God's Englishman by Christopher Hill

Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution

Despite being a practising Catholic my greatest hero after Churchill is Oliver Cromwell, and this is a fine summary of his life, and of the effects he had on the history of this country. Although written over fifty years ago it stands proudly alongside other biographies about this great man.

Of course the factual details of his life are straightforward: country gentleman to Lord of the Fens; Captain to Lieutenant General; Lord General to Lord Protector. However there is always a problem for historians in writing about such a contentious figure, in that so much depends on the point of view both of those involved, and those looking at the events from today.

The people of Cromwell's time were living in a time when the Reformation had torn the old religious certainties of the past apart, and the Enlightenment was about to transform political and social thought. The European societies of the seventeenth century were infused with religion. There were many competing groups, divided on religion, economic problems and moral issues. Quite apart from the famous division between Royalists and Parliamentarians there were inter alia, Levellers, Diggers, Adamites, Anabaptists, Brownists, Arminianists, Covenanters, Abhorrers, Petitioners, plus many more. The religious groups founded, or evolving in the period, separate from Roman Catholicism, and Anglicanism, included the sects of Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Calvinists and Puritans.

The age of science had not yet arrived, and no one knew that the world upon which they lived was four billion years old, that the universe, created over thirteen billion years ago, stretched away for over thirteen billion light years, filled with trillions of stars and planets, and mankind was a product of an evolution which meant our remote ancestors were primitive life forms, not conscious beings. Clearly their beliefs were inevitably different from ours so we cannot judge them by contemporary standards, but whether one now admires Cromwell, or hates him, is dependent on where we stand as individuals today.

Cromwell's actions in Ireland cannot be excused, but his legacy is far greater than just those events. As the author points out the French Revolution had Robespierre, who led on to Napoleon, the Russian, Lenin, then Stalin, but the English one was dominated by one man, and one who was motivated by a genuine religious belief, not a lust for power.

The author sums up the long term effects of Cromwell's rule as mixed, but, for these islands, essentially one which was positive, although many would not agree. On the debit side lie the slave trade based on his conquest of Jamaica, the exploitation of Ireland, and of India, and the lack of government protection for the poor. On the credit, the creation of a free market, parliamentary government, local supremacy of JPs, Union of England and Scotland, religious toleration, freedom of the press, an attitude favourable to science, and the only country in Europe without a peasantry. He raised England to the front rank of European nations, and, as Dryden said "he taught the English lion to roar". In the twentieth century Mao Tse-tung, in considering his own decisions said, "what would Cromwell have done", something one would hardly have expected from an atheistic Communist, and which proves that Cromwell's influence has endured for centuries.

As far as the style of the book is concerned it is not the easiest read, as so many of those from the seventeenth century extensively quoted gave very long, and convoluted arguments on matters which a modern reader may find difficult to comprehend, given the intensity of the theological discussions involved. However it is nevertheless well worth reading for anyone interested in the English Civil War, and in Oliver Cromwell.