His head is currently buried somewhere in the chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he studied. The exact location is a secret known only to the college’s Master, chaplain and Head Porter (plus of course any living former holders of those posts). At least one visiting Irish academic has danced a jig on every flagstone in the chapel in order to be able to say he’s danced on Cromwell’s head.
There’s a portrait of Cromwell in the college’s dining hall, with curtains so it can be covered. At least historically the portrait would be covered while drinking the Loyal Toast (to the monarch).
Cromwell is nowhere near as bad as the Irish paint him, and that bit where it says " He was also responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Ireland" is not too far away from being a lie.
When he helped get rid of the awful Stuarts he was doing England a favour, and almost as soon as the monarchy was restored they realised what a mistake they made.
Yes, actually. This is how so many people have such a sanitized view of history, because we start out with crap like this that makes monsters into heroes. You certainly don’t have to offer up gory details, but FFS, there is nothing wrong with an age appropriate honest account of the past for young readers. It is in fact, critical that we do so, so that we don’t have a bunch of people running around with an inaccurate view of history.
Good thing, that.
My mistake was perhaps knob=/=nob?
Set me straight here, please. Don’t want to make that mistake again the next time I play cribbage!
Cromwell was neither a monster, nor a hero.
He was an extremely clever politician, and probably the most effective military leader of his time.
What he did in Ireland was SOP for the time, but for reasons I am unsure of the Irish make it sound like Cromwell treated them particularly badly.
That’s not the point of understanding and describing his actions in Ireland. Hiding what he did in Ireland, even for a young audience is actively covering up history. Period. Full stop.
And while we often don’t make judgements like that in history, we do very much make sure it’s reported to the public as accurately as possible with what sources we have. We can also make moral judgements based on that evidence.
He also made decisions that were more than morally questionable.
So?
Because he did?
Ireland was a colony of England and colonization is almost always brutish when the people object. It’s time we stopped treating colonization as just another form of politics and educate ourselves on the brutality of colonial systems. Nearly everything that the British empire deployed later to the rest of the empire was tested out in Ireland first.
Did he? Were his actions any more brutish than those before and after? Drogheda and Wexford were the exceptions to his campaign, he invested and took 28 towns.
And while Drogheda was unusual by the standards of warfare in Britain and Ireland, it certainly wasn’t by the standards of Early Modern European warfare in general- consider Mechelen or Magdeburg.
We’re not talking about actions of others, we’re talking about Cromwell. I’d say banning people’s religion in their own country qualifies, yes, considering that’s considered a human rights violation today.
I’d argue that people are particularly upset about Cromwell’s actions in Ireland precisely because of how it sets up the dynamic going forward, where there are attempts to suppress the Irish catholic population specifically. It allows for the later dehumanization of Irish catholics, to the point of what some consider genocide later (the famine). Because of his particular hostility towards catholics, that carries on well into the modern era. You could argue that Cromwell fully begins the modern era of English colonization of Ireland. Once again, Ireland became the place where the English tried out colonial policies that they used in other places, to pretty damaging impact.
The deaths of 10-15% of the population through direct combat, and indirectly through famine and disease. Then the lands of the survivors being seized and given to the conquerors, with the survivors then having to pay rent to live on their land. By the way, you could not leave this land without the permission of the landowner. Also having ones religion made illegal so you are forced to practice your faith in hedgerows.
This was followed shortly by the abolition of musicians, writing, education, your language, voting, the right to own a horse or property. Oh, and the forced removal of thousands of citizens to Barbados.
