Cromwell, Oliver
Oliver (1599-1658), lord protector of Great Britain and Ireland. Born at Huntington, April 25, 1599; died in London, September 3, 1658. The Cromwell line of knights dated from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Oliver's mother could trace her descent back to Alexander, lord steward--or Stuart as the name came to be written--the founder of the family on the throne of England. Cromwell married a daughter of a landed proprietor who prefixed Sir to his name so that he was, we may say, well connected on all sides.
Cromwell appeared in Parliament in 1628. Although clad in slouchy, rustic dress, he had had a year at Cambridge. He proved to be a man of rude, ready, impressive eloquence, a determined friend of fair play. He was a zealous advocate of freedom in religious matters--opposed to the idea of a state church. He at once became prominent and influential. At the close of the term for which he was first elected he retired to a farm at Ely which he had inherited. He came to be known as a god-fearing, earnest, just man--a raiser of cattle.
A thoroughly characteristic anecdote is told of his fairness in neighborhood matters. Some enterprising speculators formed a plan to drain the fertile fens and swamps near Ely, in order to convert them to their own use. Cromwell withstood the projectors so stoutly as to defeat the scheme. His poorer neighbors whose rights of pasturage he thus upheld had unbounded confidence in him and dubbed him the "lord of the fens." Later, when troublous times broke out, these same neighbors followed him through thick and thin. No matter what odds were opposed, no matter how deeply he might charge into the ranks of the enemy, these old Ironsides, as his regiment came to be called, were at his back, laying on lusty blows for country, for God, and for Oliver. Cromwell was one of the greatest leaders of men the world has seen. His influence sprang from the very fens of his native shire. Leadership of men begins at home.
He was a member of the several Parliaments that were summoned and sent home by the king. When bitterness, springing from the broken promises of the king, and religious factions rose so high that actual hostilities broke out between the royalists and the adherents of Parliament, Cromwell formed the famous troop of cavalrymen to which we have referred and took the field. He was without doubt a military genius. Practically without military experience until he had reached the age of forty, he transformed raw recruits into the most formidable body of soldiers in Europe. Like Joab of old he never lost a battle. His first exploit was the capture of military supplies at Cambridge in 1642. Marston Moor, Naseby, and a score of victories followed. Cromwell and his "praying, snivelling, long-faced troop," ever in the thick of the fight, hewed down the "sons of sin--the children of the harlot that sits on seven hills."
Cromwell rose higher and higher in command, until he became the embodiment of the Puritan cause. King Charles I was driven into Scotland, brought back, and beheaded on the charge of breaking his word with Parliament. Cromwell's signature stood third on the death warrant. Ireland was quickly wrested from the royalists. Charles II raised the Stuart banner in Scotland, but was defeated at Dunbar, Stirling, and Worcester. December 12, 1653, Parliament, now subservient to Cromwell, proclaimed him lord protector--a sort of president--of the Commonwealth.
Cromwell pursued a vigorous policy at home and on the sea. He was the leading man in Europe--a sort of Bismarck among crowned heads. Without increasing taxes, he caused public business to be managed honestly. Judges were appointed to do justice to all classes of people. He lived at Hampton Court a few miles up the Thames, but, as it happened, died at Whitehall Palace in London. He was buried in the beautiful chapel of King Henry VII in Westminster Abbey. He was succeeded for a few months by his son Richard, a weak man.
In 1659 the same Charles who was routed at Dunbar was restored to the throne of his father as Charles II. One of his first acts was to order the body of Cromwell taken up and hung at Tyburn. The body was afterward buried beneath the gallows. The head was cut off, fixed on a pole, and set up at Westminster.
In early manhood, Cromwell, Pym, and others, who afterward became famous in the councils of the Parliamentary party cherished for a time the project of joining the Puritan colonies in New England. During Cromwell's term of influence the immigration to the American colonies largely ceased, because the persecutions of the Puritans ceased, they themselves being in power. The colonies were favored in many ways.
The worst stain on Cromwell's memory is his cruel, not to say brutal, treatment of Ireland. Under his direction the Catholic Irish adherents of the Stuarts were butchered with a degree of ferocity worthy of Indian warfare.
See Puritans; Cavaliers