1599 - 1658
OLIVER CROMWELL, the leader of the English Revolution, died
on 3rd
September 1658. Cromwell, the MP for Huntingdon, was the
leading Parliamentary commander during the English Civil War, which began in
1642 and ended in1649 with the trial and execution of Charles Stuart and the
abolition of the monarchy. The Republic
of England, or Commonwealth as it
was styled in English, was proclaimed soon after.
The fighting had taken a fearful toll in lives and property
in England, Wales,
Scotland and Ireland.
The death toll, including civilians, came to around 870,000, some 11.6 per cent
of the pre-Civil War population. Material damage was immense, particularly in Ireland.
In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became head of state, the Lord Protector.
Royalist hopes of a counter-revolution were smashed with the
defeat of their forces at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Cromwell represented
the most militant elements amongst the Puritan bourgeois gentry. While in
favour of reform they feared social upheaval that could overturn their own
exclusive right to private property.
The democratic movement born from the New Model Army, the
Levellers, was crushed by Cromwell’s supporters and the most militant regiments
sent to Ireland.
Attempts to set up farming co-operatives by the Diggers, many of whom were also
former soldiers, were also suppressed.
The republic Cromwell led included England,
Wales, Scotland
and Ireland,
the port of Dunkirk
and colonies in New England and the Caribbean.
During its brief life the Commonwealth became a force in Europe.
Culturally it inspired the great poetry of Milton and Marvell and other radical
and pacifist religious movements like the Quakers who are still with us today.
Oliver Cromwell was succeeded by his son, Richard. Richard
was neither a politician nor a soldier. Unable to reconcile republican generals
with the demands of the rich merchants and landowners to curb the influence of
the New Model Army, Richard Cromwell resigned the following year. The
government collapsed and the monarchy was restored in 1660. Oliver Cromwell’s
death invoked genuine mourning. His funeral, modelled on that of the King of
Spain, was the biggest London had
ever witnessed.
Two years later his body was dug up and ritually hanged in
public at Tyburn. All those still alive who had signed Charles Stuart’s death
warrant, apart from a handful that managed to flee the country, were hanged,
drawn and quartered. And the “good old cause” they had fought for was buried
with them. It was clear that a great revolution had taken place. It is equally
clear that it was incomplete.
For communists the English Revolution is a paramount
importance. It influenced the thinking of the American revolutionaries. The
Victorian utopian socialist and co-operator, Robert Owen, embodied some of the
ideas of the Digger philosopher, Gerrard Winstanley, in his writings. And even
today the question of the monarchy and the House of Lords is still unresolved.
