Posted on 12/31/2010 10:16:57 PM PST by Alex Murphy
In many ways, though, what drove Cromwell was his burning religious passion.
Around 1630, when his financial woes were at their worst, he went through a dramatic religious conversion, becoming convinced that God had marked him out for eternal salvation.
‘Oh, have I lived in and loved darkness and hated the light,’ he wrote a few years later. ‘I was a chief, the chief of sinners . . . I hated godliness; yet God had mercy upon me. O the riches of His mercy!’
But Cromwell was not merely exceptionally religious. He belonged to a particular religious group — the Puritans — who believed that the frivolous Charles I, with his stubborn faith in the Divine Right of Kings and his fondness for elaborate Catholic-style church ceremonies, was betraying the Protestant Reformation.
A century earlier, Henry VIII’s tumultuous break with Roman Catholicism had given rise to a new sense of English identity, rooted in Protestant independence, localism and individualism, and fiercely antagonistic to Continental European influence. But to England’s Protestant middle classes, the return of Papal rule remained a genuine and terrifying threat.
Given his wild mood swings between jubilation and gloom, some biographers have suggested that he suffered from manic depression. That might explain why he laughed ‘as if he had been drunk’ after the Battle of Dunbar. To men like Cromwell, the sinister armies of international Catholicism were always poised to strike across the Channel and extinguish English Protestantism for ever.
And to those who remembered the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, and who were horrified by news of the Thirty Years War, the gigantic conflict that tore much of central Europe apart as Spain, France, Sweden and Holland battled for supremacy at the cost of some ten million lives, their fears seemed all too realistic.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
You beat me to it.
Samuel Johnson, Lord Acton, Graham Hancock, Michael Palin, J. R. R. Tolkien, Robin Hood, William Byrd, Eric Clapton.....one cannot swing a dead cat in Merrie Olde England without hitting someone superior to Cromwell.
What about William Wilberforce.
For me, Churchill.
That is kind of harsh. Sherman just destroyed property. He didnt try to erase the southern population, just its production.
Cromwell has been compared to Pol Pot. Which, from what I read, is closer to the truth.
You don’t see what you don’t want to.
That’s not my problem, it’s yours.
The Irish entered into a confederacy with English Royalists and the era in question is in fact known as Confederate Ireland, so the comparison of Cromwell to Sherman is very apt for several reasons.
Just how did Oliver Cromwell erase the Irish Catholic population, or attempt to do so? Provide historically documented facts, please, and not wild partisan guesstimates from people with an historic axe to grind.
I do have Irish ancestry, and am not without sympathy. I’ve been there many times and have friends in the Republic of Ireland. I love the country and it’s people. But there is an element of grudge that has built over the centuries that is very much like my beloved south and southerners as far as Sherman.
I also have Anglo-irish ancestry, English who held plantations in Ireland. Scotch-Irish ancestry, too. So, it’s not at all unfamiliar to me, as far as either religon or history. But, my points of view very likely will not match yours, so far as interpretation of historic fact is concerned.
There are two sides to every story, at least, if not more than that.
The article is not anti-Catholic, your church is only mentioned in passing. Cromwell was a controversial figure, and there are reasons Irish Catholics dislike him. But, that’s not the sum total of the man, it was barely touched upon, and your distaste for him is not the sum total of his existence.
“You are entitled to your own faith and own opinion, but not your own history or facts. Charles I never tried to impose Catholicism on anyone including the Scottish Puritans. His crimes against the Puritans was in not more forcefully imposing the Reformation on the Catholic Scots. He was executed because he lost a civil war in which nearly 5% of the English population was killed. “
The information I posted was obtained from Conservapedia and is not my personal opinion.
Charles I’s persecution, and actual war against, the Scottish puritans is well documented.
If Cromwell overreacted or if his army committed war crimes, I’m not defending that. However, it should not be alleged that he just went about killing Irish Catholics without provocation. It was a war, and just like the war we are in now, innocent people get killed.
“Fighting back? The bastard should have stayed the hell out of Ireland.”
He was commissioned by the Parliament at the time, as a civil war had broken out. He did not start the civil war.
Perhaps you believe that no one should have defended the Scottish Puritans; I disagree with you there.
Charles I destroyed the Church of England
Oh, please. Cromwell's disgusting career demonstrated that he only cared about himself. He revolted against his king for simply not having called upon Parliament (of which he was a member) but later, as dictator, he went so far as to actually dissolve a Parliament in session because it didn't give him what he wanted ("It's good to be the king" but 'it's better to be the dictator'). He killed his king for supposed treason against the kingdom while being, himself, the leader of the revolution which initially deposed him. He came to power championing the 'Levelers' and rallying them to his cause, but later, much like Hitler did the SA, he eliminated them after they had served his purpose. He established a psuedo-republic for the declared purpose of instituting rule-of-law, but then proceeded to run the country like a modern third world generalissimo. He destroyed the ancient vestiges of English monarchy in an attempt to end forever the inherited title but, in the fashion of the North Korean Kims, he established his son as his successor. Finally, he killed MANY people, all in the name of Christ, and all of them where Christian.
Cromwell was, truly, the PERFECT Puritan.
Those Founders from Virginia, which colony contributed the most in numbers and significance, would heartily disagree. Virginia's status as "The Old Dominion" rests upon the fact that Cromwell's Puritan Revolution never to root in the colony and it remained loyal to royals. Neither would Marylanders agree with you, as their colony had been established to protect Catholics from Puritan persecution. The Carolinians, North and South, would likely have remembered the namesake king of their eponymous colonies. Maybe your idea of "religious freedom" is of the Massachusetts variety.
"to" = 'took'.
Happy New Year!
Cromwell murdered Charles I. When Charles II finally resumed the throne of England, he had Cromwell executed and Cromwell’s body was left hanging in public for a very long time.
Sir Douglas Bader would get my vote.
Maybe “Erase” was too strong of a word. But he had no love for Catholics or the Irish. The seige of Drogheda, where he killed 3,500 civilians, including Priests and Nuns and of Wexford where 1500 civilians where put to the sword are examples{ I excluded military casualites because they were under arms, or maybe they werent. But still I didnt add them because they can be justifed}
Of course these figure may be inflated because the Irish hated Cromwell so much they blew up the numbers for propaganda purposes.
But we are looking at these thing from our viewpoint. Mass killing were pretty much the rule durning that time. And when you add religion to this, it got ugly. The irish probily would have done the same if the roles were switched. Religion tends to bring out the ugly in some people.
I am German Catholic so I have no dog in this fight. But the Irish still use his name as a curse. That doesnt happen for no reason.
As for Sherman, There is no evidnace that he committed any type of mass killings. He may have burnt every thing in sight and committed other what we would call “War Crimes” but there was no such things as war crimes in either Cromwell or Shermans time.
I am capable of looking at the two sides of every story. In between the truth is in there. But there is no denying that Cromwell was a cast iron basterd.
I agree.
The most famous of Brits.
James Bond 007,
British, secret agent, of Scottish & Swiss parentage.
Mrs. Emma Peel(The Avengers)
British, dilettante secret agent, partner to John Steed
John Steed(The Avengers)
British, secret agent
The Prisoner
British, former British secret agent?
Sherlock Holmes
British, pioneering consulting detective
Mr. Lee(Enter the Dragon)
Chinese, Hong Kong, British subject, Kung Fu master
Mrs. Emma Peel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Peel
James Bond
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond
Mr. Steed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steed
Simon Templar aka: The Saint
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Templar
I prefer Basil Fawlty myself.
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