How is Cromwell regarded in Britain today?
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inamourada_flux — 19 years ago(December 10, 2006 02:54 PM)
Thank you for the generalisation. I'm 20 (and English), and first saw this film when I was younger than 15. I love it, and I have a huge passion for history and I know many under 30's who share my sentiments.
What on earth is a 'Baby Ruth'?
My care is like my shadow in the sun. -
jon314 — 19 years ago(December 11, 2006 02:27 PM)
Yes it is a generalisation hence the word 'most', and I believe the original question specifically asks for such a generalisation. I am also in my early 20s, live in England, saw this film when I was about 8 (or most of it, I was only 8 after all!) and am a history buff - what's your point? We are definitely in a minority. Are you seriously telling me that you think otherwise?
I am currently at university and am shocked at, frankly, how thick my co-eds are. The other day someone asked me if I had ever heard of someone called 'Joseph Stal-in'.
Now, due to the nature of the medium there is no way of writing these things without sounding pompous and elitist - which I definitely am not - however I guess I'm just gonna have to live with it!
And if you don't know what a Baby Ruth is, you need to see Goonies!(A little Americanisation is fine!) -
inamourada_flux — 19 years ago(December 21, 2006 04:27 PM)
Seen The Goonies. Don't remember anything about Baby Ruths - mind, it was a very long time ago.
I guess you're right, we're are in a minority. I'm not used to that.
I'm not a university student. I would have loved to have gone to university to study history (though the 17th century is not my specialty I must admit) but I simply could not afford to do so. Therefore I can't have my dream of becoming a great historian and shall have to settle for marriage with a rich businessman!
Apologies, total deviation from the subject there.
My care is like my shadow in the sun. -
ecjcasey — 19 years ago(December 14, 2006 10:54 AM)
I am from the UK and I guess I am a monarchist in that I wouldn't like to be without our Royal family. I am not, however, an absolute monarchist, and thus can appreciate Cromwell for finishing off what the Magna Carta started. He is indeed despised in Ireland for Drogheda and Wexford, and rightly so. I think Charles I inherited his views on the divine right of monarchs from his father and thus can't be held entirely accountable, but I think the fact the revolution happened at all means he must have been doing something pretty wrong!! In general the Stewarts were a distinct low point in our Royal family's history.
I would say that more people I know in the UK are republicans rather than monarchists and I've certainly had some heated arguments justifying myself and my support for the Royals. I agree completely with all the comments above concerning historical knowledge amongst people these days - our country has an immense heritage & history and the ignorance of an awful lot of people to basic aspects of it is astonishing. I seem to recall a poll recently where something like only 25% of schoolchildren asked knew it was Charles I who was beheaded. -
mwjergs-1 — 19 years ago(December 19, 2006 10:58 AM)
I am an American and an instructor of World History on the high school level. We cover this part of history quite extensively in our curriculum. I can see why Cromwell would be such a polarizing figure.
Charles I did inherit his ideas of divine right from his father, James I. But, it can be argued that the Tudor monarchs, (Henry and Elizabeth) also believed in Divine Right but still understood the value of a good relationship with the Parliament. Among the reasons for hatred towards Charles would include the dissolution of Parliament for 11 years, suspension of habeus corpus, and his abuse of absolute power. The led to the English Civil War and the eventual arrest of Charles for treason against the nation. He had enlisted aid from Scotland and France to help put down the Parliamentary rebellion.
The hope of Cromwell that Parliament itself would be able to rule instead of a monarch proved to be impractical and the "Lord Protector" was instituted. Cronwell instilled his Puritain views on England and maintained strict control of the nation. The board has already pointed out why certain groups would not be fond of Cromwell's rule. However it is important to note that even though England restores the moarch with Charles II, the monarchy is forever a changed position in Britain. -
Jonathan Dore — 19 years ago(December 20, 2006 11:00 PM)
It's important to realize that any hostility towards Cromwell among Britons today is unlikely to be because of his role in the execution of Charles I (though that was the reason for most of the previous three centuries). The emotional charge of that event is entirely dissipated. Among English people today (I am one), and especially those on the left (I am one too), hostility towards Cromwell is almost entirely due to the guilt we are supposed to feel for his execution of soldiers at Drogheda and Wexford in 1649 a harsh, but not unusual act at that time, but which has since been made into a symbol bearing the weight of every act of oppression visited upon the Irish since the Normans crossed the water in 1171.
For those who refuse to allow their assessment of Cromwell to be hijacked by this event, there is much to celebrate. He was probably our greatest general, and a field tactician of genius (and the Scots, by the way, unlike the Irish, have no cause for complaint they were beaten fair and square on the battlefield, and at Dunbar, well against the odds; Cromwell certainly invaded Scotland, but by the time he did so England had already been invaded by Scottish Royalist armies, and the following year would be again a fact often conveniently overlooked).
The institution of the major-generals was a misjudgement, but Cromwell was not, as he is popularly imagined, a tyrant. I got rather annoyed when Simon Schama, who should know better, described him as a religious bigot (in his "History of Britain"), which is to apply a 21st century sensibility to the 17th. By the standards of his time, Cromwell was among the least religiously bigoted people involved in the Civil War, the Republic, or the Protectorate, of any party. Religiously he was an independent, a "seeker". He also brought about the return of the Jews to England for the first time since their expulsion in 1290.
Nor was he a killjoy Puritan. He was always more moderate and forgiving than the succession of grisly, presbyterian-dominated parliaments that he brought into being before putting them out of their misery (and who were the real "ban-Christmas" brigade). He had a lifelong passion for music.
There is something poignant in his refusal of the crown when it was offered him in 1657, even when he realized it would probably stabilize the country, but the real tragedy of his rule is that his moderation led him to pass up the opportunity of a truly radical solution to the problem of who would succeed him: a true democracy, based on universal suffrage and backed by public education, as the Levellers proposed in the Putney debates.
For anyone interested in one of the true greats of English history, I highly recommend Antonia Fraser's biography, "Cromwell, Our Chief of Men". -
dsbhill — 19 years ago(December 23, 2006 12:20 AM)
People, I am really enjoying your comments as I am rewatching Cromwell tonight
And I must say my knowledge of him is limited but I have read and heard that he did some fairly rotten things in Ireland .by the same token though, did not the Irish before that do some horrible things to Cromwell's people or something to that effect?
He really is a fascinating man and I think really the English should be proud of him..warts and all..
Of course, I am a Western Canadian and the only heroes we have around here are Hockey playersha ha ha -
Jonathan Dore — 19 years ago(December 30, 2006 10:18 AM)
Yes, dsbhill, the immediate background to Cromwell's invasion of Ireland was James I's "plantation" of protestant settlers in Ulster in 1607 (which is the reason protestants form the majority in that corner of the island today), confiscating land from the Irish inhabitants to do so. The inevitable discontent boiled over in 1641 in a rising in which about 4,000 protestant settlers were massacred. Feelings of English-nationalist anti-Catholicism, inflamed by this episode, were further stoked four years later by letters from Charles I, captured after the Battle of Naseby, which showed he had been planning to bring over an Irish army to fight for him in England. The fusion of a defensive nationalism, anti-Catholicism, and a belief that they were exacting retribution for the 1641 massacres makes up the essential background to understanding the mindset of the English army at Drogheda and Wexford.
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grant_sheehan100 — 19 years ago(February 17, 2007 06:46 AM)
Cromwell was a criminal, he committed regicide which in my view is the greatest crime a man can committ. Charles showed he could be a good political leader and his eleven year rule was very harmonious. By 1630 he had made peace with both Spain and France. Charles was ahead of his time when it came to religion. He took the advice of his father James and tried to steer a middle course between protestantism and catholicism whichalienated both groups and bigoted individuals such as Cromwell could not compromise on issues such as religion. Parliament was just as much to blame for the civil war as Charles. When it came to foreign policy they were happy to support the war between Charles and Spain but were not prepared to pay for it and givehim the subsidies that were his by right. In my view Cromwell executed an able king who could have been counselled to make better decisions by his more moderate ministers such as Edward Hyde. During Charles' personal rule he increased poor relief tremendously and sought to reduce unemployment. Parliament were stubbornly arrogant and too hasty to act on an irish rebellion that falsely claimed to be acting in the name of the king.
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youngian67 — 19 years ago(March 11, 2007 08:36 AM)
However you judge Cromwell, the English civil war (a British isles civil war in reality) gave rise to some remarkable political thinking (as already mentioned the Levellers and the Putney debates) for the time.
It was the first time in a modrn Europe that ideas of equality and universal democracy began to gain currency.
Those ideas would live on in the French and American revolutions in the next century and beyond. -
lmcvo — 19 years ago(March 30, 2007 07:41 AM)
A lot of interesting discussion on this thread. Thanks to everyone for expressing their views and helping me to learn more about a fascinating period in English history, but frankly also in Western Civilization.
I teach Christian Church History in a Christian school in the States. I love to use movies (I don't have time to show the whole things, but use clips) in class especially with the current generation of students. I use A Man for All Seasons and Cromwell. I always give the caveat: "Remember this is Hollywood, so take the glittering generalities with a grain of salt."
One unfortunate part of this thread is the branding of Cromwell as a religious bigot, while ignoring the fact that the Stuarts weren't just governmental tyrants, they were also religious "bigots," so to speak Roman Catholic ones. Actually, I wouldn't call them bigots, myself, but if you label Cromwell a bigot on one side, you must be fair and recognize the other side. Unfortuantely, since the Reformation, we've seen atrocities aplenty on both sides of the Catholic-Protestant divide. There is guilt aplenty to go around. The Stuarts and the Puritans were products of their times. Cromwell was reacting and he overreacted, yes, to the atrocities of the Roman Catholic Stuarts. Unfortunately, as almost always happens in such cases, he ended up committing atrocities of his own.
The goal of all this shouldn't ever be to dig up corpses and whip them. What good does that do? The goal of historical education should be to learn from the past, avoid the mistakes of that past, and to do better in the future. Calling Cromwell a "prick" isn't productive toward any of that.
By the way, while I love Christmas, myself, and wouldn't want it to ever be canceled, it's good to remember why the Puritans overreacted and canceled Christmas it had become almost a drunken orgy reminiscent of the old Saturnalia that Christmas was supposed to replace at that time of year. Again these people were a product of their times! It's like Pope's warning: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." If we study history, we must do a complete job of it incomplete learning leads to inaccurate bias.
By the way, I also use excerpts from El Cid. Yes, I'm aware of the Christian bias and the glossing-over of anti-Muslim atrocities in that film. I also point that out. Again product of the time. There have been a few Muslim atrocites, too, as we all know.
When I first started using some of these older movies in class, I was afraid the students would be bored. Nope. While I only showed excerpts from El Cid, a group of boys were so caught up in the battle scenes, they asked to borrow the DVD for a Friday night video party and I obliged them. -
obiewanshinobi — 19 years ago(April 02, 2007 04:35 PM)
Funny you should talk, lmvcvo, I attended a Bob Jones School for one year in High School and they educated me about the Christian Church plenty. How it was God's will that the Spanish be defeated with their invasion attempt and about how Cromwell truly was a good man. While you hasteningly defend Cromwell by reverse action (Catholics were bad too!) you feed your students crap that shines nothing but a kind light (the film: Cromwell) and pretend that what Cromwell did was some extraordinary thing. You are exactly like Bob Jones in this respect, and you should be ashamed of your destruction of history.
The fact of the matter is that England transplanted Irish lands for their own benefit. Ireland got whipped into a revolt and slaughtered English landowners. England then blew it out of proportion and claimed it as a religious genocide. It was England who started things by transplanting their people to Irish Lands, and it was England who made Ireland's embarrassing small scale revolution into a mass religious genocide. There isn't 50/50 blame on every issue, the English government was clearly the most in the wrong. Do you forget about this to appease your ideals and say, "it happened both ways" without actually considering the facts?
To evaluate what happened in the 1600s in Irish-British relations and to say it happened on a fair basis is completely wrong. The English government took steps to make sure that religion and war be intertwined for the rest of the millenium, and the chaos spawned from England's decisions caused suffering on an enormous level. -
lmcvo — 18 years ago(April 11, 2007 02:35 PM)
First of all, our school is very different than a Bob Jones school. We have a strong intellectual tradition as well as a faith tradition. The perspective that I teach from is far different than the perspective found in a Bob Jones textbook.
Second, how dare you presume to know what I feed my students? You've never been in my classroom. How do you know how I use the clips from Cromwell? How do you know the commentary that I provide all along as I use the clips?
Third, where in my posting did I say that what happened in Irish-British relations in the 1600s happened on a fair basis? I didn't even mention Irish-British relations. I said that there was also guilt on the part of the Stuarts leading up to the English Civil War.
Fourth, one thing you're obviously not aware of is that I spend two days toward the end of the semester focusing on Catholic-Protestant relations in Northern Ireland. You're also not aware that in my World History class, I spend a couple of days severely critiquing English treatment of the Scottish, Welsh, Irish, the Boers, and other peoples.
Maybe you should consider thinking first before you begin to tear people apart on these boards. I dare say that I teach on this subject from a far more balanced point of view than your obviously one-sided view. -
Koncorde — 18 years ago(May 01, 2007 03:09 PM)
Regarding the British "transplanting" people to Ireland. The fact is some people believe Ireland (and we're talking since the Roman era) to be no more a seperate nation from the rest of Britain than you would consider Sicily less part of Italy.
The true trouble between the "nations" pre-dates anything to do with transplanting settlers, stretching back to the ages when Irish chieftans, in exchange for gold and weapons, would happily supply troops to any rebellion or uprising on the mainland (much the same way as the Scots routinely offered their help to any Frenchman with a claim to the English throne).
The true origin of the hostility is probably lost in time - but suffice to say that if the roles were reversed, there's no doubt the Irish would have done the same, and the Scots, and the Welsh.
The fact is we're all of the same race and stock, no matter how the Irish/Scots try to claim 'Celtic' roots we're all Britons who have since been muddied by invasion and inbreeding. -
aulfla76 — 17 years ago(July 17, 2008 10:39 PM)
"Koncorde on Tue May 1 2007 15:09:03
Regarding the British "transplanting" people to Ireland. The fact is some people believe Ireland (and we're talking since the Roman era) to be no more a seperate nation from the rest of Britain than you would consider Sicily less part of Italy.
The true trouble between the "nations" pre-dates anything to do with transplanting settlers, stretching back to the ages when Irish chieftans, in exchange for gold and weapons, would happily supply troops to any rebellion or uprising on the mainland (much the same way as the Scots routinely offered their help to any Frenchman with a claim to the English throne).
The true origin of the hostility is probably lost in time - but suffice to say that if the roles were reversed, there's no doubt the Irish would have done the same, and the Scots, and the Welsh.
The fact is we're all of the same race and stock, no matter how the Irish/Scots try to claim 'Celtic' roots we're all Britons who have since been muddied by invasion and inbreeding."
I must address this. I have not read anything this insidious, false and offensive for a long time. Even Hitler was true to his character and his ideology in 'Mein Kempf'.
Seriously? I must ask. Did you actually think this wishy-washy excuse would actually stand up? Really? Do you imagine that this makes England seem less like a despotic European principality with a recently lost Empire? Are you trying to impress your American friends?
I have to assume that you are British or irredeemably ignorant or just prone to telling ridiculous lies. Forgive me if I am wrong in either case.
I cannot speak for the Scots or the Welsh but I will speak for Ireland.
The "plantations" of Ireland by Cromwell (and previously executed plantations by Mary, Elizabeth I and James I) were criminal acts that contradicted English law and practice regarding property - let alone the moral ambiguity that it entailed. And it was ideologically unsound - it was the English philosopher John Locke who suggested that government had no right to arbitrarily dispose of private property. Notably, there were never such plantations in England. Seizure of private property by extra-legal means was far more rare in England but continually occured in Ireland. It was racism and theft from the very beginning. Irish people were quite simply the wrong kind of white for English politicians, aristocrats and monarchs. Just the same as Native Americans, Africans and Asians could never be white enough for the Empire that Britain amassed in subsequent years. We were not the kind of white that made one English/British. And we probably never will be. Your rather pallid justification that Irish chieftans were essentially part of a warlord culture neglects to mention that that is how the English nobility continued to function in England well into the eighteenth century. It is how all European nations functioned at the time.
Ireland and Britain may be geographically aligned but the continuing aggression, greed and smug self-importance of England has changed that alignment irrevocably. Mr. Cromwell's vision for Ireland was not that of Mr. Gladstone. He was a tyrannical, militaristic bigot and Ireland and the Irish were merely pawns in English political games. His little enterprise in Ireland exacerbated a long standing division beyond repair and created the conditions for future social, political and economic relations between England and Ireland that would continue to be based on a sometimes official, sometimes unofficial policy of sectarian exclusion. Conditions that were further exacerbated by the generations of British bully-boy tactics that we had supposed ended with Margaret Thatcher. These conditions forged the Irish nation in direct contradistinction to England. England made Ireland a separate nation by virtue of English greed, English spite and an unimaginably bloated sense of self-importance.
England created the hostility. A friend or a kinsman ceases to be a friend or a kinsman when he becomes a bully. That is where the hostility originates. Just in case you're still wondering.
And please do not presume to re-write Irish history with your own moral distortions. Ireland never made any claim to any territory outside of Ireland itself since it became a nation. The High King of Ireland exacted a tax upon the divided kingdoms of Britain but never actually occupied, claimed or planted Irishmen on one acre of Britain. England, on the other hand, was continually at war to prove it claims over Ireland and France from its very inception. And then went further afield in building their Empire. Theft, Murder and Tea sanctioned by a sanctimonious national character. Hmmm. Classy.
Who, might I enquire, are these "some people" who believe Ireland to still be a part of the UK? Are they Irish? Are they weak willed Irish Lady Di devotees? Marching enthusiasts from Ulster? Or are they British people who cannot imagine a world without their old benevolently racis -
blakjak_cc — 14 years ago(April 10, 2011 12:59 PM)
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