allegations that he was a calculating politician\u2018.10<\/sup> But at the same time it is difficult to see how Cromwell was directing events. Austin Woolrych is correct to argue that \u2018it is surely inconceivable that Cromwell should on his own initiative have ordered an operation which involved the army so deeply\u2026 without informing its commander-in-chief [Fairfax]\u2019.11<\/sup> Cromwell did not necessarily gain from the abduction, and much to lose: Fairfax was so incensed that he was not told of the affair that he immediately court-martialled Joyce.<\/p>\n Another episode that made contemporaries suspicious of Cromwell\u2019s motives was Charles\u2019s escape to the Isle of Wight, where it appears that Cromwell might have frightened Charles into escaping captivity, thus relieving him of continuing unpopular negotiations with Charles (the Heads of the Proposals were seen as too lenient by the rank and file). Hence, Andrew Marvell\u2019s Horatian Ode (1650), which praises Cromwell but also notes his trickery:<\/p>\n \u2026 twining subtle fears with hope But the sequence of events leading to Charles\u2019s execution was not as smooth as Marvell makes out. The flight to the Isle of Wight was in November 1647, over a year before Charles\u2019s execution, and negotiations with Charles still seemed viable (the treaty of Newport). Moreover, Charles\u2019s execution was largely due to his own political stupidity and this forced Cromwell to be a regicide.13<\/sup> He refused to admit defeat in the civil wars, meaning that he tried to use military force to regain control (the Engagement) rather than taking negotiations seriously.<\/p>\n So Cromwell was \u2018brave\u2019 in taking the unprecedented step of signing a monarch\u2019s death warrant, but he was not necessarily the one forcing through Charles\u2019s execution. He was only one of 53 regicides and in 1648 he lingered for much longer than was necessary in Pontefract (\u2018we of the Northern Army are of a waiting posture\u201914<\/sup>) such that he conveniently arrived in London five hours after Pride\u2019s controversial purge. Charles\u2019s execution was \u2018cruel necessity\u2019,15<\/sup> rather than wicked deed that Cromwell had been plotting from the start.16<\/sup><\/p>\n When Cromwell was Protector, although it appears that Cromwell was the \u2018brave\u2019 man in charge of events, he was very much acting in response to powerful pressures from below. Henry Brailsford argued that the years 1653-8 were \u2018a totalitarian dictatorship\u2019 and \u2018an efficient police state\u2019.17<\/sup> But the military aspect to Cromwell\u2019s rule (especially pronounced in the years 1655-7 with the rule of the Major-Generals) did not make the Protectorate a dictatorship; rather it was an increased military influence in government. It is true that Cromwell did send out personal instructions to the Major-Generals which did amount to intrusive government \u2013 for example to suppress \u2018horse-races, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, stage plays or any such unlawful assemblies\u201918<\/sup> – but in reality, he was never totally in control. In one of his speeches Cromwell complains that the army has been too influential in policy making:<\/p>\n \u2018They had made him their drudge, upon all occasions \u2026 you thought it was necessary to have Major-Generals \u2026 who bid you go to the house and there receive a foil?\u201919<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It is true that in this speech Cromwell was rhetorically trying to assert his independence by attributing all the failure of the republican regimes to the army, but the point remains that Cromwell thought that the army was wielding undue political influence, and this was a plausible reason behind many of his actions.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, this does not mean that the army was the only body exercising influence on Cromwell\u2019s policies. Woolrych is right to point out Cromwell\u2019s \u2018instinctive constitutionalism\u2019. Cromwell was definitely a leader but we should not forget that the Protector\u2019s power was limited by the Constitution so. For example Cromwell allowed himself to be overruled by the council in the matter of excluding members from the second Protectorate Parliament.20<\/sup><\/p>\n In this essay, I have tried to argue that Cromwell was not the \u2018brave bad man\u2019 as described in Hyde\u2019s History of the Rebellion. This does not mean that Cromwell was a weak man with third-rate talents. He did show that he was an exceptional military commander through his victories in Scotland and Ireland, and he managed to stay in power in the 1650s because he genuinely gained the respect of army and civilian bigwigs. But it is wrong to over-emphasise Cromwell\u2019s \u2018greatness\u2019 and liken him to a Caesar or a Napoleon.21<\/sup> Unlike many other revolutionary leaders, he seems to have been singularly unwilling to take power. When it was available to him after the dissolution of the Rump, he gave power to a Nominated Assembly and he tried to avoid interfering in its affairs.22<\/sup><\/p>\n In conclusion, it is worth re-evaluating Hyde\u2019s original statement. While Hyde is no rumourmonger like some other royalist historians,23<\/sup> he does seem to have been influenced by royalist wishful thinking and anti-republicanism. Bearing this in mind, it is not surprising that Hyde wanted to characterise Cromwell as a \u2018brave bad man\u2019. This interpretation makes out Cromwell as personally responsible for the entire republican experiment so it ignores the painful fact that Charles\u2019s execution was a political necessity accepted by most ordinary people. Thus Hyde\u2019s assessment of Oliver Cromwell, while not wholly inaccurate, is definitely flawed.<\/p>\n 1<\/sup> Lord Clarendon, The History Of the Rebellion<\/em>, ed. W Dunn Macray vol. 6 (Oxford, 1958) p94<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 2<\/sup> For an overview, see A. Woolrych \u2018The Cromwellian Protectorate: A Military Dictatorship?\u2019 History<\/em>, 75 (Blackwell 1990), reproduced in Cromwell and the Interregnum<\/em>, ed D. Smith (Blackwell 2003), pp.63-89<\/p>\n 3<\/sup> This is a quotation from Cromwell himself<\/p>\n 4<\/sup> Lord Clarendon, The History Of the Rebellion<\/em>, vol. 6 p91<\/p>\n 5<\/sup> J. Heath, Flagellum, or the Life and Death, Birth and Burial of O. Cromwell, the Late Usurper<\/em> (1663). A full text can be found here<\/a> (last accessed 04\/07\/17).<\/p>\n 6<\/sup> R. Wilkinson, \u2018Oliver Cromwell\u2019, in History Review<\/em> no. 27 (1997)<\/p>\n 7<\/sup> See A. N. B. Cotton, \u2018Cromwell and the Self-Denying Ordinance\u2019 in History<\/em>, vol. 62 (1977) pp.211-231<\/p>\n 8<\/sup> Hence Cromwell\u2019s famous praise of the \u2019plain russet-coated captain who knows what he fights for and loves what he knows<\/em>\u2018 Oliver Cromwell, letter to William Spring, September 1643, in T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell\u2019s letters and speeches (London, 1904), p154<\/p>\n 9<\/sup> See J. Morrill, \u2018Rewriting Cromwell: A Case of Deafening Silences\u2019 in Canadian Journal of History<\/em>, vol 38, no.3<\/p>\n 10<\/sup> G. Goodlad, Oliver Cromwell<\/em>, (Humanities-Ebooks, 2007) p41<\/p>\n 11<\/sup> A. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution<\/em> (Oxford, 2002), p363. See also B. Coward, Oliver Cromwell, (Harlow, 1991) p50<\/p>\n 12<\/sup> A. Marvell An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell\u2019s return from Ireland<\/em>, (1681), quoted for example in T. Yoshinaka, Marvell\u2019s Ambivalence: Religion and Politics of Imagination in Mid-Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2011) p108. For a commentary of the lines, see pp.108-9<\/p>\n 13<\/sup> See G. Goodlad, \u2018Charles I: Author of his own Downfall?\u2019 in History Review<\/em> Issue 63 (2009)<\/p>\n 14<\/sup> Oliver Cromwell, Letter to Robert Hammond (25 November 1648) 15<\/sup> Attributed to Cromwell and recalled by the Earl of Southampton. See J. Spence, Anecdotes<\/em> (London, 1820), p275<\/p>\n 16<\/sup> See \u2018Oliver Cromwell, the Regicide and the Sons of Zeruiah\u2019, from The Regicides and the Execution of Charles I<\/em>, ed. J Peacey (Palgrave, 2001), reproduced in Cromwell and the Interregnum, pp.17-36 for an overview of Cromwell\u2019s attitudes towards the regicide.<\/p>\n 17<\/sup> H. Brailsford, The Levellers and the English revolution<\/em>, ed. Christopher Hill (Stanford, 1961) pp.241 and 492<\/p>\n 18<\/sup> Instructions to the Major Generals in J. Kenyon (ed), The Stuart Constitution: Documents and Commentary (Cambridge, 1986), p323<\/p>\n 19<\/sup> i.e. the 2nd Protectorate Parliament\u2019s vote of no confidence (\u2018foil\u2019) in the Major Generals through the rejection of the Decimation Tax bill. The speech is quoted in the diary of Thomas Burton MP at www.british-history.ac.uk\/burton-diaries\/vol1\/pp382-385<\/a> (last accessed 04\/07\/17)<\/p>\n 20<\/sup> See Peter Gaunt\u2019s essay \u2018Oliver Cromwell and His Protectoral Councillors\u2019 in Historical Journal, 32 (Cambridge, 1989) reproduced in Cromwell and the Interregnum<\/em>, pp.93-119 (especially pp.113-115 for the mass exclusions) for an overview of their role.<\/p>\n 21<\/sup> \u2018We must look to Caesar or Napoleon to find a parallel\u2019 \u2013 C.H. Firth, \u2018Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England\u2019, in Documents and Debates of Seventeenth Century England<\/em>, ed. J. Wroughton, (Palgrave, 1980) pp.43-44<\/p>\n 22<\/sup> Woolrych, \u2018The Cromwellian Protectorate: A Military Dictatorship?<\/em>\u2019, p65<\/p>\n 23<\/sup> e.g. James Heath (Flagellum<\/em>)<\/p>\n Brailsford, H., (C. Hill ed) The Levellers and the English revolution<\/em>, (Stanford, 1961) <\/p>\n Burton, T, Diary (7 March 1657) at Carlyle, T., Oliver Cromwell\u2019s letters and speeches (London, 1904)<\/p>\n Clarendon, E., The History Of the Rebellion<\/em>, ed. W Dunn Macray vol. 6 (Oxford, 1958)<\/p>\n Cotton, A., \u2018Cromwell and the Self-Denying Ordinance\u2019 in History<\/em>, vol. 62 (1977) <\/p>\n Coward, B., Oliver Cromwell<\/em>, (Harlow, 1991) <\/p>\n Cromwell, O., Letter to Robert Hammond,
\nHe wove a net of such a scope
\nThat Charles himself might chase
\nTo Carisbrook\u2019s narrow case
\nThat thence the royal actor borne
\nThe tragic scaffold might adorn.12<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
http:\/\/www.olivercromwell.org\/Letters_and_speeches\/letters\/Letter_86.pdf<\/a>
(last accessed 04\/07\/17)<\/p>\nList of Works Cited<\/h5>\n
http:\/\/www.british-history.ac.uk\/burton-diaries\/vol1\/pp382-385<\/a>
(last accessed 04\/07\/17)<\/p>\n
www.olivercromwell.org\/Letters_and_speeches\/letters\/Letter_86.pdf<\/a>
(last accessed 04\/07\/17)<\/p>\n