As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
There were three pillars in England who if named today would have people frowning as to their identities, but from them America would wrestle from her natal blood, to be born the child of that great Republican of England, Oliver Cromwell.
For all time, Oliver Cromwell is the greatest Englishman ever to be, for he set forth for all Englishmen the rights of the individual in all rights.
Before Cromwell, Eliot was thrown into prison by the despot, Charles I for 3 years, in a confinement of the worst torture. This was followed by Hampden who being informed, he would be taxed without Parliamentary consent as Charles I, decided he willed war upon the Dutch, refused to pay that tax..........and his young relative in Parliament named Oliver Cromwell was there.
The Right of Petition, which founded the basic rights for people was the first blow struck against despotism, but the crucial fracture which took place was in Scotland, when Archbishop Laud, under full ascent by Charles I, attempted to change Scotch Puritanism into Anglican prayer books.
The Scots rejected the attempt and instituted a Theocracy in Scotland, to which Charles made war on the Scots in the Bishop Wars.
The Vice Regent, Lord Strafford, returned from Ireland to ask Charles to bring Parliament back, as he needed funds to prosecute the war. The English in Parliament were in no mood, and at Newbum, the Scots drove the English from Scotland.
It was into this theater which Oliver Cromwell arose, not as a national leader, but as Puritan of the strongest moral convictions. Theodore Roosevelt sums up Oliver Cromwell's political and religious philosophy in this quote:
"Cromwell belonged among those earnest souls who indulged in the very honorable dream of a world where civil government and social life alike should be based upon the Commandments set forth in the Bible."
The Word of the Lord was quoted by these men, and their purpose was to implement the reign of God on earth, in order to bring all people to the liberty of a life at peace.
It was in this friction which had the Scots demanding war reparations, and Charles thinking Parliament was in session to pay war debt, but Parliament was convinced it was in session to put a firm leash upon Charles and his proxies, that Pym arose at the Commons, and immediately moved to impeach Lord Strafford, and with that Archbishop Laud found himself imprisoned in the Tower.
Strafford had been the greatest of champions for liberty, until Charles had paid the Lord his price, and then Strafford had become the most lethal enemy to his once friends.
The Lord defended his cause with all haughtiness, even the king backed him, until Charles decided that a Lord's head was better than his own, and with that a Bill of Attainder was signed by Parliament in a death warrant, and Strafford walked to the gallows a condemned offering for Charles.
With the death of Strafford, Parliament put a collar on Charles I in the firmest way, in expanding upon the Right of Petition, to include the right of Parliament to be elected every 3 years in taking away the king's power to rule without Parliament and Parliament could not be dissolved by the king's dismissal, but only by Parliament's consent.
All the graft of the king was then pursed in Ship Money, Tonnage and Poundage, and the ruthless Star Chamber, which was Charles appointed judicial tyrants was ended.
Charles I had no money without Parliament, no government without Parliament, no army without Parliament and no throne without Parliament.
It was a short fall for the House of Stuart from the House of Tudors in Henry and Elizabeth I, who ruled by favoring their upper and middle classes, while the Stuarts found only ways to persecute the public while confiscating money from them for wars.
With Charles though on the leash, but still fanged, Parliament had extracted what it could, and then paid off the Scot army and sent them home, as they were the stick which leveraged all from Charles I.
That leverage though ended with Oliver Cromwell joining the Root and Branch Party, the Remonstance, which would end Espicopacy and install Presbyterianism into English rule. That was responded to by Charles by entering Parliament in January 1642, ordering the five heads of Parliament starting with Pym and Hampden to be imprisoned in the Tower.
That action by Charles brought about one action and that was English Civil War.
Oliver Cromwell was Captain of the 67th Troop, and his kinsmen were all serving in the Parliamentary Army all led by the Earl of Essex.
The East and South of England were Parliamentary lands, the North and West were Royalists. In the course of three years of war, it would be Cromwell's Troops who would weld into the finest military of Europe.
Oliver Cromwell, a civilian past age 40, was a natural field general. He comprehended battle by instinct and by this he was not matched, and his only rival being Montrose.
At Edgehill, outside of London, Charles led his army which was superior in cavalry against Essex forces. In what is simply negligent, Prince Rupert was in charge of the Royalist cavalry on the right and smashed the Parliamentary cavalry and drove them scattered.
The problem in this was the Royalist left did the same in charging after fleeing horses. Rupert would attack the wagons in the rear, and that left the entire Parliament infantry on the field, facing the inferior Royalist infantry.
The Roundheads forced Charles forces back, and night fell with Rupert having gathered his cavalry, but Charles had been checked.
Cromwell recruited heavily, in men who were religious, of superior intelligence, and who were moved not by money, but by duty. His troops never lost as they were equal to the gentry they faced and were of moral courage.
Religious fervor, training, morality and iron discipline. This was Oliver Cromwell's army. His men were paid, fed and armed. It was this duality which his friend Sir Thomas Fairfax martailed their forces.
Heavy fines on the Royalists, kept the Cromwell Corp in the field and using rapid moving, heavy cavalry to shock the enemy lines, was his maul blow to victory.
As Cromwell rose, Hampden would be killed in combat against Rupert. Pym would die later that year, after securing the Scots and executing Archbishop Laud. Cromwell was learning his military trade, and those who laid the groundwork of Republicanism were passing the veil of tears.
It would be in this that the name Cromwell's Ironsides would reverberate through the land. His military component would begin rolling up victory after victory in clearing the Royalists from before it.
At Marston Moor, the Roundheads would meet the Royalist Cavaliers attacking their flank. The battle would be found in Lord Fairfax's right being shattered and holding, the infantry center outflanked and attacked in front, and only Cromwell's Ironsides, refusing to yield to Rupert's cavalry.
The Ironsides smashed their foe, reformed under Cromwell and he rolled up the Royalist infantry, and then smashed into the Royalist right in making Marston Moor, the Waterloo of King Charles I.
In 1644 with the Parliament generals not engaging in the finishing touch, Cromwell rose in Parliament and denounced them all. He placed Lord Fairfax in command, but it was Cromwell who was in charge of the entire army and literally government now.
The only success was Montrose the Highlander in Scotland for the crown.
At Naseby in 1645, Charles would meet Oliver Cromwell, and there Rupert would not be lined against his foe again, but the battle rolled as at Marston Moor, in Cromwell crushed his opponent, and then the infantry center, and with Rupert's forces again scattered, it was Oliver Cromwell who controlled the field.
Charles I rode out in a do or die array, but was stopped. Charles was inspirational to his army, and had surrounded and defeated Essex, but against Cromwell, his troops were routed in fleeing the field.
For 12 miles Cromwell worried the Royalists until almost 2/3rds were dead or captured.
What followed was a series of domino blows. Montrose was defeated in Scotland. In the field, the Royalists were routed and behind walls they were beatend down. In 1646, King Charles surrendered to Scottish Troops.
The English were not fit to self govern themselves and to this Cromwell rose to rule them as Protector. The great Republican was so much like Simon Bolivar, a leader of ideals, but a people not yet politically advanced to hold themselves within the bounds without a monarch.
It was though the start of the Republic which the children of Cromwell would form in America, which would give rise to the bloody French Republic which almost assassinated itself.
For all it's worth, the English returned Charles II to the throne after Oliver Cromwell died. Oliver Cromwell had executed Charles I, and in return the petty son, had Cromwell's body dug up from the grave and hung up the head for the public to witness.
"The King and his followers then took revenge on the dead body of the man whose living eyes they had never dared to face. The bones of Cromwell, of his mother, and of Ireton, were disinterred and thrown into a lime-pit; and the head of the great Protector was placed on a pole over Westminster Hall, there to stand for 20 years."
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. Oliver Cromwell
All of the reforms which Oliver Cromwell and Christians fought for, were later to become England's governance, but even as late as the 1880's in Lord Chamberlain's great democratization of the masses of English poor, he was still in the aristocracy against Republicanism for Britain.
Oliver Cromwell was in short, the first American. He was a farmer and quite politician thrown to the forefront, when others could not do the job for the blessings of liberty. He was the greatest military genius until another Englishman in George Washington in like roots, rose to lead a nation.
Historians like Theodore Roosevelt can point to the limitations of Cromwell in seizing power to save the movement or his inability to include Anglicans, Papists and Jews in his religious inclusion. That though has proven now the failing of Theodore Roosevelt in what has the Obama intrigue with the Vatican and Islam, wrought for America and the west, but a regime in Washington DC ruling by dictate.
Allow the Vatican, Ashkenazism, Muhammadism or any of these groups unmuzzled and they will resort to usurpation and mass murder of Protestants at the first opportunity.
Oliver Cromwell succeeded, but his country failed him, in the same way Americans failed Ronald Reagan when that revolution was struck by like treachery by the patricians. It is though what it is, Eliot, Hampden and Pym, all perished for a document which would be written in America in 1776 AD in the year of our Lord.
"But, when Parliament began to negotiate with the Scots on its account, and Charles secretly sought to enter into a separate agreement with the Scots on his account, to bring about an invasion of England, while the city mob, which was rabidly Presbyterian, forced the hand of the House of Commons and compelled its members to defy the army, it became evident that Oliver had to choose his course. Reluctantly he was pushed along the road of military revolution. The speaker and the Independent members of Parliament, in fear of the London mob, took refuge with the army, whither Cromwell himself had already gone. On June loth the army issued a manifesto, demanding a settlement of the difficulties upon terms which it approved.
Early in August it marched in formidable and orderly parade through the city, overawing resistance by its mere appearance, and Parliament submitted. This was the real beginning of the military interference which terminated in the military dictatorship of one man. If Cromwell is to be blamed for what he did to the Long Parliament, this is the step for which he is to be blamed most; yet it was a step approved by Milton, Fairfax, Ireton, and the great majority of the best and most high-minded believers in English liberty who were then alive. The conduct of the King and the Parliament had been such that it is difficult to see how any other course was possible."
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. Oliver Cromwell
Charles I was never a royal martyr. What he was, was a treacherous murderer who imprisoned Eliot until that Patriot succumbed to the dungeon, and then offered up Strafford to execution to buy time. In two Civil Wars, Charles I had made war on Englishmen and the last attempted to enslave them to the Scots, all so this despot could rule absolutely.
" Milton—perhaps the loftiest soul in the whole Puritan party, full though it was of lofty souls—wrote his pamphlet justifying the right of the nation to depose, or, if need be, execute, tyrants and wicked kings.
Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919. Oliver Cromwell
The poet John Milton was absolutely right. Any people has the right to remove any leader and execute them when that leader is engaged in national genocide of their own people, all to retain power.
"I am a man standing where I am in which place I undertook, not so much out of hope of doing any good, as out of desire to prevent michief and evil, in which I did see was eminent on the nation."
- Oliver Cromwell
"....the form of mighty Oliver, looming ever larger across the intervening centuries. Sooner or later, justice will be done him; sooner or later, he will be recognized, not only as one of the greatest of all Englishmen, and by far the greatest ruler of England itself, but as a man who, in times that tried men's souls, dealt with vast questions and solved tremendous problems ; a man who erred, who was guilty of many shortcomings, but who strove mightily toward the light as it was given him to see the light; a man
who had the welfare of his countrymen and the greatness of his country very close to his heart, and who sought to make the great laws of righteousness living forces in the government of the world."
-Theodore Roosevelt
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