A look at Oliver Cromwell, a divisive but significant figure in British history. We consider what made him so unpopular, his achievements in government and on the battlefield, his early life and his grisly afterlife.
What You’ll Hear
- 0:53: Cromwell’s early life
- 1:23: The start of his political career
- 2:05: Cromwell as army commander
- 3:06: The Lord Protector
- 3:48: Why Cromwell was unpopular
- 4:16: Cromwell’s death mask & afterlife
Listen to the Episode
Oliver Cromwell was born in a well-to-do family – his father had worked for Queen Elizabeth I and his son was educated at the local grammar and then at Cambridge, as well as a brief stint at Lincoln’s Inn.
Events in the first 40 years of his life are mostly unknown, although he converted from Protestantism to become a puritan in the 1630s. This fervent religious belief played a significant part in the rest of his life, with Cromwell convinced that God was helping him to victory.
He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the short and long Parliaments.
The Short Parliament sat for only 3 weeks in 1640, having been convened by King Charles I to raise funds for his fight with Scotland over the governance of the Church of Scotland.
What did Cromwell do?
When this was unsuccessful, the Parliament was dissolved, and the one which replaced it later in 1640 sat for nine years. Two years later, civil war broke out between Charles’s supporters (the Royalists or Cavaliers), who wanted him to have absolute power, and the Roundheads (so-called because of the puritan fashion of having their hair cropped close around the head), who wanted parliament to have greater control.
Cromwell, who had spent much of his life as a landowner and family man (the death of his father left him responsible for his widowed mother, seven sisters and nine children of his own), discovered a talent for leading troops, becoming second in command for the largest regional army, the Eastern Association, and then holding the same position in the newly-formed New Model Army in 1645.
In 1649, Cromwell was among the signatories on the death warrant of Charles I, and played a key role in the Rump Parliament that followed. The Rump oversaw the abolition of the monarchy and the brutal treatment of the country’s Catholics. However, Cromwell quickly became disillusioned with the Rumpers, as they were known, and the Barebone’s Parliament that came after.
After the execution of Charles, Cromwell was in charge of the campaigns to take Ireland in 1649 and Scotland the following year. The Battle of Worcester in the autumn of 1651 was won by the Parliamentarians, the result of which was the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, with Cromwell as Lord General.
The Lord Protector and Enemy of the People
By the end of 1653, he had got himself into such a position of power that he became the Lord Protector. He was focused on constitutional reform, and although he rejected the crown, he fulfilled a similar role to a monarch, as he administered and controlled the government.
Cromwell described his role as that of a watchman, but it was a position he was given for life (actually only five years, until his death in 1558), and he had the support of the army behind him.
The only real challenge to his power was that to call or dissolve parliament he would need a majority vote from the Council of State, a rule still in place today and which prevents a monarch from governing without the consent of parliament.
So why was Cromwell unpopular? Well, some of the parliamentarians disliked what they perceived as tyranny from the army (although I’d have thought that was what was needed!) and his treatment of the Catholics in Ireland was brutal.
His Puritan beliefs meant that he was in favour of a religious and simple way of life, which was at odds with much of the ordinary populace. He advocated temperance and believed women and girls should be modestly dressed. He also banned Christmas decorations and celebrations at a time when the holiday was growing in popularity, and theatres were closed.
Cromwell also left behind a remarkable death mask, a wax replica of which is now in The British Museum, with another in the Discovery Museum in Newcastle upon Tyne.
It was cast immediately after his death, and is remarkably lifelike (if you see what I mean!)
Cromwell received a lavish funeral after his death from septicaemia in 1658. He didn’t rest in peace, however, as three years later, his corpse was subjected to a series of grisly activities, including being ‘executed’, his head stuck on a spike and then displayed in various private collections.
In later years, the authenticity of the head on show was under much dispute, with many claiming it looked nothing like the disgraced ruler, which is hardly surprising. The mask was undoubtedly used to back up these claims, and eventually the head was reinterred with the rest of him in Westminster Abbey.
This episode was inspired by a blog post about masks, which included a section on Oliver Cromwell’s death mask.
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