Oliver Cromwell — A Life: Vol I
From Origins to the Execution of a King
Inspired by John Buchan’s 1934 biography of Oliver Cromwell
Part I — Origins and Early Days
To quote John Buchan’s 1934 biography, Oliver Cromwell, “…stands in the first rank of greatness, as the apostle of liberty, the patron of all free communions, forgetting his attempts to found an established church and his staunch belief in a national discipline. Constitutionalists claim him as one of the pioneers of the parliamentary system, though he had little patience with government by debate, and played havoc with many parliaments. He has been hailed as a soldier-saint, in spite of notable blots on his scutcheon. He has been called a religious genius, but on his religion it is not easy to be dogmatic; like Bunyan’s Much afraid, when he went through the River none could understand what he said.”
I could go on but what Buchan is trying to say in his somewhat stiff prose, is that Oliver Cromwell was whatever people wanted him to be, which is a skill that only people with a true sense of themselves — whether hesitant or not, as Buchan goes on to describe Cromwell — can muster for the furtherance of their own aims and beliefs — if those aims and beliefs are honest and true — and by so doing enrich the nation. Lincoln, Churchill, and both Roosevelts, had that…
