A unique leader
Oliver Cromwell rose from the middle ranks of English society to be Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, the only non-royal ever to hold that position. He played a leading role in bringing Charles I to trial and to execution; he undertook the most complete and the most brutal military conquest ever undertaken by the English over their neighbours; he championed a degree of religious freedom otherwise unknown in England before the last one hundred years; but the experiment he led collapsed within two years of his death, and his corpse dangled from a gibbet at Tyburn. He was - and remains - one of the most contentious figures in world history
'Cromwell had been converted to a strong puritan faith'
Oliver Cromwell was born on 25 April 1599 in Huntingdon. His ancestors had benefited from the power of a distant relative, Thomas Cromwell, who secured them former monastic lands in 1538-9. Cromwell's grandfather built an elegant house on the outskirts of Huntingdon and regularly entertained King James (the hunting was good in Huntingdon) and other prominent courtiers. But Cromwell's father was a younger son who only inherited a small part of the family fortune and he was brought up in a modest town house. Burdened by debt and a decline in his fortunes, he sold up in 1630, and took a lease on a farm a few miles away, in St Ives. It would appear that in 1634 Cromwell attempted to emigrate to Connecticut in America, but was prevented by the government from leaving.
For Cromwell had been converted to a strong puritan faith, and he found living within a church still full of 'popish' ceremonies unbearable. He yearned to be where the gospel was proclaimed and preached unadorned. He stayed and became more radical in his religion - he regularly preached at an illegal religious assembly and he referred in a letter to the Bishop as 'the enemies of God His Truth'. When the chance came, he stood for Parliament, and was returned on the interest of a Puritan caucus, for the town of Cambridge.
Published: 2001-05-01
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