Oliver Cromwell
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [1]
who deserves notice here as one of the great politico-religious characters of Great Britain, was born in the town of Huntingdon, April 25, 1599. His father was Robert Cromwell, of a family possessed of a baronetcy, and his mother being a daughter of Sir Richard Stewart, efforts have often been made to show that he was connected with the royal family. He is said, by unfriendly authorities, to have spent a dissolute and extravagant youth, interrupted by serious misgivings, which brought him at last to stern self- condemnation, and resulted in a Puritanic piety. He was educated at the Huntingdon grammar-school, land was admitted, April 22, 1616, a commoner of Sidney-Sussex College, Cambridge; but on the death of his father, in June 1617, he left the university, and began the study of law in London. When twenty-one years old he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Thomas Bourchier, and thus, both by descent and alliance, he was a member of the higher country-gentleman class, or of the nobility, as it would be termed in other European countries. In that age, however, refinement was only kept up by attendance at court, and Cromwell, who lived away from town and followed country pursuits, became a man of rustic deportment. Though he had been elected to the brief parliament of 1628, it was not till 1640 that he was known in the House of Commons, and Sir Philip Warwick, who observed. his rise, has left a curious notice of his personal appearance. "His apparel was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country tailor. His hat was without a hat-band. His stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side; his countenance swollen and reddish, his voice sharp and untunable, and his eloquence full of fervor." He had been for some years establishing an influence with the Puritan party, who frequented his house and bowed to his strong judgment. He showed his great business capacity in the struggle of the Long Parliament, but it was not until the parliament raised a military force, to which he brought a troop of horse, that his powers of organization and command were fully developed. He speedily rose to authority as lieutenant-general of the horse, and when he was specially exempted from the self-denying ordinance, so that he could both deliberate in parliament and hold command, he became the most powerful man in the country. He showed his eminent sagacity in reconstructing the army, and infusing into it high spirit along with stern discipline. At the battle of Naseby, in 1645, it was seen, in the signal destruction brought on the well- officered royal army, how effectively he could strike with the weapon he had constructed. His military policy throughout was to despise secondary means and ends, but to invest himself with overwhelming power and crush his enemy. He saw the large share which artillery must bear in warfare, and anticipated modern generals in fostering that destructive arm. His repeated victories over the royalists, his establishment of the predominance of the army over parliament, and of the Independents over the Presbyterians, his relentless exertions to bring Charles I to the block, and his dismissal of the parliament, are all great events in the history of the day, which cannot be narrated with sufficient distinctness without much detail. In 1649 he conducted an exterminating war in Ireland, instigated by the ferocious principle that whatever human being opposed him should be put to death. In Scotland, where he saw there were more suitable materials for the sort of government he desired, he was rather a pacificator than an oppressor. Dec. 16, 1653, he took the title of Lord Protector, and became virtually king of Britain, and one who submitted to very little constitutional restraint. Cromwell died September 3, 1658, and the revolution which he had conducted speedily came to an end. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, but in 1661 his remains were dug up and treated with ignominy. How far he was sincere in the religious convictions by which he professed to be led has been matter of debate, and modern writers have by turns decried him as a usurper and lauded him as a liberator. That he was under powerful religious impulses cannot be doubted; the question arises as to the extent to which, by their power alone, and by no promptings of worldliness, he was driven on in his ambitious career. He was an enlightened internal reformer, and established many ministerial improvements, and it cannot be questioned that the line of public policy which has made England famous since, was inaugurated during his administration.
The Nuttall Encyclopedia [2]
Lord-Protector of the commonwealth of England, born at Huntingdon, the son of Robert Cromwell, the younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, and of Elizabeth Steward, descended from the royal family of Scotland, their third child and second boy; educated at Huntingdon and afterwards at Cambridge; left college at his father's death, and occupied himself in the management of his paternal property; entered Parliament in 1629, and represented Cambridge in 1640, where to oppose the king he, by commission in 1642 from Essex, raised a troop of horse, famous afterwards as his "Ironsides"; with these he distinguished himself, first at Marston Moor in 1644, and next year at Naseby; crushed the Scots at Preston in 1648, who had invaded the country in favour of the king, now in the hands of the Parliament, and took Berwick; sat at trial of the king and signed his death-warrant, 1649; sent that same year to subdue rebellion in Ireland, he sternly yet humanely stamped it out; recalled from Ireland, he set out for Scotland, which had risen up in favour of Charles II., and totally defeated the Scots at Dunbar, Sept. 3,1650, after which Charles invaded England and the Royalists were finally beaten at Worcester, Sept. 3,1651, upon which his attention was drawn to affairs of government; taking up his residence at Hampton Court, his first step was to dissolve the Rump, which he did by military authority in 1653; a new Parliament was summoned, which also he was obliged to dismiss, after being declared Lord-Protector; from this time he ruled mainly alone, and wherever his power was exercised, beyond seas even, it was respected; at last his cares and anxieties proved too much for him and wore him out, he fell ill and died, Sept. 3,1658, the anniversary of his two great victories at Dunbar and Worcester; they buried him in Westminster, but his body was dug up at the Restoration, hanged at Tyburn, and buried under the gallows; such treatment his body was subjected to after he was gone, and for long after he was no less ignobly treated by several succeeding generations as a hypocrite, a fanatic, or a tyrant; but now, thanks to Carlyle, he is come to be regarded as one of the best and wisest rulers that ever sat on the English throne (1599-1658). See "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," edited by Carlyle.
