During the past 1,000 years, England has been without a monarch only once: between 1649 and 1660, when a short-lived republican government replaced the king as a result of the English civil war.
The “lord protector” of England during most of this period was Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658), a zealous Puritan who had risen from obscurity to lead the fight against the monarchy. Cromwell was the driving force behind both the revolution and the subsequent commonwealth, and the experiment quickly fizzled after his death.
Cromwell was born near Cambridge, England, into a relatively low-status landowning family. Many details of his early life are unknown, but he appeared to experience a religious awakening in the 1630s, when he became a committed Puritan.
At the time, England was one of the most tranquil corners of Europe. But religious and political disputes would put an abrupt end to peace in 1642, when a conflict between Parliament and King Charles I (1600–1649) blossomed into war. The war pitted the parliamentarian (or Roundhead) faction against the supporters of the king (or Cavaliers). Roundheads included many Puritans, who viewed the king’s religious policies as too friendly to Catholicism. He contended that he possessed the “divine right” to rule and could ignore the legislature’s decrees, which also contributed to war.
Cromwell entered the war as the commander of a cavalry unit on the Roundhead side. Despite a lack of military experience, he played a major role in winning the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644. Nicknamed Old Ironsides for his military prowess, he was named second-in-command of Parliament’s New Model Army the next year.
After the Roundhead victory and the execution of the king in 1649, Cromwell was put in charge of the government. He pursued aggressive foreign and domestic policies, launching a brutal invasion of Ireland to reestablish English supremacy and passing laws closing theaters and enforcing Puritan ideas of virtue.
Cromwell ruled with the support of the army, but his death at age fifty-nine opened up divisions within the ranks of his supporters. Richard Cromwell (1626–1712), his son, lasted only a few months as lord protector before being ousted by the military. With total chaos looming, the military eventually invited the son of the executed monarch back to England, ending the commonwealth.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- One of Cromwell’s lesser-known acts was to repeal the law banning Jews from living in England, which had been imposed by King Edward I (1239–1307) four centuries earlier.
- After his death, Cromwell was interred in Westminster Abbey, the burial site of English kings. The honor was short-lived, however: In 1661, after the restoration of the monarchy, his remains were believed to have been transferred to an unmarked grave.
- Richard Cromwell left England when the military took over. He later wrote to his family from exile, and his letters to them are now held at the Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies Service at the Huntingdon Library in Huntingdon, England.
