
Oliver Cromwell, the man who wouldn’t be king - pepys
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2020/01/man-who-wouldn-t-be-king
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duxup
As someone growing up in the US where we think along the lines of the American
Revolution, Cromwell Co. come across as very confusing.

They go so far as to execute the king (that isn't something that seemed likely
had by some strange reason the American's captured the king (some good fan
fiction there)) and yet as far as I can tell really don't seem to have much of
a plan / do much to establish much at all after that, and sort of roll over at
the end.

It always seems very muddy with all sorts of religious motivations (that
admittedly I find hard to understand) from the outside.

Then again the tradition of 'Parliament' (speaking in a larger historical
sense) seems to swing wildly as far as its loyalty to the king, or lack of it,
power, or lack of power, and so forth.

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rjsw
Cromwell was one of the leaders of a Revolution. By the time of the American
one you had the example of this one as well as the French Revolution, anything
becomes easier to get right after a few iterations.

An alternative viewpoint to it being about religion is this [1].

[1] [https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-
re...](https://www.marxists.org/archive/hill-christopher/english-revolution/)

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war1025
The French Revolution came after the American one didn't it?

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rjsw
Shows how important the American one seems in Europe, I suppose.

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trianglem
This is a revisionist post

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Jedi72
I highly recommend Mike Duncans 'revolutions' podcast for a thorough and
entertaining history of Cromwell and the entire English revolution - as well
as the American revolution, French (my current season) and about 6 others.

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dharmon
If anyone besides me just sort of thinks of this as “a long long time ago”, to
put a timeframe I have a better grasp of on these events: Newton was 6 years
old when Charles I was beheaded.

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neonate
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200122223823/https://www.newst...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200122223823/https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2020/01/man-
who-wouldn-t-be-king)

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caiobegotti
Monty Python's take on Oliver Cromwell taught me all I needed to know about it
for quite a while, I admit:
[https://youtu.be/dBPf6P332uM](https://youtu.be/dBPf6P332uM)

