Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell is a historical figure that I often find myself confused on how I feel about him. His story is very exciting, for the first forty years of his life he is mostly irrelevant until the circumstances of the English Civil War would send him at the forefront. A commoner who overthrew a king and took his life as well as his kingdom. On the other hand it is hard to see him as anything other than a hypocrite. How can one be a champion of liberty when that individual crushes the fledgling English Republic in its infancy and becomes a dictator? Cromwell is very complicated man and Fraser does a good job in presenting his many sides.In many ways Cromwell reminds me of King Henry IV. Like Henry, Cromwell had no right by blood to rule the kingdom that he would eventually take command. It is true that Henry was prince by birth as a grandson to King Edward III while Cromwell was just a well off commoner, but there were still a handful of royals in Henry's time that had a far better claim than he. Both Henry and Cromwell would depose unpopular kings and end up ruling in their place.That analogy carries us only so far. While Richard II was an outright tyrant, King Charles I was just bad at his job. Henry was smart enough to have Richard killed in secret while Charles was publicly tried, executed, and martyred. Henry also took the throne as King while Cromwell simply called himself the Lord Protector.Fraser discusses how often Cromwell was tempted to take the title of King and the many reasons he kept deciding against it. Interestingly it is never discussed if Cromwell would of found the title limiting. There were many advantages and disadvantages to being the King, but never is it pointed out that Cromwell had sent Charles to his death for seeking unlawful powers and tyranny. By wearing a crown he could open himself to be judged by the same standard. A problem that Henry IV learned after the overthrow of his tyrannical cousin."For whatsoever could be said of the execution of King Charles I, that it was inevitable, even that it was necessary, it could never be said that it was right." (p.291)Cromwell as a military leader is easy to admire for he always won. I think Cromwell represents what Napoleon might have been if Napoleon had been confined to an island kingdom as opposed to a great nation-state*. The fact that he had no military experience prior to the English Civil War is a testimony to his natural talent."The distinction is surely an unfair one, for Generals are not gods, and their role is not to create situations, but to provide solutions. Just as the function of the solider is to fight battles, the function of a commander is to win battles, and win them in such a way that the last victory also will go to his own side. In this function Cromwell was supremely successful. He never failed, whether in the crucible of Dunbar or with the pincer trap of Worcester, to find either by God's providence or some special sort of military grace, exactly the type of victory that was required. To achieve what it was necessary to do, and achieve it perfectly is a rare distinction, whatever the scale: it is that which gives to Cromwell, him too, the right to be placed in the hall of fame." (p.390)However as a political leader if one wishes to view him as a champion of liberty they are going to be very disappointed. If Charles I committed an act of tyranny by trying to arrest members of the House of Commons on the House's floor, then what does one call Pride's Purge or Cromwell dismissal of the Rump? In many ways Cromwell is like a modern day petty dictator who comes to power after a revolution and makes the revolutionaries wonder if they have made a terrible mistake."So that into the basic dichotomy of his nature was introduced another discordant element of having to cope with those very problems which he himself had originally raised. More and more, as the shadows of the Protectorate lengthened, he found himself using those very expedients, financial or political, against which he had originally protested. Cromwell maintained his power by means that Charles I would have been delighted to use, if he had had them at his disposal, in the cause of what Cromwell had then termed arbitrary tyranny." (p.704)Often when one reads about the English Civil War, it is said that the final result of the conflict was that Parliament is established as the supreme authority greater than even the monarch. However, in reality, all it did was prove the group with the most effective army was supreme above all law. Parliament created the New Model Army and the Army purged and emasculated the Parliament.*Yes, I know Napoleon was born on and died confined to an island. My point is if Napoleon had been an Englishman then he would have to concentrate on creating a strong island and not a continental empire.

In her "Author's Note" before the book begins, Fraser writes, "I have wished more simply to rescue the personality of Oliver Cromwell from the obscurity into which it seemed to me that it had fallen...It is at least possible to claim that Cromwell was the greatest Englishman. In the hopes of explaining to the general reader something of this remarkable man, I have set about my task - as one historian put it to me, half in jest - of 'humanizing' Oliver Cromwell." To me, this is the basis on which her book should be judged, and it is why I have rated it with five stars. She did it!I have read all the reviews here to date, and I see that others have judged it from quite a wide variety of personal perspectives--military, political, historical, geographical, literary, religious, academic, and more. What we as readers bring to the book - especially our beliefs, knowledge, desires and expectations - in large part determines our respective responses and ratings. So, let me acknowledge my own.I've loved England all my life and in recent years have travelled there and in Scotland and Ireland, learning more and more all the time. Even so, my knowledge of the history of these countries is very spotty. But I've been to Runnymede where King John of England agreed to the rights enumerated in the Magna Carta, and I've been to the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. and seen the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Gradually, I've been filling in the blanks between these three incredibly important documents. I came to Fraser's book wanting to learn more about the Interregnum and Cromwell, whose reputation was blasted, no, obliterated, by my Puritan-hating university professors, atheists, I presume. I was very glad to read that Fraser wanted to write a book that focused on Cromwell, the man, the person, not just historical events.Yes, her syntax and prose style are ponderous. Some even say "turgid, clotted, slow moving, not a page turner, too detailed, exhausting, tedious, lifeless, leaden, dry, wordy, horrible, boring, and humorless." But I plowed through it all and am very glad I did. Chapter 24 at the end of the book made it all worthwhile. She summed up his many ideals, motivations, virtues, and faults and showed how so many people focus on only one or a few of the dominant ones. Hers is a more balanced view of the whole man, I believe, than the image taught by my professors, which I have carried, frozen, in my mind since my university days.The monstrous treatment of his body about 18 months after his death is a blight in history upon both the Parliament and the Restoration. Fraser writes, "Cromwell's name has not failed to arouse reactions of the most venomous wrath even at a distance of several hundred years." Yet his "statue still stands today, a dominating figure of more than life size, facing out into Parliament Square...[He was] "one who was after all never a King, but none the less unique in our history...the character of Oliver Cromwell as an extreme example of the man who made his own destiny and so affected for better or for worse the destiny of his whole country, must always claim its place...it was John Maidston, his own servant, from a traditionally unheroic vantage-point, who spoke the final epitaph on the Protector: 'A larger soul hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay.'"

Many biographers fall in love with their subjects. Endless hours of research often as not leads to a soft heart and and a misdirected opinion of his or he subjects. This is also true of this biography of Cromwell. It’s almost a literary “Stockholm syndrome”.This recounting of cromwell’s many military victories would have one believe that his reputation as a destroyer of castles, villages and farms as well as his history of wholesale killing of hostages , prisoners and particularly priests was all a misunderstanding of history and the his beloved Oliver was only listening to his god. This god of hard Puritan faith was not too useful to any one who was not of Oliver cromwell’s Faith.God save the world from people who find a career killing and destroying in the name of the god who speaks directly to them.The history is however quite interesting and informative as to the nativity of the enlightened ideas which formed the basis of the american experiment in democratic thought of the 18th century.It all would have been better without the doe eyed attempt of the author to make the reader believe that this evil military genius was misunderstood by history and was after all just a well intentioned civil servant working as an instrument of god for the good of his country.