Cromwell's Anti-Catholic Crusade

CROMWELL’S ANTI-CATHOLIC CRUSADE A study of the motivations behind Cromwellian “religious tolerance” policies during the Interregnum of England: an examination of Protestant “anti-Popery” in the Cromwell Regime Under Direction of Dr. James A.T. Lancaster DISSERTATION by: Sean J. Manross HI 3016: Blasphemy, Irreligion & the Enlightenment, CE 1620-1720 :: 9869 Words (Plus a Bibliography) Table of Contents Chapter 1: The Protestant Personality of Oliver Cromwell………………………………1 Chapter 2: Modern Perceptions of Oliver Cromwell……………………………………...4 Chapter 3: The Lord Protector Proceeds towards a Protestant League…………………9 Chapter 4: The Lord Protector’s Commonwealth for all Protestants……………………13 Chapter 5: The Instrument of Government………………………………………………..18 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….20 Chapter 1: The Protestant Personality of Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell is remembered as a zealous champion of anti-Popery who labored under an unquenchable thirst for the defeat of Roman Catholic influence on the Atlantic Archipelago. Coming from the humble origins of a lesser gentlemen, the ambitious Cromwell would rise to become the Lord Protector of England, Ireland, and Scotland and one of the preeminently influential leaders of Enlightenment-era Europe. In the name of serving his God & country, Cromwell would earn a reputation for destruction & despotism. This infamy was, paradoxically, intertwined with, “two critical aspects that need to be taken into account in any evaluation of the life of Oliver Cromwell: his remarkable rise to political power and his inner walk with God.” 1 I will examine Cromwell’s legacy to determine if he was a crusading zealot or, rather, a pragmatic governor. This is the complex history of Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth. After the culmination of the English Civil Wars, the Lord Protector “Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) and his followers gave the impression of having erected a ‘republican’ government and deceived the English into believing that they would have ‘some sort of equality,’ as well as ‘a true and sweet freedom.’ De facto, there was no democracy, but a tyranny of 40 petty tyrants, a much worse regime than the despotic one of the notorious Thirty Tyrants in ancient Athens; there was no aristocracy either, as, instead of the first and great ones, power was in the hands of murderous bandits.” 2 Yet, it is doubtful that Cromwell would have agreed with the epithet thus bestowed upon him, as evidenced by his pious yearning to please a God whose every commandment would seem to condemn “murderous bandits.” In fact, Cromwell seems to speak true from the heart when he writes to his beloved wife, Elizabeth, that, “praise the Lord I am increased in strength in my outward man: But that will not satisfy me except I get a heart to love and serve my heavenly Father better; and get more of the light of His countenance, which is better than life, and more power over my corruptions: in these hopes I wait, and am not without expectation of a gracious return.” 3 Since Cromwell evidently might have taken issue with the prevailing, retrospectivescholarly view of his character, it seems only just to begin our examination of his core values at the years that molded his personality. Looking back to a time before Cromwell was the Lord Protector – indeed, even before he was a public figure with a name on the national stage – we find an individual who lived the first three decades of his life as a happy man, who was utterly reborn after a crisis of faith. Concomitant to this crisis of faith, he was transformed from a dispassionate state of stagnancy into a devout man of conviction and, “[became] a puritan, a preacher, a pastor (or at least pastoral in his letters), and a leader of the Church (as Protector). This is hardly the normal résumé of someone ill-defined in their beliefs.” 4 This crisis of faith occurred after his youth, so we must delve further back into time, to just before the turn of the seventeenth century, when Cromwell was born in Huntingdonshire in 1599. 1 Haykin, M. A. (2018). That Secret Refreshment: The Life of Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). Page 1. Cuttica, C. (2017). Tyrannicide and Political Authority in the Long Sixteenth Century. Page 283 3 Cromwell, O. (1651). For my beloved Wife Elizabeth Cromwell, at the Cockpit: These 4 Halcomb, J. (2015). Cromwell's Religion. Page 28 2 1|Page Oliver Cromwell was born as the fifth child of a lower branch of a dominant Huntingdonshire family, reporting in a speech to the First Protectorate Parliament, on 4 September 1654, that “[he] was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity.” Leaving Huntington in his early teenage years to study at Sidney Sussex College, the young “Cromwell did not distinguish himself, but he by no means wasted his time at Cambridge.” 5 He was forced to return home without completing his education, due to the death of his father, in the summer of 1617. Finding himself the head of a small family unit that included his widowed-mother and a half-dozen sisters, Cromwell spent the years of 1617-1620 consolidating his position in Huntingdonshire, finding good marriages for his sisters and, ultimately, also marrying-well, himself, to Elizabeth Bourchier (1598-1665), who was from a successful & well-networked Protestant merchant family. 6 Having four children in the halfdecade leading up to 1626, life was comfortable, stable, and content for the Cromwell family with a yearly income of roughly £300 and a lovely estate to call home. Unfortunately, in 1628 all of this domestic bliss would quickly unravel: approaching his thirtieth birthday, a combination of boredom and ambition may have gotten the better of him as he ran for (and won) the position of Member of Parliament, representing Huntingdonshire. Within a year he would seek treatment for depression (perhaps because, on 2 March 1629, Charles I terminated the parliament to which he was elected); and within only one more year after that, he became embroiled in a local controversy which would see him called before the Privy Council, in 1630, and ultimately force him to sell off all his Huntingdonshire properties (and the annual income which accompanied them), by 1631. A broken man, Cromwell arrived with his family in the much-less-prestigious town of Saint Ives, and his crisis of faith developed. If the high-profile status that accompanied public life brought only trouble to Cromwell, the next decade of Charles I’s notorious “personal rule” allowed for a period of consolidation for the former-MP from Huntingdonshire. It would be during this seminal period that Cromwell would establish his unique, philosophical outlook on Protestantism. According to Colin Davis, “Cromwell was an anti-formalist…political constitutions were ‘dross and dung’ in comparison to Christ...[and so] he sought to transcend earthly churches and religious forms for a higher, more pure spirituality and submission to God’s revealed providence.” 7 This assertively-independent approach to worship, in the seventeenth century, was extremely antagonistic of the Roman Catholic Church and, therefore, pigeonholes Cromwell as a man of thoroughly pro-Protestant persuasion. Importantly, at this stage of his life, Cromwell was not a military man of action but, rather, a distinctly self-introspective, amateur theologian. Cromwell was not yet repulsed by the committed Irish (and, moreover, as we’ll examine, Spanish) followers of Catholicism, but rather the overarching Roman Catholic doctrine. The incomplete historical perception of Cromwell as an anti-Catholic – as opposed to a pro-Protestant - in many ways, is driven by his noteworthy keen & astute perception of the Vatican’s penchant for priestcraft (discussed in Chapter 3). 5 Firth, C. (1900). Oliver Cromwell and the Rules of the Puritans in England. Page 6 Harrison, F. (1888). Oliver Cromwell. Page 21 7 Halcomb, J. (2015). Cromwell's Religion. Page 28. The work of Dr. Colin Davis was originally cited by Dr. Joel Halcomb, which is the work I have cited, herein. 6 2|Page Cromwell was philosophically anti-formalist. For example, he felt that idolatry undermined true faith to such a degree that, in 1653, he infamously reinforced restrictions against the celebration of Christmas. 8 This links to his stalwart self-reliance, self-introspection, and air of holiness in his daily life. The four pieces of private correspondence between Cromwell and his wife all reference their mutually-held, deep-seated “desire to submit to the Providence of God,” 9 and to “serve [their] heavenly Father better; and get more of the light of His countenance, which is better than life.” 10 For Cromwell, faith was a matter of integrity. The Cromwells rejected the hypocrocricy of gilded halls and silken robes, in which the princes of the Vatican lived. Thus, for Cromwell, priestcraft was a bastardisation of faith in God, rendering the future Lord Protector keenly aware of the “deceitful, fraudulent, or cunning ‘craft’ by which priests maintained or extended their power…usually defined in terms of political authority, wealth, or both.” 11 There exists a 1638 letter to the wife of Oliver St. John, which, “is one of the single most important sources we have for Cromwell’s personal beliefs and it has been used to explain his self-confidence, his dynamism, and his great rise to power.” 12 Describing himself as the “worst of sinners,” Cromwell declares that, having been spiritually reborn, “Truly no poor creature hath more cause to put himself forth in the cause of his God than I.” 13 Cromwell saw himself as a crusader; and, as we will discuss in Chapter 4, this crusade would ultimately indentify its target as the spectre of Spanish-Catholic influence – an influence which Cromwell claimed meant that Charles I and all other, “Papists in England – they have been accounted, ever since [he] was born, Spaniolised.” 14 But this is to jump ahead of Oliver’s youth, so I digress. In the decade leading up to the English Civil War (specifically, 1632-1642), Cromwell’s zealousness developed in St. Ives. Dr. Neil Pembrooke of the University of Queensland teaches, “All of us have a ‘dark side’. It is that area of our personality that is characterized by morally inadequate traits and tendancies. [Carl] Jung calls this side the shadow…A [religious] person can be a passive victim of his unconscious, emotional life.” 15 Cromwell became such a victim of his own extreme piety in the lead up to the English Civil War and, “Cromwell's religious zeal is not in doubt…[he became] both a typical and untypical Puritan, typical in his providentialist faith, untypical in his support for religious toleration…Cromwell was tolerant in practice as well as in principle…[for example,] he was the first head of state to accept religious toleration in principle.” 16 Yet, before Cromwell could dream of presiding over the creation of an international, tolerant Protestant League to repel a historic Spanish-Catholic incursion, the future of England, Scotland, and Ireland would have to be won. Embarking upon a fateful campaign in God’s name, Cromwell’s religious convicitons 8 Sheldon, N. (2020). The Time Oliver Cromwell & the Puritans Declared War on the English Christmas. Cromwell, E. (1650). The Lady Elizabeth Cromwell to her Husband the Lord General at Edinburgh. 10 Cromwell, O. (1651). For my beloved Wife Elizabeth Cromwell, at the Cockpit: These. 11 Lancaster, J. A. (2018). Priestcraft. Anatomizing the Anti-clericalism of Early Modern Europe. 12 Halcomb, J. (2015). Cromwell's Religion. Page 29. 13 Carlyle, T. (1845). Oliver Cromwell's Letters & Speeches with Elucidations, Part I. Page 97 14 Carlyle, T. (1845). The Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, with Elucidations, Volume 2. Page 518 15 Pembroke, N. (2003). Jung and the Moral Self. Compass 37, Page 26 16 Blackwood, B. G. (2020). Oliver Cromwell: An Interpretation. Page 27 9 3|Page would drive him to become one of history’s most infamous regicides and to massacre entire Irish cities. Chapter 2: Modern Perceptions of Oliver Cromwell The most defining and enduring caricatures of the life and career of Oliver Cromwell stem from differing viewpoints of his “pursuing…Godly rule” 17 during the seventeenth century through all-but-medieval methodologies which are largely repugnant to modern philosophers. Yet, modern historical scholarship from the 1980’s-onward, has shed new light on the Lord Protector, which has restructured modern perceptions of the pragmatic methodologies through which Cromwell’s ends largely justified his means. Accordingly, this chapter will seek to juxtapose the prevailing themes of historical scholarship on Cromwell from the luminaries of the ninetieth and twentieth centuries against the most notable, recent scholarship, which calls the underlying assumptions of earlier researchers into question. This facet of our study will reference elite enquiry by such eminent historians as Professor Justin Champion of the University of London’s Royal Holloway and Professor John Morrill of Cambridge, the latter of whom served as President of the Cromwell Association for over a decade. Comparisons will be drawn by referencing back to the underlying assumptions being called into question, which originated from the likes of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) of the University of Edinburgh and Frederic Harrison (1831-1923), the British jurist from Oxford, to name a few. There is an oft-repeated, underlying assumption about Cromwell which is the first historical issue that must be questioned in our study (though, not discredited): the prevailing view of a Puritanical-minded zealot vying to rip control of a nation from a xenophobic monarch. The fact that Cromwell has been perceived in such a light is well evidenced by Thomas Carlyle’s statement that “this man Oliver Cromwell was, as the popular fancy represents him, the soul of the Puritan Revolt, without whom it had never been a revolt transcendently memorable, and an Epoch in the World's History; that in fact he, more than is common in such cases, does deserve to give his name to the Period in question, and have the Puritan Revolt considered as a Cromwelliad.” 18 This viewpoint isn’t entirely a misrepresentation, as Justin Champion clarifies, while comparing Cromwell to the likes of Vladimir Lenin (who “liberated” the Russian Empire from the Romanov Dynasty, in 1917) and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (who was an imperfect man, both of great deeds and great controversies). Specifically, Champion lectures that, “Cromwell was a man of his times and had some pretty reprehensible views about Catholics which resulted in bloodshed and murder – there’s no doubt about that – but, in terms of the times, if you’re fighting the anti-Christ, you can’t have a boxing match; you have to win…and Cromwell showed that it was possible for the British nation to rule without the formal need of Kingship or an established Church.” 19 17 Champion, J. (2018). Was Oliver Cromwell a Hero or Villian? Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume I. Page 13 19 Champion, J. (2018). Was Oliver Cromwell a Hero or Villian? 18 4|Page Yet, for all of his allegedly-Puritanical zeal, during his nearly-decade long rise to the status of Lord Protector, as a leader of the English Civil War, Cromwell often rehearsed the necessity to compromise religious purity for military pragmatism. As Joel Halcomb asserts, “Cromwell consistently and passionately insisted on [religious] liberty for tender consciences, but this should not distract us from the pragmatic value or necessity of this position.” 20 In other words, as confirmed by Professor Champion, Cromwell was, indeed, decidedly anti-Catholic – and this can be readily confirmed by even the amateur historian for whom the massacres of the Catholics in Drogheda and Wexford will immediately come to mind. However, anti-Catholicism isn’t all that encompasses “Puritanism.” The term “Puritan” – overused in literature of the seventeenth century – is too obscure to fix to Cromwell, whose intense spirituality was more faith than religion. University of London’s Royal Holloway professor, Dr. James Lancaster, teaches that, in the mid-seventeenth century, “heterodox religious and political ideas, such as those contained in Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651), spread like wildfire. Diggers, Dippers, Levellers, Quakers, Ranters and Seekers – there was a sectarian group for every imaginable [form of Puritanical] radicalism.” 21 Generally speaking, it was Cromwell’s standing policy to reflect this fact of life in England by recruiting an eclectic mix of so-called “Godly-men.” None of these sectarians drew Cromwell’s ire or attraction; he believed in freedom of religion, so long as that freedom did not become a detriment to the state. Joel Halcomb elaborates, “Dedication to the cause was valued above specific religious beliefs. Cromwell told Major-General Crawford, ‘Sir, the State, in choosing men to serve them, takes no notice of their opinions, if they be willing faithfully to serve them, that satisfies.’ Experience, dedication, and godliness were the core, for the ultimate purpose was to create an effective army.” 22 Military pragmatism seems to have been valued above any form of Protestant-purity. Regardless of his private intentions, we know that Cromwell’s army was an increasingly heterodox-Christian crusade that could only unite under the banner of “Independency” – which, in the 1640’s - 1660’s, essentially meant Parliament-driven Congregationalism. The turn-of-the twentieth century historian, Charles Firth, identified a trend in which, “the army had been from the beginning a stronghold of Independency, and there its adherents grew more numerous every day. In the summer of 1645, when [the notable preacher] Richard Baxter became chaplain to a regiment of cavalry, he found it full of hotheaded sectaries. Every sect and every heresy was represented in its ranks.” 23 This virtually-indiscriminate recruitment seems to be representative of the contemporary standard of best practices. For example, when Spain, in the late-fifteenth century, sent Conquistadors to the New World, the reality was that the explorer-generals led armies of convicts and mercenaries. Such expeditions were as much a cost-effective method of removing undesirables from society as they were a land-grab across an ocean. Similarly, in 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh was promised one-fifth of all the wealth he might secure when colonizing all lands in North America not already controlled by a “Christian Prince.” Queen Elizabeth was actually dispatching privateers to secure an operations base, removed from her peaceable shores. 20 Halcomb, J. (2015). Cromwell's Religion. Page 35. Lancaster, J. (2020). Radical and English Enlightenments. 22 Halcomb, J. (2015). Cromwell's Religion. 23 Firth, C. (1900). Oliver Cromwell and the Rules of the Puritans in England. Page 147 21 5|Page If it is true that, for Cromwell, the business of organizing a military may have simply not been a matter which engendered a philosophical debate about religious purity, then it follows from this realization that his military career will not serve as a reliable litmus test of his religious convictions. Therefore, I am now compelled to turn my attentions to the circumstances of Cromwell’s rise to power as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth. Misconceptions about this period abound, as evidenced by Carter Craig’s assertions that, “the Puritans, led by Oliver Cromwell, attempted to operate England as a sort of theocracy…the Protectorate was dominated by Puritans who had unique features in their religious ideology that had a marked effect on this era. Particularly, they had a desire to universalize their worldview and religious morality...[and] the period of the Protectorate represents the peak of Puritan hegemony.” 24 In reality, Cromwell’s only “universal” ideal was a stable, generically-Christian English society. Though an extremely pious and devout man, with an unfaltering private relationship with his God, Cromwell did not have a history of vying for any form of religious fundamentalism. Herein lies the root of Carter Craig’s misunderstanding: Cromwell was a privately-devout man with little care for how others chose to pray, functioning such that he might be referred to today as a “committee man.” Cromwell’s gift, at least early in his career, was achieving consensus. This tendency was essentially an outgrowth of Cromwell’s ability to stay in step with his allies’ collective wishes at any given moment, which was put on full display by Cromwell’s repeated attempts to reconcile with King Charles at the end of the First Civil War. Arguably, this behavior was in direct keeping with the Duke of Manchester’s famous sentiment, in the wake of the Second Battle of Newbury that, “if we beat [the King] 99 times, he will be King still.” Only when this widespread Royalist hesitancy had been violently dispelled, in the wake of the Second Civil War, did Oliver Cromwell publicly adopt the different convictions of a regicide. If the First Civil War was resolved without rendering Cromwell a despot, then the Second Civil War hardened his persona on both the topics of religion and regicide. This is well evidenced by the fact that Cromwell’s New Model Army was more-than-willing to negotiate with King Charles I from 1646-1648…but - as dramatically re-enacted in the 1970 film, Cromwell - by the time of the trial of King Charles I, in December 1648, the de-facto leader of Parliament all-but-forced the signatures of his colleagues on their monarch’s death warrant. During the lead-up to Charles I’s execution, which is remembered today as Pride’s Purge, Cromwell “was definitely converted to regicide” 25 and had all dissenters physically prevented from re-entering the Long Parliament, ushering in the Rump Parliament. It was specifically for this act which Cromwell earned the enduring, shameful epithet, “regicide”…and, for better or worse, became the polarizing figure which he is, today – a figure whose very portrait must be covered when our great Queen walks by his visage. 24 25 Craig, C. (2018). Religious Roots for the Puritan Morality Laws. Page 4 Blackwood, B. G. (2020). Oliver Cromwell: An Interpretation. Page 21 6|Page The most recent, modern condemnations of Cromwell are often scathing, with just one example being Paul Guevara’s, “King Killer and Tyrant: Oliver Cromwell,” in which the student of Fiore Sireci of the University of Edinburgh boldly opines that, “Oliver Cromwell is now remembered as a great statesman and military mind…[but] historical evidence seems to dispute this fact; rather, it suggests he was merely a mass murderer and a tyrant who not only had a King killed but also massacred whole [Catholic] populations in Ireland.” 26 Although Guevara goes well beyond the typical bounds of dispassionate scholarship, there is truth to his accusation. If we are willing to consider Cromwell’s life as a series of distinct phases (paying deference to Justin Champion’s aforementioned comparison of Cromwell to Vladimir Lenin, who first “liberated” Russia and only then began to rule; or, another example, Mao Zedong, who lived a similar series of events as a liberator-turned-dictator), then these characteristics clearly belong to the final phase of Cromwell’s life. The ‘Protector’ phase was remote from the joyous if occasionally complicated - familial years of the 1620’s-1630’s, in Huntingdonshire and St. Ives, respectively; and equally distinct from the righteous crusade for England which was waged in the 1640’s. Alas, the year of 1649 was the fateful turning-point in the life of Cromwell; it was in that year, psychologically, the modest gentleman-soldier systemically evolved into a ruthless pseudo-despot of historic magnitude. But, Cromwell saw himself as a modern-Moses, liberating England from bondage. Cesare Cuttica of the University of Paris lectures that from the first, cold moments of January, “the year 1649 saw the murder of a king, Charles I, and the foundation of a republic in England. The royal killing sent shock waves through Europe, provoking a flurry of polemical literature (pamphlets, newspapers, treatises, ballads) on the event and its consequences.” 27 With the stroke of a blade, Cromwell staked his soul on his partisan convictions and rose from the status of an obscure revolutionary-rebel to the international celebrity of a man who “liberated” England through regicide. Yet, England would only be the first in a devastating series of “Cromwellian conquests.” Soon after January, Catholic Ireland would feel Cromwell’s wrath. As early as 1641, violent uprisings were occurring across the Plantation of Ulster, a consequence of James I & VI’s policy of attempting to effectively breed out Irish Catholicism by installing distinctly Scots-Protestant settlers in the Northeast of the Emerald Isle, in the 1610’s. While Cromwell had been a lifelong supporter of efforts to restrain Irish Catholics, the eminent Cambridge professor, Dr. John Morrill, teaches “the wars across the archipelago delayed the reconquest of Ireland until 1649–52, but when that [Cromwellian] settlement came in 1652–3, adventurer Cromwell had a stake in it…Cromwell’s war in Ireland was a war of sieges. His policy was straightforward: to arrive at a town and to offer a stark choice. He would offer what he thought were generous terms and if these terms were accepted, he would ensure that they were honoured; if they were refused, there would be no quarter.” 28 26 Guevara, P. (2013). King Killer and Tyrant: Oliver Cromwell. Page 1 Cuttica, C. (2013). The English Regicide and Patriarchalism: Representing Commonwealth Ideology and Practice in the Early 1650's. Page 128 28 Morrill, J. (2011). Cromwell, Parliament, Ireland and a Commonwealth in Crisis: 1652 Revisited. Page 196 27 7|Page Dr. Morrill’s synopsis is pivotal support for our conjecture that Cromwell was a fundamentally changed man by his last major “phase” of life…for if the Cromwell who won the First Civil War was a reasonable man capable of negotiation, then the transformed Cromwell, changed in 1649, was a ruthless savage in the same spirit as Genghis Khan. At the very least, that was the message he delivered to historians of the future as “2-3,000 were slaughtered when Cromwell and his troops had to storm the walls [of Drogheda],” 29 on 3-11 September 1649. All that said, painting a picture of a blood-lusting Cromwell slaying Irish Catholics may make the mistake of viewing history backwards, casting modern aspersions on history but not considering contemporary values. Beyond the fact that “no quarter” policies were virtually ubiquitous in the seventeenth century, Cromwell considered himself no criminal, but rather a devout, good man. A rather conspicuous piece of primary source evidence for this assertion is the pamphlet from the mid-1649, “A Most Learned, Conscientious, and Devout Exercise, Held Forth the Last Lord’s Day.” Though, the pamphlet is of dubious authenticity, it “claimed to be an account – transcribed by the recently appointed Master of the Mint, Aaron Guerden – of a sermon preached by Oliver Cromwell at Sir Peter Temple’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields on 29 April,” and the fact that this sermon can be verified to have occurred means that the “pamphlet is potentially a rich source of information about Cromwell’s actions during the aftermath of Pride’s Purge and the regicide…[and] could still be a valuable and potentially under-used source for understanding Cromwell’s actions [later on] in 1649. John Morrill has described it as ‘full of knockabout stuff”, but also points to the sophistication of its portrayal of Cromwell and stresses the need for ‘further study.’” 30 In this light, Cromwell would have been unlikely to have perpetuated actions which could have been considered murderous by his peers. Alas, whether as a regicide-usurper or philosopher-general, exactly two years after razing Drogheda, Cromwell’s forces won the Battle of Worcester, on 3 September 1651…ending the English Civil Wars and virtually uniting the Atlantic Archipelago under his sole leadership. 29 30 O'Farrell, B. (2010). Oliver Cromwell: God's Greatest Englishman? Page 7 Poyntz, N. (2007). A Most Learned, Conscientious, and Devout Exercise: Anti-Cromwellian Satire in 1649. 8|Page Chapter 3: The Lord Protector Proceeds towards a Protestant League Oliver Cromwell may be one of the most accessible leaders of the early modern period and especially of the English Enlightenment – thanks to the rich and diverse collection of primary source correspondence which he built up in the years following his military career. Particularly robust treasure troves can be found in the form of two compilations: first, the Foreign Office’s “Oliver Cromwell’s Letters to Foreign Princes & States for Strengthening & Preserving the Protestant Religion,” compiled in the year 1700; and, second, Thomas Carlyle’s three-volume, “Oliver Cromwell’s Letters & Speeches, with Elucidations,” of 1845. Utilizing these exhaustive compilations, complimented with commentary from pre-eminent, modern Cromwellian historians, this study will now examine what may be the most revealing aspect of Oliver Cromwell’s anti-Catholic Crusade – his progression towards the development of an international Protestant League. This aspect of Cromwell’s administration is, perhaps, the most authentic view of the Lord Protector’s personal convictions. During the earlier phases of his life – the English Civil Wars & the conquest of Ireland and Scotland - Cromwell would rely only on military, brute force; but, by contrast, once a statesman, the Lord Protector would have to balance concerns of domestic politics & military-geopolitical strategy alongside cutting edge Protestant-philosophical debate & anti-Spanish Catholic ecclesiastical alliance-building. In the years of 1649-1652, “[Cromwell] returned from the conquest of Ireland and Scotland, and the final overthrow of the royal cause at Worcester, invested with…semi-official dictatorship.” 31 Nevertheless, Cromwell saw resistance from rivals within domestic politics and he would come to dissolve numerous Rump Parliaments from 1648-1659. The noted scholar from the University of California at Los Angeles, Dr. Brian O’Farrell, explains, “Within a week of King’s execution [in 1649]…the new purged parliament was attacked by the by now totally hostile Presbyterians who still wanted a presbyterian church and a monarchy…the Royalists wanted the restoration of episcopacy and full restoration of the monarchy…the Levellers in the army were also a great threat [and] incited soldiers to mutiny and attack Cromwell. They called him a tyrant, an apostate and a hypocrite…the attempt to establish the English Commonwealth upon a parliamentary basis had failed, military force, naked and unashamed, showed itself as the sole source of power, the only basis of government [and, by the dissolution of the Rump Parliament, on 20 April 1653], the army was the only authority in the kingdom that still remained.” 32 There was no consensus, no one ‘Protestantism,’ for the citizenry of the Protectorate. This was intrinsically linked to Cromwell’s anti-Catholicism; less than Popery, it was domesticdissidents, in general, that Cromwell despised. 31 32 Harrison, F. (1888). Oliver Cromwell. Page 168 O'Farrell, B. (2010). Oliver Cromwell: God's Greatest Englishman? Page 1 9|Page There were early signs that the future-world leader would be compelled to look across the English Channel for comradery in the creation of a Protestant League. For example, there was “an episode in 1652 which is usually ignored and [until the research of John Morrill] has never been explained. On 19 May 1652 the Rump Parliament…voted not to renew the office of lord lieutenant and thereby stripped the lord general, Oliver Cromwell, of one of his highest and most significant offices...a few historians have noticed the vote…but have not commented on its significance. None of the leading biographers mention it – most strikingly, it is ignored by S.R. Gardiner…and by Blair Worden in his defining study of The Rump Parliament.” 33 Evidently, Cromwell was, in fact, not a man who ruled by unquestioned “dictatorship.” The core of the issue rests with Cromwell’s combative spirit. During his rise to power, Cromwell made enemies throughout society – from rivals in the New Model Army, to religious sectarians who sought unsuccessfully his support for their specific branch of Protestantism. The longtime-President of the Cromwell Association clarifies that, “if the frustrations of 1652 were more extreme than the frustrations of every other parliamentary year, they were representative of the fact that Cromwell was never able to get what he most wanted. His fierceness of manner, his desperation to expose and destroy his enemies constantly threatened to rebound on him…in these circumstances, what is surprising is not that Cromwell should five times be involved in purging parliament…but that he remained committed to the principle of parliament, even as he despaired of each successive manifestation.” 34 Thus, according to Dr. Morrill, it is a subtle fact that Cromwell refused to exercise dictatorship. It is against this backdrop that, from 1653-onwards, Cromwell was compelled to develop a set of qualities often termed, “Presidential” in modern society – he turned his attention away from domestic controversies, establishing himself in the court of international opinion. A soldier first, Cromwell’s way was always to establish a clear mission, with clear objectives, designed to defeat a clear adversary; he had learned to avoid domestic squabbles against a mob of various adversaries way back in 1631, when as a young family man he had been driven out of Huntingdonshire by squabbles which must have seemed pathetically insignificant to the newlyminted hegemon of the Atlantic Archipelago. Cromwell would have felt from the outset of his Lord Protectorship that his enemy was “the [Catholic] Spaniard’s design…by all unworthy, unnatural means, to destroy [England] and to seek the destruction of these Kingdoms,” 35 and that the uncanny powers of Spanish-Catholic demagoguery in Ireland undermined peace in his Protectorate by inspiring a series of on-going guerilla wars that were connected directly to the Vatican’s institutionalized priestcraft. 36 33 Morrill, J. (2011). Cromwell, Parliament, Ireland and a Commonwealth in Crisis: 1652 Revisited. Page 203 Morrill, J. (2011). Cromwell, Parliament, Ireland and a Commonwealth in Crisis: 1652 Revisited. Page 212 35 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume 2. Page 513 36 While the term “Priestcraft” may engender thoughts of an educated, Latin-speaking prelate manipulating the souls of unsuspecting peasants, Oliver Cromwell would have viewed the manipulations of the Vatican’s Curia as political maneuverings of an enemy. In Dr. Lancaster’s words, a governor such as the Lord Protector would have had an, “awareness of how the clerical caste formerly possessed the power to damn and save and, on this basis, to make kings and topple governments. Commensurate with this immense power was a fear of its abuse and a suspicion about its legitimacy, subsumed largely under the heading of Priestcraft” (Lancaster J. A., 2018, p. 8). 34 10 | P a g e Yet, Cromwell’s designs of creating an alliance of Protestant nations to counter the Spanish-Papal menace were frustrated from the onset by Protestant in-fighting on the European continent, in which he recognized an opportunity to establish his leadership internationally. As usual, once military interventions could be justified, “Cromwell…had more success abroad. He conducted a successful war against the Dutch and took from them a lot of their freight trade, and went to war with Spain and made the Mediterranean an English lake. Overall, with the seizure of Jamaica [in 1654] and the defeat of the Dutch and the Spaniards, he laid the foundations to the British Empire and the British Navy.” 37 Having secured respectability, he was now confident debating geopolitical, religious doctrines on an equal footing with the Princes of Europe. The historian B. Gordon Blackwood is no fan of Cromwell, but even he admits that, “Cromwell's toleration in religious matters makes one inclined to agree…that Oliver ought to appear in the index of any book called The History of Human Liberty…by defeating the Scots and the Irish, Cromwell indirectly united the British Isles for the first time in its history…by force, not consent…[yet, nevertheless] he was a strong Puritan, [and] a tolerant one, except towards Irish Catholics. He was the first head of state to accept religious toleration in principle. In this respect he was ahead of his time.” 38 If even a skeptic such as B. Gordon Blackwood can appreciate Cromwell’s pioneering Protestant policy, it is no wonder that less-critical historians have taken their praise of Cromwell beyond analysis and into the realm of revisionism. In fact, the historian must consider that - following the restoration of Charles II and the Stuart Monarchy – the late-Lord Protector was exhumed & decapitated and, accordingly, such revisionary history literally transformed the reputation of Cromwell. Indeed, the most significant strides, towards this end, were taken in the nineteenth century. It is at this juncture which the encyclopedic work by Thomas Carlyle becomes relevant. Famously, Carlyle isn’t a reliable source; he had multiple character flaws and was the opposite of a dispassionate historian, whimsically holding the view that, “the Art of History [is] the grand difference between a ‘Dryasdust’ and a sacred Poet…the thing we had to say and repeat was this, that Puritanism is not of the Nineteenth Century, but of the Seventeenth; that the grand unintelligibility for us lies there…the Age of the Puritans is not extinct only and gone away from us, but it is as if fallen beyond the capabilities of Memory herself…As Harrison said of his Banner and Lion of the Tribe of Judah: ‘Who shall rouse him up?’” 39 For Carlyle, the motivation underlying his historical “scholarship” was to make an opinionated point about the hero of his beloved Protestantism, Oliver Cromwell. Yet, Alastair Blair Worden, in his Raleigh Lecture on Oliver Cromwell & Thomas Carlyle, stated that Carlyle single-handedly, “had shown the key to Cromwell’s conduct to lie in the sincerity and intensity of those Puritan convictions which earlier writers had derided…[even if] between 1839 and 1845, the years when his study of Cromwell was conceived and written, Carlyle’s theory of hero-worship, which always had its authoritarian streak, was taken over by it.” 40 37 O'Farrell, B. (2010). Oliver Cromwell: God's Greatest Englishman? Page 10 Blackwood, B. G. (2020). Oliver Cromwell: An Interpretation. Page 27 39 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume I. Page 9-10 40 Worden, A. B. (1999). Thomas Carlyle and Oliver Cromwell. Page 140 38 11 | P a g e With hordes of correspondence from Oliver Cromwell’s early life, the First and Second Civil Wars, and the campaigns in Ireland and Scotland, the first of this three-part volume details the struggles of Cromwell as he grew into the leader whom would dominate England, Ireland, and Scotland over the course of what we have herein referred to as his “final phase” of his life – specifically, from 1653-1658, when no longer a soldier but a statesman. It is the second and third volume which detail the statecraft and leadership of Cromwell, specifically, dealings with his Major Generals in 1655-56 (which are discussed in the second volume) and the struggles of the Second Protectorate Parliament (in the third volume). Yet, over half of Carlyle’s study is his own, secondary opinion. Cromwell’s ideas are manipulated to emphasize piety over pragmatism. Utilizing the direct examples from these otherwise secondary sources, combined with the foreign policy correspondence which was compiled a half-century after his death by the Foreign Office, the next chapter of this study will delve deeper into Cromwell’s Protestant mentality by favoring primary source evidence, directly from the Lord Protector’s own correspondence. We will examine if Cromwell’s Protestantism was anti-Catholic, or rather, anti-Spanish Catholic. 12 | P a g e Chapter 4: The Lord Protector’s Commonwealth for all Protestants Having briefly examined the modern scholarship that has been devoted to the controversial life and career of Oliver Cromwell, we are now compelled to consider two prevailing misconceptions about the Lord Protector which continue to linger, not-yet-disproven. Virtually any discussion of Cromwell proceeds, first and foremost, from the underlying assumption that, as a devout Protestant, Cromwell was generically anti-Catholic. Following this, analysis will usually declare that he did, in fact, have a specific vision of a state-administered Church…but then eloquently dance around the issue of his exact sect of Protestantism before confidently declaring that Cromwell was some brand of “Independent.” All of this misses the point that Cromwell was not a religious man, but merely a pragmatic governor with an enduring faith in the goodliness of Anglo-Judean persuasion. Thus, it is not surprising to learn that when Richard Baxter was hired by Cromwell as the Chaplain of his New Model Army, the preacher was stunned to find that, “the most universal belief amongst officers and soldiers, and the error he most often had to controvert, was that the civil magistrate had no authority in matters of religion either to restrain or to compel, and that every man had a right to believe and to preach whatever he pleased.” 41 Evidently, General Cromwell didn’t care to enforce Protestant-purity. So, if Cromwell did not care to micromanage the doctrine of the pulpit, why does his reputation as a generally-ardent anti-Catholic persist to this day? In fact, Cromwell didn’t view Catholicism as some European disease, but rather as a Spanish ailment which led to bloodlust in his Commonwealth. Virtually all of Cromwell’s anti-Catholic zeal takes its most physical and its most realpolitik mien on the blood-soaked meadows of England’s backdoor, the Emerald Isle. The most dramatic of these episodes were the assaults on Drogheda and Wexford, but the theme which resounds to history was that of, “the promiscuous slaughter of priests, if not of women and unarmed men. In England such a deed could not have been done; and not in Ireland, but that they were Catholics fighting in defense of their faith. The fact that the garrison were Catholics, fighting on Irish soil, placed them, to the Puritan Englishman, out of the pale. No admiration for Cromwell, for his genius, courage, and earnestness—no sympathy with the cause that he upheld in England—can blind us to the truth, that the lurid light of this great crime burns still after centuries across the history of England and of Ireland; that it is one of those damning charges which the Puritan theology has yet to answer at the bar of humanity.” 42 41 42 Firth, C. (1900). Oliver Cromwell and the Rules of the Puritans in England. Page 147 Harrison, F. (1888). Oliver Cromwell. Page 140 13 | P a g e Cromwell didn’t attempt to veil his pleasure slaughtering hundreds – if not thousands - of non-combatant civilian women & children at Drogheda, reporting to his Council of State, the jurist John Bradshaw, in a letter dated 16 September 1649, “It hath pleased God to bless our endeavors at Drogheda…the Enemy were about 3,000 strong in the town…we refused them quarter…I believe we put to the sword the whole number of the defendants. I do not think thirty of the whole number escaped with their lives…This hath been a marvelous, great mercy.” 43 Yet, for Cromwell, justice was not being levied against the Catholic faith of the Irish, but rather against the fact that they were willing to kill & die for Catholic faith, as evidenced by his admission in a 17 September 1649 letter to William Lenthall, speaker of the Parliament of England that, “[Irish-Catholic massacres] will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future, which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret.” 44 Evidentily, Cromwell didn’t take issue with any particular individual worshipping God in their own way – even if that meant holding Rosary beads while saying the “Hail Mary Prayer.” What Cromwell wrestled with was the geo-political reality that, “the History of Europe, at that epoch, meant essentially the struggle of Protestantism against Catholicism, a broader form of that same struggle, of devout Puritanism against dignified Ceremonialism, which forms the History of England then.” 45 Indeed, the Lord Protector would underscore the Spanish-Irish Catholic connection when he declared that Spain’s “design was the empire of the whole Christian World…it would not be difficult to call to mind [such examples as]…the attempts upon Ireland, the Spaniard’s invading of it; the designs of the same nature upon this Nation – public designs, private designs, all manner of designs to accomplish this great & general end.” 46 So, for Cromwell, the “mercy” at Drogheda seems to have been that Spanish-Catholic influence was not allowed to outflank the English Commonwealth through its vulnerable Irish-Catholic backdoor. Coincidentally, Cromwell appears to have been a supreme opportunist. This conjecture is drawn from complementary facts – first-and-foremost being that in his rise to Lord Protector, Cromwell leveraged not one, but two Civil Wars to push himself from the position of an obscure, unextraordinary Parliamentarian to the status of a de-facto Protestant Generalissimo. And, in a repetition of that modus operandi, once the Lord Protector had ascended to the status of what one might refer to as an obscure leader of a small nation, he once again leveraged a crisis in an attempt to rocket himself to the status of a leader of an international “Protestant League.” While control over the combined wealth of the entire Atlantic Archepelago might make one skeptical of the use of the term “obscure” for the Commonwealth of England, the quantitative historian might note that, from 1653-1658, the English government’s GDP would have been utterly dwarfed by, for example, the huge, Catholic empire of Hapsburg Spain, or even more so by the growingphases of the reign of France’s Louis XIV (1643-1715), who cemented tremendous wealth and power over his reign, the longest of any monarch in the history of Europe (at just over 72 years). 43 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume I. Page 380 Cromwell, O. (1649). For the Honorable William Lenthall, Speaker of the Parliament of England: These.' Sourced from Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume I. Page 384 45 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume I. Page 38 46 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume 2. Page 514 44 14 | P a g e Thus, it is with this perspective that Cromwell’s endeavor to “unite the Protestants of Europe in a strict bond of Amnity and Friendship, to prevent [and adjudicate] their Misunderstandings, to heal their Breaches, to interpose in their Sufferings, and compassionate their Miseries,” 47 illuminates an utterly dumbfounding opportunism, fueled by the one-time lesser-gentleman’s unbridled ambition and audacious self-confidence. This is where Spain ties into Ireland: the singular strongest statement of Cromwell’s overarching motivations which led to his modern (and mildly-misunderstood) reputation as an anti-Catholic is his Speech V to Parliament of 17 September 1656, which is recapitulated in its entirety on pages 507-531 of Carlyle’s second volume. In this speech, Cromwell declares an imminent war with Catholic Spain, justifying his crusade by emphasizing the ancient threat to England represented by his perceived adversary. Cromwell even goes so far as to directly connect the Spanish-Catholic threat to the English Civil War, stating that since, “the time when Philip the Second [of Spain] was married to Queen Mary…through that ‘Spanish’ power and instigation, Twenty-thousand Protestants were massacred in Ireland…we are engaged with Spain – that is the root of the matter; it is that party which brings all your enemies before you…Spain hath espoused that Interest which you have all along hitherto been conflicting with – Charles Stuart’s interest.” 48 This quote appears definitive proof of our assertion Cromwell dreaded the threat posed by gargantuan Spain – not tiny Ireland - with its deep, historic links to the Vatican. A new picture is beginning to emerge of a Lord Protector who didn’t particularly view Irish Catholicism as a threat. Rather, he attached the spectre of Irish Catholicism to the threat posed by Spanish-Catholic propaganda forces, thus creating for Cromwell the self-perceived reality of a geopolitical weakness stationed quasi-permanently on his western boarder, with only a small sliver of water separating him from imminent invasion. In this light, the actions of Cromwell at Drogheda & Wexford are no more heinous or inexplicable than – to draw one more modern example, in the style of Professor Justin Champion - the reactionary behavior of American President John F. Kennedy to Communist forces on the island of Cuba, only 90 miles off the USA’s southern border…which nearly brought our species to its knees. Yet, a critical, underlying assumption remains for dismantleing: the persistant, historic perception pidgeonholing Cromwell as an anti-Catholic zealot, who, “it is probable…was heated into an Opinion, that he was the Person raised up by God Almighty to pull down Popery and Antichrist, and set up the Reformed Religion throughout the World; for which or the like reasons he grew ambitious to form a Protestant League and to be the Head & Protector.” 49 However, evidence refuting this perception exists. If Cromwell, enthusiastically working alongside a Catholic power, is counted as legitimate scholarly evidence that he was not particularly anti-Catholic (insomuch as staunchly against any foreign threat which rode to English shores on the back of Catholic priestcraft), then the “Speech V” we have repeatedly cited may totally revise this part of Cromwellian history. 47 Collection, F. a. (1700). Oliver Cromwell's Letters to Foreign Princes & States: For Strengthening and Preserving the Protestant Religion and Interest, with an Appendix. Page 54 48 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume 2. Page 516 49 Collection, F. a. (1700). Oliver Cromwell's Letters. Page 44 15 | P a g e In Speech V, Cromwell specifically tells Parliament that, “[England] desired but such a liberty as that [Spain] might keep ‘their’ Bibles in their pockets, to exercise their liberty of [Catholic] religion to themselves, and not to be under restraint. But there is not liberty of conscious to be had from the Spaniard…[if England were to] make any peace with any State that is Popish [then it will be] subjected to the determination of Rome and of the Pope himself.” 50 Yet, Cromwell – in a decisive revision of scholarship about the Lord Protector – clarifies this stance, on page 515…and it is this clarification which the scholars, to date, seem to have missed! Cromwell specifically goes on, in Speech V, to state that, “[England has] not now to do with any Popish State except France: and [this is specifically because] it is certain that [France] does not think themselves under such a tie to the Pope; but think themselves at liberty to perform honestly with nations with whom they are agreed.” Alas, we see that Cromwell’s government takes no issue with Catholic-France; he only fights Catholic-Spain, who sought to influence the English unduely, to the detriment of national security and English Protestantism. Thus, the de-facto proxy wars of Catholic-Ireland appear to be little more than colateral damage in this struggle. In the spirit of supporting this assertion, my study will now bring into examination the important international correspondance of Cromwell – which would come to constitute the historical legacy of his Protestant League of Europe. Unlike modern scholarship’s prevailing tendancy of viewing Cromwell as an anti-Catholic, we will leverage the method of the Hegelian Dialectic in an attempt to frame the Cromwellian correspondance not in a negative light of anti-Catholicism…but rather in the relatively positive light of progressive pro-Protestantism. To be specific, the Hegellian Diaclectic encourages the historian to first confront the thesis – that being the underlying assumption that Cromwell was an anti-Catholic: a theory we have dispelled in showing that Cromwell was, actually, not particularly interested in destroying Catholicism (this is evidenced by his quote that Spain should keep their “[Catholic] Bibles in their pockets”). Thus, our anti-thesis is that Cromwell was, in fact, not anti-anything, but, rather, pro-Protestant. Our anti-thesis is well supported by the correspondance collected by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in 1700. The collection is based upon one of Cromwell’s diplomatic, but extremely dangerous & volatile missives, which was encompassed by the Second Letter to the Duke Immanuel of Savoy. The Duke was a famous Roman Catholic-despot who used terror tactics to attempt the abolition of Protestantism. In April 1655, he ruthlessly butchered masses of Waldensians at the Piedmontese Easter Massacre, infamously impaling Protestant civilians who refused to obey his order to vacate their properties and enter self-exile, within a 20 day period. Upon receiving reports of the attrocities, rather than declare an invasion with his powerful and feared navy (that had seized Jamaica only a year before), Cromwell first extended the proverbial olive branch to this Catholic-warhawk. 50 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume 2. Page 515 16 | P a g e The Lord Protector - in a powerful rebuke of his modern reputation as a generitcally “anti-Catholic” crusader - spoke volumes about his willingness to compromise with Catholicism when he chose to, “beseech [the] Royal Highness [the Duke of Savoy]...that [he] would vouchsafe to abrogate both this Edict…to the disturbance of [his] Subjects upon the account of the Reform’d Religion: That [he] would ratifie to them their conceded Privileges and pristine Liberty, and command their Losses to be repair’d, and that an end be put to their Oppressions. Which if [his] Royal Highness shall [have been] please’d to see perform’d…[would] most highly oblige all [his] Neighbors, that profess the Reform’d Religion; But more especially [England], who [would] be bound to look upon Clemency and Benignity toward [his] Subjects…which [would] both engage…a reciprocal return of all good things, and lay the solid foundations, not only of establishing but increasing Alliance & Friendship between [England] and [his] Dominions.” 51 This is not the sentiment of an opportunist attempting to crush Catholicism! Although, the notorious Catholic-warmonger, Duke Immanuel of Savoy, rebuffed the Lord Protector’s advances, the historian must be vigilant at this precise moment in order to not miss the critical point for my thesis – and to understand why this is unflappable evidence against the prevailing underlying assumptions still present in historical scholarship, today. The famous “anti-Catholic,” Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, offered, in May of 1655, a clear proposal of “Alliance & Friendship” to a violently-Catholic governor, who had just presided over an atrocity against Protestants which dwarfed the former’s own crusade in Drogheda against Irish Catholics. In addition to this, Cromwell, in a letter to the Catholic Cardinal Mazarine, personally reinforced the “stricter alliance between [England] and the [Catholic] Kingdom of France.” 52 Thus, if one considers the gravity of Cromwell’s evidentily-convenient Catholic sympathies, it becomes salient that the Lord Protector consistently put pragmatic, geopolitical strategic considerations in a paramount position of importance, and only then did he allow to follow - very distantly - his mostly-ambivalent distaste for the allowance of Catholic religious doctrines. The perception of Cromwell as a lifelong “anti-Catholic” crusader appears to be crumbling. At the end of the First Civil War, Cromwell was willing to negotiate with the Catholic-sympathizing Charles I; and only in the wake of the Second Civil War does Cromwell suddenly become uncompromisingly anti-monarchal. In the same pattern, immediately following the Pietmontese Easter Massacre, Cromwell is willing to negotiate with the Catholic-crusading Duke of Savoy; and only after receiving a cold response does he become “anti-Catholic.” It may well be that our Hegellian anti-thesis that Cromwell was only pro-Protestant doesn’t account for this delayed anti-Catholicism. Yet, that nevertheless leaves us with only a single, remaining plausible Hegellian synthesis of this revision of history: Cromwell’s “Protestant League” was an expression of a practical governor who sought international security, while wisely turning chaos into opportunity. The fact seems that, for the Lord Protector, crusading came second to statecraft. 51 52 Collection, F. a. (1700). Oliver Cromwell's Letters. Page 5 Collection, F. a. (1700). Oliver Cromwell's Letters. Page 24 17 | P a g e Chapter 5: The Instrument of Government At this final juncture of the study, one ponders the question, “What should be the true legacy of Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell?” The authoritative compilations of primary sources are intrinsically compromised by their aforementioned bias. For example, Thomas Carlyle, who compiled the treasure trove of domestic correspondance, has cherry-picked and carefully ordered the documents so as to frame Cromwell as “the soul of the Puritan revolt.” 53 On the opposite side of the spectrum, the international correspodence – which was carefully selected by the Royalist hand of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office – seeks to establish the opposite, heavily characterized version of a Lord Protector who was, “so cruel & bloodthirsty, so inexorable & unrelenting to Protestants [and Catholics, alike]…[a] bad man [with] bad ends.” 54 We have shown - in Hegelian thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis dialectical form - that the true character of the man is actually a blend of crusader & criminal, a meticulous balance of faithful & pragmatic. Thus, perhaps, the goddess of history, Clio, has preordained that Cromwell write his own legacy. Evidentily, when Oliver Cromwell died, in 1658, he left two distinct testaments to his legacy which cast an unbiased judgment of the Lord Protector. First, a far superior gauge of governance exists than primary correspondance, secondary sources or religious preaching: the measure of the Lord Protector should be his Instrument of Government, the first, true constitution of the British Empire upon which the Sun Never Sets. More poignantly than the Lord Protector’s magnum opus for the Commonwealth, however, he personally selected his own legacy in the form of his hand-chosen heir & successor, his beloved son, Richard Cromwell (1626-1712). Instrinsically-tied to analyzing decidedly-dynastic elements of Cromwell’s legacy, I’ll examine the document which drove Cromwellian rule from 1653-1658, the Instrument of Government. The Instrument of Government seems to confirm an overarching, hypocritical facet of the persona of the Lord Protector – the conflicted battle between his democratic and dynastic urges. Oliver Cromwell, like George Washington after him, was offered the status of a King when, “in 1657 a member of Parliament put forward a motion that Cromwell should ‘take upon him the government according to the ancient constitution’ – in other words, become king. After a long debate, at the end of March the members formally offered him the crown.” 55 Cromwell famously set the democratic precedent that the first President of the United States would follow when he refused the crown; yet, the Englishman is remembered as a despot, while the American is not, because the tobacco farmer-turned-statesman did not allow the Constitution to enshrine him as an unchecked power. It is very difficult for the historian to discern between an absolute monarch versus, “the supreme legislative authority of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging…[residing] in one person…the style of which person shall be the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland.” 56 Cromwell positioned himself not as a representative, but as a sole voice and dictator of a nation. This should not be misrepresented as Protestant zeal but treated as ol’ fashioned megalomania. 53 Carlyle, T. (1845). Volume I. Page 13 Collection, F. a. (1700). Oliver Cromwell's Letters. Page 54 55 Moss, V. (1988). Cromwell's Protectorate. Page 8 56 Parliament (1653). Instrument of Government. Page 1 54 18 | P a g e In any event, the Instrument of Government, itself, serves as a form of evidence in our argument that Cromwell’s government was not in any significant way a “crusade” against Catholicism. In the first fourteen articles, religion, faith and Catholicism are not mentioned once. In Article XV, the first “anti-Catholic” vestiges appear when the document persecutes against, “all such, who have advised, assisted, or abetted the rebellion of Ireland, [who] shall be disabled and incapable for ever to be elected, or give any vote in the election of any member to serve in Parliament; as also all such who do or shall profess the Roman Catholic religion.” 57 Yet, this denunciation of Roman Catholicism falls short of a ban or “crusade” against Popery. The message is merely Catholicism will not undermine England’s security, nor its government. Of the forty-two (42) laws laid out in the Instrument of Government, there are exactly five (5) sequential, laws which pertain to religion in the Commonwealth. To recapitulate: Article(s) XXXV holds that Protestant-Christianity shall be “the public profession of these nations”; XXXVI stipulates that “none shall be compelled by penalties or otherwise” to that profession, but that “sound doctrine” and “good conversation” will be the means of religious conversion; XXXVII protects the individual’s right to practice whatever form of Protestantism he or she should subscribe to; XXXVIII guarantees that any law which undermines the religious freedom engendered in the former three (3) laws is automatically null-and-void; and XXXIX protects the preexisting property of the Church, which predated the revolution of the English Civil Wars. This is not the work of an anti-Catholic crusader, but of a governor stabilizing a government. The important argument arising from these laws is our original (now developed) anti-thesis that Cromwell was more pro-Protestant than anti-Catholic. Even our open-minded synthesis of Cromwellian pro-Protestantism with a touch of anti-Catholic crusading is supported in its latter accusations only by the mild disenfranchisment of Roman Catholics in Article XV. However, from the dynastic perspective, the picture emerges of a would-be monarch who literally named himself in his nation’s most important government document. This accusation would be easily supported by Article XXXIII which declares dramatically that, “Oliver Cromwell, Captain - General of the forces of England, Scotland, and Ireland, shall be, and is hereby declared to be, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging, for his life.” 58 If Cromwell’s enshrinement of his own absolutism “for his life” doesn’t demonstrate a closeted desire to be King, the fact that he selected his own son, Richard, as his de-facto dynastic successor, should be proof-positive. Commonly derided in his own time as “Queen Dick,” Richard Cromwell was, like his father, a pragmatic realist. Richard knew that no Englishman enjoyed a strong enough hold on the military to succeed his father. Accepting a small stipend from Parliament, Richard retired as Lord Protector after only serving from 3 September 1658 – 25 May 1659…spending the rest of his long life effectively-exiled, in Continental Europe. So it was that within two years of the death of the Lord Protector, Charles Stuart II triumphantly assumed the throne on his thirtieth birthday, 29 May 1660. Alas, the ultimate Cromwellian legacy - entrusted by Oliver to his son, Richard - was to return England to her rightful monarch, as a stronger nation than ever before. 57 58 Parliament (1653). Instrument of Government. Page 5 Parliament (1653). Instrument of Government. Page 10 19 | P a g e Bibliography Blackwood, B. G. (2020). Oliver Cromwell: An Interpretation. 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