Oliver Cromwell - Hero or Villain?

Well breaking the feudal economic stronghold and establishing the primacy of parliament is pretty revolutionary, no?

And yeah, mildly!

I'm afraid I've got to call you out on that. Cromwell did not reluctantly accept the role of Lord Protector. He umm'd and ahh'd over whether to accept the position of monarch for one simple reason. The army. If he accepted the crown, his head would have been on London bridge by the end of the month! His backbone was the army, and what they said he followed. He was offered the Crown in the Humble Petition and Advice in 1657. He rejected it purely down to the offer of the title of King due to pressure from the army. Parliament went away and changed the title - that's it - to Lord Protector. He accepted that in a heartbeat.

He's often referred to as King in all but name. This is, from the research that I've carried out, pretty much accurate of the commonwealth.

Well breaking the feudal economic stronghold and establishing the primacy of parliament is pretty revolutionary, no?

And yeah, mildly!

Can tyranny be mild? Discuss.

I believe I'm right (can't remember the source right now) that some things popularly attributed to him, like the abolition of Christmas and a ban on dancing, are not correct? They are often considered the hallmarks of his alleged tyranny.

In fact, I think he is really the father of the British Empire more than anything, much more than any alleged social revolutionary role.

A brutal man, but a man of his times, and Father of Parliamentary Democracy.

It wasn't just a change in the title! The Lord Protector had very restricted veto powers and no veto power over money bills and more.

Was he really the father of Parliamentary Democracy? I've always felt that this viewpoint rather ignores what Cromwell actually got up to with the parliaments of the 1650's (And there were many!).



Aren't I correct in thinking that the Parliament that presented this was the same one that had been heavily filtered by Cromwell? Cromwell had a history of removing (Sometimes forcibly) or purging Parliament's that didn't reflect his wishes. I'm not entirely confident that restrictive veto powers were much to stop Cromwell if he felt he was in the right.

You seem to have this assumption that only when the lowest echelons benefit is it 'revolutionary'. To use Marx's (or Engels', you choose) terminology, he was the harbinger of the bourgeois revolution.

And you seem to believe that fostering an expansion of wealth amongst one's already-wealthy landowning peers is somehow a "social revolution". It isn't - it's the replacement of one ruling class (the King's people) with another - the landowning Protestant minor nobility and squirearchy. If it is a "revolution", it's a sneaky one.

Feudalism > Capitalism is a revolution! ! ! ! 1 1 ! !

edit: I can't quite figure you. Are you approaching this from a Marxist angle? If so, refer to Marx's stages of history.

Purging parliaments - this only happened with Parliaments immediately following the revolution. I think the debate is still going on whether it was the Parliament's fault that they were dissolved or was it because of Cromwell's despotic whims. I like to take the more sympathetic view of Cromwell; the parliaments that were dissolved were notoriously some of the most unproductive parliaments in this country's history (I think during one of them only 40 bills were passed). Also, these parliaments still preserved the more conservative elements of society - had Cromwell not intervened, social revolution in the 17th century would not have progressed.

Personally, I think it was a mix of both Cromwell and the Parliament's at fault. They were extremely unproductive, but Cromwell constantly fiddled with the make-up of Parliament. The Second Protectorate Parliament was created on a promise from the Major-Generals that they could influence the results to create a Parliament favourable to Cromwell. He may as well have just created another Barebones. Fortunately, in my opinion, it didn't work out how he and the Major-Generals wanted (Just a nice little kick in the teeth), hence the pledge being introduced and MPs being barred from sitting.

He [...] banned Christmas!

Based purely on his role in abolishing the monarchy - massive hero!

Someone who banned Christmas can't have been all bad

Obviously he was a hero! He is called Oliver as am I

Is your surname "Cromwell"? That would just be too cool.

Based purely on his role in abolishing the monarchy - massive hero!

Someone who banned Christmas can't have been all bad

Is there any evidence that the sham parliaments during the later period of his rule sent him bills in advance for approval? That would have truly made him a Dictator. I suppose in practise he always got to hear what was going on.

I am adopting the pose of rejecting the common view that the transit to capitalism was a "revolution". I just don't like the word being used that way. I just don't feel in my bones that what happened was all that revolutionary. The King still had a load of power when the institution returned.

Seriously, of course the English Revolution caused a lot of change, I think the issue at hand is to what extent those changes were down to Cromwell himself. People often seem to use Uncle Oliver as a sort of shorthand for the whole results of the wars of the three kingdoms.