Cromwelliana~ The Cromwell Association 1991 .i I The Cromwell Association President: Dr JOHN MORRILL, DPhil, FRHistS CROMWELLIANA ·1991 Vice-Presidents: Baron roar of Buckland Monachorum Right Hon MICHAEL FOOT, MP, PC Dr MAURICE ASHl.EY, CBE, DPhil, DLitt edited by Peter Gaunt Professor IVAN Roars. MA, FSA, FRHistS Professor AUSTIN WOOLRYCH, MA, D Litt, FBA Dr GERALD AYLMER, MA, DPhil, FBA, FRHistS Miss HILARY PLATT, BA Mr TREWIN COPPLESTON CONTENTS Chairman: Dr PETER GAUNT, Ph D CROMWELL DAY 1990. By Pauline Gregg. 2 Honorary Secretary: Miss PAT BARNES Cosswell Cottage, Northedge, Tupton, Chesterfield, S42 6AY MUSTERS AND MAY GAMES: THE EFFECT OF CHANGING MILITARY THEORY ON THE . Honorary Treasurer: Mr JOHN WESTMACOTT 5 .1 Salisbury Close, Wokingham, Berkshire, RGll 4AJ ENGLISH MILITIA. By Keith Roberts • Honorary Editor of Cromwelliana: Dr Peter Gaunt, PhD A:SEvENTEEN'l'H CENTURY LONDON PUB CRAWL. 9 By ~-L Atki-ns. THE CROMWELL.ASSOCIATION was founded in 1935 by the late Rt Hon Isaac Foot and I others to commemorate Oliver Cromwell, the great Puritan statesman, and to encourage the GOD'S ENGLISHMAN: OLIVER CROMWELL. study of the history of his times, his achievements and influence. It is neither political nor .13. Part Two~ By Glyn Brace Jones. sectarian, its aims being essentially historical. The Association seeks to advance its aims by a variety of ways which have included: THE BATTLE OF ST FAGANS, 8 MAY 1648. (a) the erection of commemorative tablets (e.g. at Naseby, Dunbar, Worcester, Preston, ·15 etc.) (From time to time appeals are made for funds to pay for projeC:ts of this sort); By Chrystal Davies. (b) helping to establish the Cromwell Museum in the Old Grammar School at Huntingdon; (c) holding two annual meetings, one the now traditional Memorial Service by the statue HOW GOOD A LEADER WAS FAIRFAX IN THE 27 outside the Houses of Parliament, the other a business meeting at which the Council presents a CIVIL WAR? By Jane A Mills. report on its year's work for discussion by members. At both meetings an Address is given by a distinguished Cromwellian; CROMWELLIAN BRITAIN IV: (d) producing an annual publication, Cromwelliana, which is free to members; Ilston, Glamorganshire. 36 (e) awarding an annual prize for an essay on a Cromwellian theme; (f) maintaining a small reference library for the use of members; 40 (g) supporting the formation of local groups of paid-up members of the Association OBITUARIES. meeting for study or social purposes; BOOK REVIEWS. By Stephen Roberts, (h) acting as a "lobby" at both national and local Jevels whenever aspects or items of our ·42 Cromwellian heritage appear to be endangered . Ivan Roots and Peter Gaunt. ... All enquiries about the Library should be addressed to: SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PUBLICATIONS .• 57 Mr M BYRD, 12 Milton Road, Maldon, Essex, CM9 6BT By Stephen Roberts. Press Liaison Officer: Mr BARRY DENTON, FRHistS EQUITY DECISION. By Raymond Tong. 63 10 Melrose Avenue, off Ban ts Lane, Northampton, NN5 5PB '. 'I> !, I fI ~ 1 like most things in his life, was homespun - political philosophy was not his line. So far as we know, he made no study of the political CROMWELL DAY 1990. writers of the time. Would he have known the dozens of pamphlets, on one side or the other, that preceded the civil war? Perhaps he would by Dr Pauline Gregg'. have read Henry Parker's~ of Shipmoney or his Divine Right of Episcopacie. Sir Robert Cotton's Discourse Concerning the Power ·of the Members of the Cromwell Association and others, it gives me great Parliament would perhaps have been relevant. One thing is certain - he pleasure to be here on Cromwell Day. I appreciate the honour. Moreover, did not walk around as John Lilburne did with Coke's Institutes tucked it has given me the opportunity again to ponder that strange enigma of firmly under his belt! a man ~ to try to recreate something of the man who was Oliver Cromwell Yet I have been struck with the affinity between Cromwel.l and one - an assessment, I venture to say, as difficult as any of us will find political philosopher - a near contemporiry - not a man of action (far in relation to any historical character. from it), yet one who saw deep into the springs of political life and In considering what I should say about him, I was struck again by government, and who understood the obstacles Cromwell would have to the controversy which surrounds him - not only in books and lectures, face when he turned from soldiering to running the country. but in tangible things. There is, for example, a Cromwell Museum in Thomas Hobbes's masterpiece of political theory, his "philosophy Huntingdon where Cromwell was born, well-equipped, excellently run, in of.politics" as he calle·a, it - Leviathan - was finished in· April 1.651, the very school he attended, containing many kinds of Cromwelliana. It two years after the execution of the King and just a few months before is an imaginative and worth-while memorial to him, quite apart from its Worcester. Cromwell would barely have heard of Hobbes. It is even more practical use to historians. unlikely that he had ever read Leviathan. According to Hobbes, man's But there is no statue to him in Huntingdon. There, in his home life was nasty, brutish and short until he organised himself into civil town, where he was born, where he indulged in goodness knows what society. In order to main.tain that society and not relaps~ into boyish and adolescent pranks, where he studied under Dr Beard, anarchy, it was necessary to ensure that society "moved one way". This struggled with the concepts of freewill and determination, sought to was Cromwell's great task. How to ensure that when the unifying ~ffect find out whether he was saved or damned; where he brought his bride, of military victory was over, society "would move one way"? where children were born to him, where he farmed and played his part in It was easier to mould a disparate set of fighting men into a local and national 'politics. Yet, when the question of a statue was victorious army than it was to mould .a disparate set of politicians mooted, the good citizens of Huntingdon felt they were not so far in into a government - in part because the fighting men were united into a ; __... ' accord with their greatest son so to honour him. It was left to nearby common purpose whose results were generally immediat_ely obvious. You St Ives, where his connections were far mc;ire tenuous, to erect a either won a battle or you did notl A political settlement, on the monument to him; even so, it appears a little grudgingly, high up in other hand, had to be achieved by, men whose varying ideals and the market place, a little difficult to see. And the Thorneycroft objectives, once the fighting was over, were revealed in all their statue, beneath which we stand, arouses an even deeper controversy. divergence - a situ at ion expressed time and. time again in the Was Cromwell the good parliamentarian, or was he not? Were the despairing voice of the soldier: ''What have we fought for all this Haus.es of Parliament the place to erect a memo~ial to the man who time?" repeatedly flouted their authority - the army, the eleven Members, It has become commonplace that revolutions, after th.e iirst Pride's Purge (for surely Cromwell had a hand in that!), the ejection successful onslaught, br,eak up into various factions which had formerly of the Rump, the break-up of the Barebones' Parliament (surely, again, been united in opposition. We can see· this happening throughout the Cromwell was not without knowledge of their intention!), the dismissal world today. It was perceived clearly in the seventeenth century by. one of one Protectorate Parliament after another •••• ? or two observers. "It cannot be expected", wrote the astute Pragmaticus we:i1, "to know all is not to understand all", as they say. But how in November 1647, "that the sovereign Hobnails will drive all one way, can one know what went on in that troubled mind? Sometimes in laboured and so come to a miraculous agreement". Or, as one royalist newsletter speeches, sometimes in letters, one comes close to the tortured expressed it: reasonings, the dilemmas, the choices. Perhaps only before God was he able to resolve something of the conflict within him. The King raysed a Parliament he could not rule, the Parliament But, apart from his relation with Providence, what do we know raysed an Army it could not rule, the Army made Agitators they about the influences that .. shaped him? Dr Beard, his schoolmaster, cannot rule, and the Agitators are setting up the people whom certainly. Friends - John Hampden, Henry Ireton, whose influence was they will be as little able to rule. cut short by too early death, and a few others. We can only guess what treaties on military strategy orvthe art of war, if any, he poured Cromwell had a foretaste of the break-up in the various Army and over. More likely he relied upon··his own experience built up in Leveller revolts and at the time of the Putney debates he wrote to. skirmish after skirmish, in battl,e after battle - and his own Fairfax, "We are full of faction and worse". He was near despair. relentless determination. "overturn, overturn, overturn", as he put it, was all he saw before Similarly, he had little use for political theory. Such as he had, him. Is this all his military victories had achieved? It is arguable that to Cromwell the need for stability was a 2 3 atronger reason for executing the King than any talk of retribution for blood spilt.