Electing Cromwell


Book Description

Popular interest in Cromwell has often exceeded the originality of what has been written about him. Barclay’s study comes out of meticulous research on a huge range of newly discovered primary sources, transforming our understanding of the life and career of Oliver Cromwell during the period from his birth in 1599 until 1642.




Oliver Cromwell


Book Description

John Buchan sets out to redress many misconceived popular opinions of this English soldier and statesman. Born in 1599, Cromwell joined Parliament in the Civil War. He fought many battles and was instrumental in bringing Charles I to trial. He then suppressed the Levellers, Ireland and the Scots under the Commonwealth and later Protectorate.




The Making of Oliver Cromwell


Book Description

The first volume in a pioneering account of Oliver Cromwell—providing a major new interpretation of one of the greatest figures in history Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658)—the only English commoner to become the overall head of state—is one of the great figures of history, but his character was very complex. He was at once courageous and devout, devious and self-serving; as a parliamentarian, he was devoted to his cause; as a soldier, he was ruthless. Cromwell’s speeches and writings surpass in quantity those of any other ruler of England before Victoria and, for those seeking to understand him, he has usually been taken at his word. In this remarkable new work, Ronald Hutton untangles the facts from the fiction. Cromwell, pursuing his devotion to God and cementing his Puritan support base, quickly transformed from obscure provincial to military victor. At the end of the first English Civil War, he was poised to take power. Hutton reveals a man who was both genuine in his faith and deliberate in his dishonesty—and uncovers the inner workings of the man who has puzzled biographers for centuries.




The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution


Book Description

This Handbook brings together leading historians of the events surrounding the English revolution, exploring how the events of the revolution grew out of, and resonated, in the politics and interactions of the each of the Three Kingdoms - England, Scotland, and Ireland. It captures a shared British and Irish history, comparing the significance of events and outcomes across the Three Kingdoms. In doing so, the Handbook offers a broader context for the history of the Scottish Covenanters, the Irish Rising of 1641, and the government of Confederate Ireland, as well as the British and Irish perspective on the English civil wars, the English revolution, the Regicide, and Cromwellian period. The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution explores the significance of these events on a much broader front than conventional studies. The events are approached not simply as political, economic, and social crises, but as challenges to the predominant forms of religious and political thought, social relations, and standard forms of cultural expression. The contributors provide up-to-date analysis of the political happenings, considering the structures of social and political life that shaped and were re-shaped by the crisis. The Handbook goes on to explore the long-term legacies of the crisis in the Three Kingdoms and their impact in a wider European context.




Providence Lost


Book Description

'A compelling and wry narrative of one of the most intellectually thrilling eras of British history' Guardian. ***************** SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE 2020 England, 1651. Oliver Cromwell has defeated his royalist opponents in two civil wars, executed the Stuart king Charles I, laid waste to Ireland, and crushed the late king's son and his Scottish allies. He is master of Britain and Ireland. But Parliament, divided between moderates, republicans and Puritans of uncompromisingly millenarian hue, is faction-ridden and disputatious. By the end of 1653, Cromwell has become 'Lord Protector'. Seeking dragons for an elect Protestant nation to slay, he launches an ambitious 'Western Design' against Spain's empire in the New World. When an amphibious assault on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1655 proves a disaster, a shaken Cromwell is convinced that God is punishing England for its sinfulness. But the imposition of the rule of the Major-Generals – bureaucrats with a penchant for closing alehouses – backfires spectacularly. Sectarianism and fundamentalism run riot. Radicals and royalists join together in conspiracy. The only way out seems to be a return to a Parliament presided over by a king. But will Cromwell accept the crown? Paul Lay narrates in entertaining but always rigorous fashion the story of England's first and only experiment with republican government: he brings the febrile world of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate to life, providing vivid portraits of the extraordinary individuals who inhabited it and capturing its dissonant cacophony of political and religious voices. ***************** Reviews: 'Briskly paced and elegantly written, Providence Lost provides us with a first-class ticket to this Cromwellian world of achievement, paradox and contradiction. Few guides take us so directly, or so sympathetically, into the imaginative worlds of that tumultuous decade' John Adamson, The Times. 'Providence Lost is a learned, lucid, wry and compelling narrative of the 1650s as well as a sensitive portrayal of a man unravelled by providence' Jessie Childs, Guardian.




Wolf Hall


Book Description

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe oppose him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his advisor, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum and a deadlock. Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. The son of a brutal blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a bully and a charmer, Cromwell has broken all the rules of a rigid society in his rise to power. Narrowly escaping personal disaster—the loss of his young family and of Wolsey, his beloved patron—he picks his way deftly through a court where “man is wolf to man.” Pitting himself against parliament, the political establishment and the papacy, he is prepared to reshape England to his own and Henry’s desires. In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. Wolf Hall re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hair’s breadth, where success brings unlimited power, but a single failure means death.




Cromwell and Ireland


Book Description

In this collection of essays, a range of established and early-career scholars explore a variety of different perspectives on Oliver Cromwell's involvement with Ireland, in particular his military campaign of 1649-1650. In England and Wales Cromwell is regarded as a figure of national importance; in Ireland his reputation remains highly controversial. The essays gathered together here provide a fresh take on his Irish campaign, reassessing the backdrop and context of the prevailing siege warfare strategy and offering new insights into other major players such as Henry Ireton and the Marquis of Ormond. Other topics include, but are not limited to, the Cromwellian land settlement, deportation of prisoners and popular memory of Cromwell in Ireland. CONTRIBUTORS: Martyn Bennett, Heidi J. Coburn, Sarah Covington, John Cunningham, Eamon Darcy, David Farr, Padraig Lenihan, Alan Marshall, Nick Poyntz, Tom Reilly, James Scott Wheeler




Oliver Cromwell’s Kin, 1643-1726


Book Description

This study centres around three leading military statesmen who served under Oliver Comwell but were also his kin and shared the experiences of the civil wars, John Disbrowe (1608–80), Henry Ireton (1611–51), and Charles Fleetwood (1618–92). It seeks to develop our picture of their positions from the context of their kin link to Cromwell and how their private worlds shaped their public roles, how kinship was part of the functioning of the Cromwellian state, how they were seen and presented, and how this impacted on their own lives, and their kin, before and after the Restoration. Cromwell's career can be explored further by considering figures in his kinship network to show how the public and private overlapped and influenced each other through their interaction before and after 1660. This study aims to consider the trajectory of elements of Cromwell's network and how its functioning and the interaction of its constituent parts over time shaped the politics of the years 1643 to 1660 but also how the survival of some networks after 1660 were continuing communities of those willing to own their memories of the civil wars, regicide, and Cromwell. A study of aspects of Cromwell's kin also provides examples of the continuities between those who resisted the Stuarts in the 1640s and 1650s and did so again in the 1680s. Suitable for specialists in the area and students taking courses on early modern British, European and American history as well as those with a more general interest in the period.




The Rise of Thomas Cromwell


Book Description

How much does the Thomas Cromwell of popular novels and television series resemble the real Cromwell? This meticulous study of Cromwell's early political career expands and revises what has been understood concerning the life and talents of Henry VIII's chief minister. Michael Everett provides a new and enlightening account of Cromwell's rise to power, his influence on the king, his role in the Reformation, and his impact on the future of the nation. Controversially, Everett depicts Cromwell not as the fervent evangelical, Machiavellian politician, or the revolutionary administrator that earlier historians have perceived. Instead he reveals Cromwell as a highly capable and efficient servant of the Crown, rising to power not by masterminding Henry VIII's split with Rome but rather by dint of exceptional skills as an administrator.




The Mirror & the Light


Book Description

The brilliant #1 New York Times bestseller Named a best book of 2020 by The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Guardian, and many more With The Mirror & the Light, Hilary Mantel brings to a triumphant close the trilogy she began with her peerless, Booker Prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. She traces the final years of Thomas Cromwell, the boy from nowhere who climbs to the heights of power, offering a defining portrait of predator and prey, of a ferocious contest between present and past, between royal will and a common man’s vision: of a modern nation making itself through conflict, passion and courage. The story begins in May 1536: Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains are bundled into oblivion, Cromwell breakfasts with the victors. The blacksmith’s son from Putney emerges from the spring’s bloodbath to continue his climb to power and wealth, while his formidable master, Henry VIII, settles to short-lived happiness with his third queen, Jane Seymour. Cromwell, a man with only his wits to rely on, has no great family to back him, no private army. Despite rebellion at home, traitors plotting abroad and the threat of invasion testing Henry’s regime to the breaking point, Cromwell’s robust imagination sees a new country in the mirror of the future. All of England lies at his feet, ripe for innovation and religious reform. But as fortune’s wheel turns, Cromwell’s enemies are gathering in the shadows. The inevitable question remains: how long can anyone survive under Henry’s cruel and capricious gaze? Eagerly awaited and eight years in the making, The Mirror & the Light completes Cromwell’s journey from self-made man to one of the most feared, influential figures of his time. Portrayed by Mantel with pathos and terrific energy, Cromwell is as complex as he is unforgettable: a politician and a fixer, a husband and a father, a man who both defied and defined his age.