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December 04, 2004
Cromwell: A great Christian?
Our esteemed and infallible Leader, the Right Honourable Tony Blair, Member of Parliament, and Prime Misery - sorry - Minister proclaims Oliver Cromwell as a great Englishman and a great Christian. The first part of that may be debatable, provided you are prepared to overlook oath breaking, rebellion (actually mutiny!), Regicide, usurpation, dictatorship, and wholesale abuse of power; the second is, as far as I can see, not even worthy of consideration. Assuming that the Prime Minister even understands what it means to be a Christian, I fail utterly to see how a man who could use churches as stables, prisons, and warehouses for the materials of war - when he wasn't defacing them or blowing up altars and smashing windows - could even be considered a Christian, no matter how piously he attended church on a Sunday.
Cromwell was a man in a turbulent age, much influenced by the ravings of John Knox in Edinburgh, and it has to be questioned as to whether or not any of the radical "protestant" leadership of which Cromwell must be considered one, can be considered to have been servants of the Gospel as proclaimed by Christ. In our own time, Cromwell has a modern incarnation who is without doubt of the same "faith" and temperament - the Rev "Doctor" Ian Paisley. Their Gospel is not one of love, fellowship, and understanding, it is one of rabid hatred for all who disagree with their narrow and blinkered vision of God.
In fact, Cromwell is best seen as the Ayatollah Khomeini of his day.
Having lead the "New Model Army" (who Goose Stepped into towns and were fond of lining up the menfolk in one part, the women in another, and the children somewhere else - then using blackmail on them) to victory against the King, ably aided by the King's inability to take advice from anyone who knew what they were doing - and thus always relied on a set of incompetents who took him from one defeat to the next - Cromwell led the "court" which tried the King for treason and then ordered his death. When parliament failed to live up to his ideals - he called in the army (shades of what the King had tried to do earlier thus starting the Civil War) and disbanded parliament, retaining only the "Rump" - a group of "Presbyters" - of people who agreed with him. It was this group that suggested that he should assume the Crown. Showing perhaps the only bit of decency in him, Cromwell refused, but assumed the title of "Lord Protector". Dictator in anyone else's language.
So should we call him a great Christian?
Not unless your view of Christianity is the narrow, bigoted, fundamentalist sort who blows up the buildings of those who disagree with his interpretation of scripture. The sort of man who can spend an afternoon happily watching the distruction of religious symbols, order a gun fired through the Great Rose window of a cathedral - or even order the destruction (in Carlisle) of the entire nave of the cathedral to repair the city walls and castle.
Should we call him a "great" Englishman?
Not unless you count the shambles in Ireland, the divisions in Scotland, and the apostacy of much of the English family a triumph. Almost all of these are the legacy of Cromwell's actions and the minions he appointed to enforce his narrow views. What should warn us all is that Mr Blair thinks that this murderous, bigoted, and intolerant man was "great". It should tell you exactly what you need to know about Mr Blair's ambitions and leadership and everything you should know about his intentions if he has his way.
There is a very good reason why the "tomb" in Westminster Abbey contains only a skull. The London mob took their revenge on Cromwell's corpse for the misery, the hardship, and the oppression they suffered during the Civil War and the twelve years of the "Commonwealth". His head was all that remained when they had finished.
Posted by The Gray Monk at December 4, 2004 11:00 AM
Comments
I feel you may have fallen into the trap of judging a man of history by todays standards. This is a fatal error, and I wonder what you would make of the way the American war of independance or the cival war were thought, or for that matter the blanket bombing of German cities by the allies in WW2.
Please don't dismiss Cromwell quite so out of hand. It is quite possible that a parlimentary democracy might not even exist if it hadn't been for him
Posted by: adrian at December 4, 2004 04:02 PM