Cromwell

Contents:

1. Youth

2. Formative influences.

3. Early public career

4. Cromwell in Parliament.

5. The First civil War and Cromwell's military career

6. The Second Civil War

7. First chairman of the Council.

8. Cromwell as Lord Protector

a. Foreign policy.

b. Economic policy

c. Relations with Parliament.

9. Death and burial

10. General Characteristic and Assessment.

a. Private life and religious beliefs

b. Political views

11. A calendar of key events in Cromwell's life

Youth

Oliver Cromwell, an English soldier and statesman of outstanding gifts and a forceful character shaped by a devout Calvinist faith, was lord protector of

the republican Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1653 to 1658. One of the leading generals on the parliamentary side in the English Civil War against King Charles I, he helped to bring about the overthrow of the Stuart monarchy, and, as lord protector, he raised his country's status once more to that of a leading EuroÐ'¬pean power from the decline it had gone through since the death of Queen Elizabeth I. Cromwell was one of the most remarkable rulers in modern European history: for although a convinced Calvinist, he believed deeply in the value of religious toleration. At the same time his victories at home and abroad helped to enlarge and sustain a PuriÐ'¬tan attitude of mind, both in Great Britain and in North America, that continued to influence political and social life until recent times.

Cromwell was born at Huntingdon in eastern England on April 25, 1599, the only son of Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. His father had been a member of one of Queen Elizabeth's parliaments and, as a landlord and, justice of the peace, was active in local affairs. Oliver Cromwell was a minor East Anglian landowner. He made a living by farming and collecting rents, first in his native Huntingdon, then from 1631 in St Ives and from 1636 in Ely. Cromwell's inheritances from his father, who died in 1617, and later from a maternal uncle were not great, his income was modest and he had to support an expanding family - widowed mother, wife and eight children. He ranked near the bottom of the landed elite, the landowning class often labeled 'the gentry' which dominated the social and political life of the county.

Robert Cromwell died when his son was 18, but his widow lived to the age of 89. Oliver went to the local grammar school and then for a year attended Sidney Sussex College. CamÐ'¬bridge. After his father's death he left Cambridge to look after his widowed mother and sisters but is believed to have studied for a time at Lincoln's Inn in London, where country gentlemen were accustomed to acquire a smatterÐ'¬ing of law. In August 1620 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourhier, a merchant in the City of London. By her he was to have five sons and four daughters.

Formative influences.

Both his father and mother came from Protestant families who had profiled from the deÐ'¬struction of the monasteries during the reign of King Henry VIII, and it is probable that they influenced their son in his religious upbringing. Both his schoolmaster in Huntingdon and the Master of Sidney Sussex College were enthusiastic Calvinists and strongly anti-Catholic. In his youth Cromwell was not notably studious, being fond of outdoor sports, such as hunting: hut he was an avid reader of the Bible, and he admired Sir Walter Raleigh's The History of the World. From his teachers and from his reading Cromwell learned that the sins of man were punÐ'¬ishable on earth but that God, through His Holy Spirit, could guide the elect into the paths of righteousness.

During his early married life Cromwell, like his father, was profoundly conscious of his responsibilities to his felÐ'¬low men and concerned himself with affairs in his native fenlands, but he was also the victim of a spiritual and psychological struggle that perplexed his mind and damÐ'¬aged his health. He does not appear to have experienced conversion until he was nearly 30: later he described to a cousin how he had emerged from darkness into light. Yet he had been unable to receive the grace of God without feeling a sense of "self, vanity and badness." He was conÐ'¬vinced that he had been "the chief of sinners" before he learned that he was one of God's Chosen. He was a country squire, a bronze-faced, callous-handed man of property. He worked on his farm, prayed and fasted often and occasionally exhorted the local congregation during church meetings. A quiet, simple, serious-minded man, he spoke little. But when he broke his silence, it was with great authority as he commanded obedience without question or dispute. As a justice of the peace, he attracted attention to himself by collaring loafers at a tavern and forcing them to join in singing a hymn. Thus Cromwell earned the respect of the Parliament locals.

Early public career.

When in the spring of 1640 Cromwell was elected member of Parliament for the borough of Cambridge, partly because of the important social position he held in Ely and partly because of his fame as "Lord of the Fens." he found himself among a host of friends at Westminster who, led by John Pym. a veteran politician from Somerset, were highly critical of the monarchy. Little was achieved by the Short Parliament (dissolved after three weeks), but, when in November 1640 Cromwell was again returned by CamÐ'¬bridge to what was to be known as the Long Parliament, which sat until 1653, his public career began.

Cromwell in Parliament.

Cromwell had already become known in the Parliament of 1628Ð'--29 as a fiery and somewhat uncouth Puritan, who had launched an attack on Charles l's bishops. He believed that the individual Christian could establish direct contact with God through prayer and that the principal duty of the clergy was to inÐ'¬spire the laity by preaching. Cromwell, in fact, distrusted