Cromwell, Oliver

CROMWELL, OLIVER. - English statesman, b. 25 April 1599 at Huntingdon, d. 3 September 1658 in London. Educated from childhood in the strictest Puritanism, he felt from that time a deep aversion for the Anglican Church and for the king, who was its head. He began his political career in 1628 as representative of Huntingdon in the House of Commons. Later, during the Short Parliament (April-May 1640) and the Long Parliament (which lasted from November 1640 to March 1660, until after his death), he represented the city of Cambridge. A tenacious opponent of King Charles I, he began to make a name for himself at the outbreak of the civil war as a soldier, above all through the creation of a cavalry corps. The decisive victory of Naseby (1645), which deprived the king of the backbone of his army, was due in the greatest part to C.'s cavalry. Once negotiations with the king had begun, C. soon realized that a positive outcome of them would lead, sooner or later, to the victory of the Anglican Church, to the persecution of the Puritans and to the stripping of his personal position and that of the army. C. therefore saw no other way out except that of the king's death, because the mere exile and imprisonment of the sovereign would always have constituted a danger for the country. After the execution of Charles I (30 January 1649), C. became the unchallenged master of England with the title of "lord protector." He had thus attained an office that allowed him to struggle with every means for the triumph of his Puritan ideals, which had nourished and sustained him throughout his life, but he did not prove to be broad-minded and drew upon himself many enmities, stirring up a vast movement of opposition which, at his death, favored the monarchical restoration. He treated Catholics harshly and persecuted them in every way, requiring of them the oath of abjuration, on pain of the loss of two thirds of their patrimony and of almost all their civil rights. He also forbade the presence of Catholic priests on English soil.

Silvio Furlani