Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) , English soldier, statesman, and leader of the Puritan revolution. He rose from the ranks of the middle gentry to become an outstanding soldier, nicknamed "Old Ironsides" . He executed the king and became ruler under the title "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland," where he did as much as any English ruler to shape the future of the land he governed. His Commonwealth collapsed after his death and the royal family was restored.

Cromwell is the most controversial figure in all of British history. For many historians he is seen as a monster, a regicidal dictator who trampled on glorious traditions. To others he was a religious fanatic and a genocidal murderter of the Irish Catholics. Many leading historians (including David Hume and Christopher Hill) portray Cromwell as a hero of liberty to others (such as Thomas Carlyle and Samuel Rawson Gardiner). In Britain he was elected as one of the Top 10 Britons of all time in a 2002 BBC poll.

Life

He was born at Huntingdon in eastern England on Apr. 25, 1599. His father, Robert Cromwell, and his mother, Elizabeth Steward, were typical English country gentlefolk. His father was a younger son of a family founded by Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540), a minister of Henry VIII, which had acquired considerable wealth by taking over Roman Catholic Church property during the Reformation. At the time of Oliver's birth his grandfather, Sir Henry Cromwell, was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire, but his father was of modest means. Oliver was sent to the Huntingdon Grammar School and afterwards for one year only to Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University. His father died when he was just 18 and Oliver, the only surviving son, left the university to look after his mother and six sisters. He studied law for a time at the Inns of Court in London and when he was 21 married Elizabeth Bourchier, the daughter of a London leather merchant. He then returned to Huntingdon and settled down as a farmer.

Early Career

For 20 years Cromwell followed the normal career of a country gentlemen and farmer, taking a prominent part in local affairs. For a time he tried his luck as a grazier in St. Ives, another Huntingdonshire market town. In 1638 an uncle died leaving him some property, and he moved to the cathedral city of Ely. But meanwhile in 1628, he had been elected by Huntingdon to the last parliament summoned by King Charles I before the 11-year period (1629-1640) during which he tried to rule without one--the so-called "Eleven Years Tyranny."

Cromwell, both at school and university and when he was in London, had come under the influence of the expanding Puritan movement, which wanted a radical reform of the Church of England and was opposed to the High Church tendencies favored by William Laud, who became archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. Cromwell's only speech in the Parliament of 1628-1629 was a fierce attack upon the High Church bishops.

Outbreak of the Civil War (1642)

During the next 11 years when he governed without calling a parliament, King Charles I multiplied his enemies by imposing irritating financial exactions upon various classes of the community by the use of prerogative powers exercised by the Crown in the Middle Ages. He demanded "ship money" from the towns, fined country gentlemen (including Cromwell) for refusing to accept knighthood, raised "forced loans," and increased customs duties. All this he did because he had no right to levy fresh taxes without the consent of Parliament. Indeed his broad aim was to secure the financial independence of the monarchy and to fasten uniformity upon the Church. Thus he antagonized the Puritan reformers as well as many of the country gentry and townspeople. In 1638 he became involved in a war against his Scottish subjects (he was hereditary king of Scotland as well as of England) because he tried to force upon them a prayer book similar to that in use in the English Church. They rebelled against him for attacking their cherished form of the Protestant religion, and he was compelled to call a parliament at Westminster to ask for money to pursue the war. In this parliament, which met in the spring of 1640, Cromwell was elected M.P. for the town of Cambridge. The accumulation of grievances against the king over 11 years made the leaders of the House of Commons aggressive and uncooperative. Cromwell at once showed himself to be a violent Puritan and as such gave steady support to the critics of church and government.

The Long Parliament

This parliament was soon dissolved, but during the summer of 1640 King Charles was again beaten and humbled by the Scottish rebels. He appealed for help to a new parliament, which met in the autumn with Cromwell again M.P. for Cambridge. This "Long Parliament," as it was to be called, repudiated the king's policies and obliged him to surrender many of his prerogative powers. It put to death one of the king's chief ministers, the Earl of Strafford. Cromwell and a majority of the Commons voted for a "Grand Remonstrance" against the government and showed they did not trust the king. When the Irish rose up against their English oppressors in 1641 Parliament demanded the power to appoint all the king's ministers and principal army officers--an unprecedented step. The king was eventually goaded to arrest five of the parliamentary leaders for treason. When this coup failed, King Charles left London to rally his supporters in the north of England. The Commons retorted by seizing "the power of the sword" and sending M.P.'s into their constituencies to gain control of local armories and militia. Cromwell himself went to Cambridge, took possession of the castle, arrested a captain of the Cambridgeshire militia, and frustrated an attempt by the colleges to send part of their silver plate to the king. From that moment, though inexperienced as a soldier, Cromwell, now in his early 40's, rose to the front as a military organizer and a Puritan leader. In the Long Parliament he had made his name as an extreme Puritan who desired the complete abolition of the bishops; in eastern England as a whole he was recognized as a champion of the right of all church congregations to choose their own ministers and their own religious forms.

Cromwell as soldier

The civil war began in August 1642. Cromwell, by nature fitted to be a superb cavalry officer, raised his own Parliamentarian troop in his native town of Huntingdon. He was present with it at the drawn battle of Edgehill (Oct. 23, 1642). Afterward he doubled the size of his troop and then converted it into a full regiment, becoming a colonel in February 1643. During 1643 he was exceedingly active in eastern England, which he helped form into a base for his side, and at the same time he pressed upon the Commons the need to raise the pay, improve the training, and lift the morale of the soldiers they enlisted, if they wanted to beat the king's army. For the king had a capable force furnished largely by peers, landed gentry, and their outdoor staffs. By the autumn of 1643, however, two thirds of England and Wales were under the king's control, and in spite of minor successes achieved at Grantham, Gainsborough, and Winceby, where Cromwell served his apprenticeship in the art of war, it looked as if Parliament would be beaten. In desperation the Parliamentary leaders came to terms with the Scottish leaders, and a Scottish army entered England in 1644.

Oliver Cromwell, now a lieutenant general, fought alongside the Scots and a northern army under Lord Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas, at the battle of Marston Moor in Yorkshire on July 2, 1644, where the king's army, led by Prince Rupert, was outnumbered and defeated. Next year, fighting without the Scots, Cromwell again took part in the defeat of Prince Rupert at the battle of Naseby on June 14, 1645. Here he served under Sir Thomas Fairfax, the new Parliamentarian commander in chief. In both these battles Cromwell distinguished himself by his courage, enterprise, and leadership. Above all, his hold on eastern England had contributed to the reversal of the fortunes of war. When, in June 1646, King Charles allowed his stronghold of Oxford to capitulate and himself fled to seek the mercy of the Scottish army, Cromwell had gained a reputation as the outstanding general of the first civil war; and although he had publicly criticized some of the aristocratic parliamentary commanders for what he considered lethargy and incompetence, he had been a loyal lieutenant to his superior, Sir Thomas Fairfax.

Parliament versus Army: Second Civil War (1648)

During the first civil war Cromwell retained his seat in the House of Commons and appeared there whenever he could. In 1644 he had taken a leading part in promoting a "self-denying ordinance" whereby those members of parliament who had held commissions in the armed forces had relinquished them in order to make way for new blood, thus paving the way for the appointment of the nonpolitical Fairfax. Cromwell himself had been ready to lay down his command, but Fairfax persuaded him to serve at the battle of Naseby. He was conscious of his gifts, but, as always in his life, attributed his victories to Almighty God. It was indeed his independent-minded, highly personal Puritan religion (to which he had been "converted" as a young married man) that had brought him into the war against the king and had sustained him in every battle. When the alliance was made with the Scots, he had insisted that this must not be at the price of liberty of conscience for himself and his fellow Independents or "sectarians." But at first he was content to leave to the civilian leaders in Parliament, most of whom were Presbyterians, the future shape of government.

However, the House of Commons (from which the Royalists had withdrawn at the outset of war) and the House of Lords, who were a mere handful, now showed themselves anxious to impose a rigid Presbyterian organization upon the English Church and to dismiss Fairfax' soldiers, most of whom were Independents, without adequate compensation for their services. At first Cromwell, as an M.P. and a figure of immense influence in the army, tried to act as a mediator between Parliament and the soldiers. But eventually he was driven to make a choice and threw in his lot with the army. He also tried hard to come to terms with the king, whom the Scots had handed over as a prisoner to the English Parliament before their army went home. Cromwell was not opposed to a Presbyterian form of state church, but he insisted that the Puritan sects or Independents should be tolerated outside it. In negotiating a postwar settlement both with Parliament and with the king on behalf of the army, that was always the great point on which he would not yield. At the same time Cromwell acted as a conciliator within the army, trying to persuade those extremists who wanted to set up a democratic republic that the time was not ripe for so revolutionary a change. His idea was to have a constitutional monarchy, a middle-class parliament, and a tolerant church. But he reckoned without the king, who took advantage of the disputes among his enemies to escape from the mainland to the Isle of Wight and from there to incite the Royalists both in England and in Scotland to a fresh civil war, which was to break out early in 1648.

Second Civil War: Execution of Charles I (1649)

Parliament and its army now more or less closed ranks. While Sir Thomas Fairfax dealt with Royalist risings in southeast England, Cromwell first suppressed a rebellion in Wales and then marched north to meet the Scots. He won a series of decisive victories over the larger Scottish army in Lancashire (August 1648), marking his first major success as an independent commander. The temper of the army had been set aflame by the king's revival of war and the Royalists' breach of faith. While the Presbyterians in Parliament still hoped to reach agreement with Charles I, Cromwell's son-in-law Henry Ireton led a movement to punish the king and overthrow the old monarchy. In December 1648, the southern army "purged" the Commons of its Presbyterian members and demanded the trial of the king.

During the autumn Cromwell had followed his retreating enemy into Scotland and restored order in Edinburgh, but he had lingered in the north until General Fairfax recalled him to London. He was hesitating over his political attitude. But when he got back to the capital he approved of the purge and took charge of the arrangements to bring Charles I under guard to his trial. Fairfax having washed his hands of all political matters, Cromwell accepted the responsibilities of leadership. He realized that the trial of the king would mean his death in payment for the blood shed in the civil wars. Once he made up his mind, Cromwell acted ruthlessly, and it was largely by his personal efforts that the trial by what was in effect a revolutionary tribunal was pressed through and the king was condemned to death.

On January 30, 1649, King Charles I was beheaded on a block in view of a silent crowd gathered in front of the Banquet Hall of Whitehall Palace. The king's noble death proved a rallying point for his supporters.

Campaigns in Ireland and Scotland (1649-1651)

After the execution of Charles I, England became a republic. Cromwell was appointed a member of the Council of State and was its first chairman. Meanwhile the Royalists had gained control of most of Ireland, which they hoped to use as a base for an invasion of England. Cromwell was persuaded to take command of an expeditionary force, which landed at Dublin on Aug. 15, 1649. After occupying Dublin, he led his army north and laid siege to Drogheda. On September 10-11 his army stormed the town and deliberately massacred most of the surviving garrison, which had surrendered. Cromwell later wrote that the mass murder at Drogheda was "a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches ...." The terrible slaughter at Drogheda induced some other Irish garrisons to surrender. In October the garrison at Wexford repulsed Cromwell's army but was overcome; here again mass murder was the order of the day. By the end of the year most of the eastern coast of Ireland was in Cromwell's hands. Early in 1650 he marched his army inland, ravaging the land and slaughtering the populace regardless of age or sex. By the time Cromwell was recalled to London in 1650, much of Ireland had fallen victim to Cromwell's depredations.

In 1651 Cromwell's government adopted a policy of genocide against the Irish. All Irish landholdings (except in barren Connacht) were confiscated, and most of the populace was driven into the wilds of Connacht to die of starvation and pestilence.

The English republic was also threatened with trouble in Scotland, where the Presbyterian "Covenanters" had come to terms with Charles I's eldest son, Charles II. General Fairfax resigned rather than invade Scotland, and Cromwell was invited to take his place as commander in chief. He crossed the Scottish border on July 22, 1650, but at first made little headway against the defensive strategy of the Scottish commander. As in Ireland his campaign was supported by English sea power, the importance of which he appreciated. Although cut off from his English base, Cromwell won a great victory at Dunbar (30 miles [48 km] east of Edinburgh) on Sept. 3, 1650. During the winter he was taken ill and the army bogged down. But the following summer he outmaneuvered the Scots who, rather than allow themselves to have their lines of communication cut, followed the young King Charles II into England. Cromwell surrounded and destroyed the Scottish army at Worcester on Sept. 3, 1651. Cromwell was welcomed as a hero on his return to London.

Creating the Protectorate (1653)

During the next two years the quarrel between Parliament and army, which had begun in 1647, was revived. The army was now radically inclined, seeking reform in Church and State. Cromwell became the spokesman of the army's point of view, although once again he tried first to act as conciliator between the two sides. The soldiers asked that the remnant of the original "Long Parliament" of 1640, now known as "the Rump," should be dissolved and a fresh reformist one-chamber Parliament be elected. Other sections of the community had tired of the long naval war then in progress against the Dutch Republic (1652-1654), in which Cromwell's army had no part and indeed resented as a fratricidal war against fellow Protestants. When negotiations for the election of a new Parliament broke down, Cromwell forcibly dissolved the Rump on April 20, 1653. However he did not at once himself seize political power. He decided instead to invite the Independent churches to nominate members of a Puritan Assembly, which should exercise both executive and legislative powers.

The Nominated Parliament set about reform with enthusiasm, but was soon split between a radical and a conservative wing. When after a tussle the conservative wing gained control in December 1653, the majority resigned their powers into Cromwell's hands. This coup d'état was engineered by Cromwell's second-in-command, John Lambert; and it was Lambert who drew up an "Instrument of Government" as a new constitution for the English commonwealth. This constitution provided for an elected parliament, a nominated council of state, and a lord protector as chief executive officer. Cromwell was offered and accepted the post of lord protector, not as a dictator but as the first servant of the Commonwealth of England, united with conquered Scotland and Ireland.

Lord Protector

For the remaining five years of his life Cromwell governed as lord protector, sometimes with the help of a parliament, sometimes without it. But like the kings of old, he was always dependent upon the advice and support of his Council of State, or later, Privy Council. At its opening session the Protectorate Parliament (September 1654-January 1655) was more concerned about revising the new constitution than about passing legislation. Differences between protector and parliament encouraged the Royalists. In January 1655, Cromwell dissolved this parliament. A rebellion broke out in March 1655. Though it was easily suppressed, the country was divided into ten districts, each under a major general.

Meanwhile England was involved in a fresh war, this time waged against the Spanish Empire, and Cromwell, needed the money, called a new Parliament to vote him supplies. It met in fall 1656; Cromwell argued on behalf of his policies but met with considerable opposition, especially from out-and-out republicans who objected to the whole idea of the Protectorate. The new House was therefore in effect "purged" of 160 members, many of whom refused to take an oath to uphold the structure of the Protectorate. The remaining members, on the whole, cooperated with Cromwell and his Council of State. But they were opposed to the system of local government through the major generals. Rather than sustain military rule, a group of lawyers and civilians proposed to create a constitutional monarchy and a Puritan Church, with Cromwell as king.

Cromwell was tempted by the offer of a crown, but eventually, largely because of the opposition of his old friends and supporters in the army, he refused it. Nevertheless a new constitution was promulgated providing for a revived House of Lords; a Lower House, to which all except known royalists were to be admitted; a Privy Council, replacing the Council of State; and certain restrictions on the powers of the lord protector and on freedom of religion. This constitution, originally called "the Humble Petition and Advice" came into effect in June 1657. A House of Lords was nominated, but the second Protectorate House of Commons, reinforced by the excluded members and deprived of Cromwell's friends whom he had promoted to the upper House, met in January 1658, to be the scene of an immediate attack launched upon the Protector by the republicans and aiming to tear the new constitution to pieces.

Cromwell was at last angered beyond restraint. Convinced that a fresh squabble in Parliament would be followed by a Royalist invasion, he promptly dissolved Parliament on Feb. 4, 1658.

For the last few months of his life Cromwell governed without a parliament. The war (with France) against Spain, thanks to naval victories, was virtually won. A naval expedition to the West Indies resulted in the capture of Jamaica from Spain (May 1655), and Cromwell tried to convert it into a flourishing British colony. This was the only solid result of his dreams of a Protestant overseas empire; but in June 1658 he also obtained the port of Dunkirk as payment for the French alliance. After the peace with Holland in 1654 commerce had expanded.

Cromwell fought hard against the more bigoted Puritans to maintain genuine freedom for the Christian religion, permitting even Episcopalians and Roman Catholics to worship in private houses. He allowed the Jews to settle in England for the first time since they had been expelled by King Edward I. He appointed good judges and pressed his legal advisers to reform the law and make it less expensive. He promoted education; for a time he was chancellor of Oxford University and helped to found a college at Durham.

Cromwell's strong personality and the backing of the army held the Commonmwealth together and preserved internal peace. For he had to contend with republican plotters as well as discontented Royalists and foreign enemies. Worn out, he died in London of malaria on September 3, 1658. On his deathbed he named his ineffective son Richard Cromwell (1626-1712) his successor; he lasted 8 months.

Image and reputation

After the king was restored, in 1661, Oliver Cromwell's body was dug up and he was hanged as a traitor.

During his lifetime, some tracts painted him as a hypocrite motivated by power — for example, The Machiavilian Cromwell and The Juglers Discovered, both part of an attack on Cromwell by the Levellers after 1647, present him as a Machiavellian figure. After his death and public disgrace there were many denunciations and a few positive portrayals, such as John Spittlehouse's A Warning Piece Discharged which compared him to Moses, rescuing the English by taking them safely through the Red Sea of the civil wars. The great roayalist historian Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, in his History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1667) declared that Cromwell "will be looked upon by posterity as a brave bad man". Hyde argued that Cromwell's rise to power had been helped not only by his great spirit and energy, but also by his ruthlessness.

In the early 18th century, Cromwell’s image began to be adopted and reshaped by the Whigs, an out-party opposing the Tories around the Hanoverian kings. They stressed Cromwell as republican, a theme often adopted by American historians.

During the early 19th century, Cromwell's image was glorified by Romantic artists and poets. French author Victor Hugo's 1827 play Cromwell was representative of the French romantic movement, showing Cromwell as a ruthless yet dynamic Romantic hero. The major breakthrough came at the hands of a leading Romantic historian, Thomas Carlyle who in the 1840s by saw Cromwell as the hero in a battle between good and evil. Carlyle used Cromwell as a model for restoring morality to the Victorian era that otherwise was prone to timidity, meaningless rhetoric, and moral compromise.

By the late 18th century, Carlyle’s portrayal of Cromwell, stressing the centrality of puritan morality and earnestness, had become assimilated into mainstream historiography. Oxford's outstanding research scholar on the era Samuel Rawson Gardiner concluded that "the man — it is ever so with the noblest — was greater than his work". Gardiner demonstrated Cromwell’s dynamic and mercurial character, and his role in ridding England of obsolete absolutism, while downplaying Cromwell’s intense religiosity. Gardner showed Cromwell’s aggressive foreign policy was a foretaste Victorian imperial expansion, with Gardiner stressing his “constancy of effort to make England great by land and sea”.

In the mid-20th century, Cromwell's reputation was often shaped by the rise of dictators like Mussolini and Hitler. Scholar Ernest Barker compared the Independents to the Nazis. Wilbur Cortez Abott, a Harvard professor, compiled and edited a multi-volume collection of Cromwell's letters and speeches, but suggested Cromwell had fascist tendencies. However, subsequent historians such as John Morrill have criticised both Abbott's interpretation of Cromwell and his editorial approach.

More recent scholars have reappraised Cromwell’s religiosity and his authoritarian style. Austin Woolrych explored the issue of "dictatorship" in depth, arguing that Cromwell was subject to two conflicting forces: his obligation to the army and his desire to achieve a lasting settlement by winning back the confidence of the political nation as a whole. Woolrych argued that the dictatorial elements of Cromwell's rule stemmed not so much from its military origins or the participation of army officers in civil government, as from his constant commitment to the interest of the people of God and his conviction that suppressing vice and encouraging virtue constituted the chief end of government.

Historians such as John Morrill, Blair Worden and J.C. Davis have explored Cromwell's religious rhetoricm showing his speeches are suffused with biblical references, and arguing that his radical actions were driven by his zeal for godly reformation.

Biographies

• Ashley, Maurice. The Greatness of Oliver Cromwell (1958). online edition
• Bennett, Martyn. Oliver Cromwell (2006), ISBN 0-415-31922-6. excerpt and text search
• Clifford, Alan. Oliver Cromwell: the lessons and legacy of the Protectorate (1999), ISBN 0-9526716-2-X. praises his religiousity
• Davis, J. C. Oliver Cromwell (2001), ISBN 0-340-73118-4.
• Drinkwater John. Oliver Cromwell, a Character Study (2007) excerpts and text search
• Fraser, Antonia. Cromwell, Our Chief of Men, and Cromwell: the Lord Protector (1973), ISBN 0-7538-1331-9. Popular narrative. excerpt and text search
• Gardiner, Samuel Rawson. Oliver Cromwell (1901). ISBN 1-4179-4961-9. Classic biography. online edition
• Gaunt, Peter. Oliver Cromwell (1996), ISBN 0-631-18356-6. Short biography.
• Hill, Christopher. God's Englishman: Oliver Cromwell And The English Revolution (1970), ISBN 0-297-00043-8.
• Hirst, Derek. "The Lord Protector, 1653-8", in Morrill, John (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1990), ISBN 0-582-01675-4
• Mason, James and Angela Leonard. Oliver Cromwell (1998), ISBN 0-582-29734-6.
• Morrill, John. "Cromwell, Oliver (1599–1658)", in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (2004) online to subscribers
• Morrill, John. "The Making of Oliver Cromwell", in Morrill, John (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1990), ISBN 0-582-01675-4.
• Paul, Robert. The Lord Protector: Religion And Politics In The Life of Oliver Cromwell. (1958) online edition
• Wedgwood, C.V. Oliver Cromwell (1939), popular ISBN 0-7156-0656-5.
• Worden, Blair (1985). "Oliver Cromwell and the sin of Achan", in Beales, D. and Best, G. (eds.) History, Society and the Churches, ISBN 0-521-02189-8.

Political studies

• Adamson, John . "Oliver Cromwell and the Long Parliament", in Morrill, John (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1990)
• Adamson, John. "The English Nobility and the Projected Settlement of 1647", in Historical Journal, (1987) v30#3.
• Firth, C.H. Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England (1900). full text online
• Smith, David, ed. Oliver Cromwell and the Interregnum (2003), ISBN 0-631-22725-3.
• Smith, David. Oliver Cromwell: Politics and Religion in the English Revolution 1640-1658 (1992) excerpt and text search
• Worden, Blair. The Rump Parliament (1977), ISBN 0-521-29213-1.

Military studies

• Durston, Christopher. "'Settling the Hearts and Quieting the Minds of All Good People': the Major-generals and the Puritan Minorities of Interregnum England", in History 2000 85(278): pp.247-267, ISSN 0018-2648 . Full text online at Ebsco
• Durston, Christopher. "The Fall of Cromwell's Major-Generals", in English Historical Review 1998 113(450): pp.18-37, ISSN 0013-8266
• Firth, C.H. Cromwell's Army (1902), online edition
• Gillingham, J. Portrait Of A Soldier: Cromwell (1976), ISBN 0-297-77148-5.
• Kenyon, John & Ohlmeyer, Jane, eds. The Civil Wars: A Military History of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1638-1660 (2000), ISBN 0-19-280278-X. [2]
• Kitson, Frank (2004). Old Ironsides: The Military Biography of Oliver Cromwell (2004), ISBN 0-297-84688-4.
• Marshall, Alan. Oliver Cromwell: Soldier: The Military Life of a Revolutionary at War (2004), ISBN 1-85753-343-7.
• Woolrych, Austin. "The Cromwellian Protectorate: a Military Dictatorship?" in History 1990 75(244): 207-231, ISSN 0018-2648 . Full text online at Ebsco.
• Woolrych, Austin. "Cromwell as a soldier", in Morrill, John (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution (1990)
• Woolrych, Austin. Soldiers and Statesmen: the General Council of the Army and its Debates (1987), ISBN 0-19-822752-3.
• Young, Peter and Richard Holmes. The English Civil War, (2000) ISBN 1-84022-222-0.

Surveys of era

• Coward, Barry. The Cromwellian Protectorate (2002) ISBN 0-7190-4317-4.
• Coward, Barry The Stuart Age: England, 1603-1714, (2003). ISBN 0-582-77251-6. Survey of political history of the era.
• Davies, Godfrey. The Early Stuarts, 1603-1660 (1959). online. Political, religious, and diplomatic overview of the era.
• Korr, Charles P. Cromwell and the New Model Foreign Policy: England's Policy toward France, 1649-1658 (1975) ISBN 0-520-02281-5. online
• Macinnes, Allan. The British Revolution, 1629-1660 (2005) ISBN 0-333-59750-8.
• Morrill, John. "Cromwell and his contemporaries". In Morrill, John (ed.), Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution ((1990) ISBN 0-582-01675-4.
• Trevor-Roper, Hugh. Oliver Cromwell and his Parliaments, in his Religion, the Reformation and Social Change (1967). Template:PDFlink
• Venning, Timothy. Cromwellian Foreign Policy (1995) ISBN 0-333-63388-1.
• Woolrych, Austin. Commonwealth to Protectorate (1982), ISBN 0-19-822659-4.
• Woolrych, Austin. Britain in Revolution 1625-1660 (2002), ISBN 0-19-927268-6.

Historiography

• Morrill, John. "Textualizing and Contextualizing Cromwell", in Historical Journal 1990 33(3): pp.629-639. ISSN 0018-246X . in Jstor Examines the Carlyle and Abbott editions.
• Worden, Blair. "Thomas Carlyle and Oliver Cromwell", in Proceedings Of The British Academy(2000) 105: pp.131-170. ISSN 0068-1202 .
• Worden, Blair. Roundhead Reputations: the English Civil Wars and the passions of posterity (2001), ISBN 0-14-100694-3.

Primary sources

• Abbott, W.C., ed. Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, 4 vols. (1937-47).The standard academic reference for Cromwell's own words. online edition.
• Carlyle, Thomas, ed. Oliver Cromwell's letters and speeches, with elucidations. (1904 edition),online edition
• Haykin, Michael A. G. ed. To Honour God: The Spirituality of Oliver Cromwell (1999). ISBN 1-894400-03-8. Excerpts from Cromwell's religious writings.
• Roots, Ivan. Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (1989, ISBN 0-460-01254-1.