Cromwell, Oliver

Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658). General and lord protector. It is still difficult to appreciate the unique character of Cromwell's career. In a country governed by custom, precedent, and the common law, Cromwell completely changed the ancient frame of government, reforming Parliament and imposing a written constitution. By conquest he incorporated the separate kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland into a single commonwealth with England. He remains the only British statesman whose entire career depended on the control and use of military power. Yet his achievement proved to be totally ephemeral.

A provincial gentleman from Huntingdon of modest means, Cromwell first became prominent in the second session of the Long Parliament (1641–2). Cromwell urged Parliament to assume control of both the army destined for Ireland and the home militia, and soon became identified with the war party. He made the forces maintained by the Eastern Association the most formidable of the parliamentarian armies. Cromwell's men contributed decisively to the victory at Marston Moor July 1644).

Cromwell deplored the failure to follow up this victory effectively, denounced his own neighbour and superior officer, Lord Manchester, and helped pass the self‐denying ordinance. This barred peers and MPs, with exceptions of whom Cromwell was one, from commands and set up a central army, the New Model, of which he became second in command. At Naseby, Cromwell annihilated Charles's field army June 1645). He next emerged as the chief military politician, eclipsing his superior, Lord Fairfax. Cromwell took the lead, first in representing army grievances, but soon in a wider sense claiming to speak and act as the embodiment of the ‘cause’ for which it had fought the war. In July 1647 the army issued the Heads of the Proposals, a manifesto for a new constitutional settlement, which it discussed with Charles. The manifesto did not go far enough to satisfy the more radical officers and men. Influenced by Leveller ideas, the radicals published an Agreement of the People: this was discussed in the Putney debates of the army council, a body representing all ranks and units.

During this period of rapid change Cromwell developed the techniques which enabled him to keep control over the army for the rest of his life. He could not depend on politicized radicals obeying orders. He had to break up networks of officers that could develop into challenges to his authority, he had to balance the factions—ambitious opportunists (like Lambert), religious fanatics ( Thomas Harrison), professionals (Monck, Montagu). He learned that neglect of the interests and grievances of ordinary soldiers led to their politicization. Above all he knew that army unity must be maintained.

Early in 1648 royalist risings broke out and a Scottish army invaded on Charles's behalf. Cromwell and Fairfax reacted with great speed, annihilating enemy forces. Opinion in the army now accepted that as a ‘man of blood’ the king had to be punished. Cromwell clearly inspired the action that followed. Colonel Pride, backed up by armed soldiers, prevented MPs who were unacceptable to the army from entering the Commons. The purged House that subsequently worked with the army was known as the Rump. By killing the king the regicides made any future compromise impossible.

In 1649–51 Cromwell was almost continuously on campaign away from Westminster. His militarily successful Irish campaign of 1649–50 has been universally condemned for its ruthlessness, especially for the massacres at Drogheda and Wexford. Cromwell's methods represented a revival of those used in Elizabeth's Irish wars and he saw them as a reprisal for atrocities committed by the Irish rebels in 1641. In 1650–1 he was engaged in war against the Scots, who crowned Charles II king of Scotland. Cromwell defeated them at Dunbar and finally Worcester in successive Septembers, 1650 and 1651.

Cromwell's second major coup, his ejection of the Rump on 20 April 1653, opened the way for an experiment to create a form of government that would be in accord with what he took to be God's will. He and the army council named a constituent body to draft a godly constitution, Barebone's or the ‘Nominated’ Parliament. The fanatics in Barebone's Parliament disappointed Cromwell by wanting the abolition of tithe and universities, seeing a salaried and learned ministry as unnecessary. After moderates dissolved the ‘Parliament’ Cromwell infuriated the fanatics further by ending the Dutch War, giving the defeated enemy lenient terms March 1654). After Barebone's Parliament came a written constitution, the Instrument of Government December 1653), introducing a form of government based on a balance of power between a reformed single‐chamber parliament elected by a new representative system, an elected council, and the executive, Lord Protector Cromwell. This constitution was superseded in 1657 by the Humble Petition and Advice which established an upper house in Parliament and empowered the lord protector to designate his successor. Neither constitution gave the impression of a governmental system built to last. This explains Cromwell's reluctant refusal in 1657 to assume the familiar title of king.

In the short term Cromwellian government worked. He maintained army discipline and unity but he could not eradicate all potential radical activists. Quakers as well as catholics and Prayer Book Anglicans were excluded from toleration. The costs of maintaining the army, aggravated by a Spanish war that began in 1655, produced an accumulation of debt that would have ended in an insoluble crisis. But the greatest change brought about by the institutionalization of the Protectorate was the erosion of the ‘cause’ which Cromwell embodied, the establishment of a form of government in which the godly, not a monarch, wielded power. Previous rulers—even Elizabeth—had failed to undertake and complete all the tasks required of a godly prince. Cromwell's missionary cause was to create a godly nation, but by 1658 few still shared his zeal.