Enlighten me on Oliver Cromwell, what did he do? Did he do anything that affects politics today? What are your opinions, would you consider him a "hero" or a "villain"? I've heard both opinions expressed about him.
I dont know much about him other than his serving as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth.
cr*mwell was a proto-Hitlerite who killed 9 million Irish and did faggy xtian stuff such as banning the december holidays
Why do some people see him as a historical hero then? Why did he kill 9 million irish?
He was a proto-George Washington who freed the people of england from the oppressive tyranny of the king. He then created a republic where all men could live freely, and mad sure not to fall into the spell of repeating the same mistakes the king before him had made. He specifically stopped his religion from oppressing others. His corpse was hanged and legacy destroyed by the evil monarchist after his death
>what did he do?
nothing wrong
the previous king was close to bringing in some cathelic dynastea in the midst and he killed 12 million Irish because they were Jacobins
he was a c*valier madmen and deserve to be hanged and every c*valier will set themselves on the 7th circle of hell
This. He was a British Napoleon who rose from nothing to free his beloved country from the rule of power-mad despots who had nothing but their own well-being on their minds while the English people starved.
Had Cromwell been around in 1848 instead of 1648 he would have been seen as a great reformer and statesman who did what he had to do for the good of the people. But the monarchy managed to reestablish itself in the country he's instead seen as Britain's greatest villain.
he was a hard nigger
Underated
Wrong
The current number of innocent Irish babies devoured in Cromwellian death camps is currently 20 million
>"I had rather that Mohmetanism were permitted amongst us than that one of God’s children should be persecuted.”
careful what you wish for there Olly
He killed millions
Classic bong totalitarian. If the People ever reach for anything, they are to be put down or snuffed. May is his contemporary. Speak out and you will be crushed. The bongs always just take it willingly. It's their way.
>Jacobins
>Cavaliers
He didn't actually do anything terribly wrong.
His soldiers were mutinying because of lack of pay. Diggers, presbyterians and whatnot across the country were just up and saying "lol we don't recognize your republic, we don't give a fuck", evading taxes and ignoring the law. Cromwell granted power to parliament and the first thing they do is start being corrupt as fuck and giving themselves kickbacks so he had to shut it down causing political turmoil at the highest levels of state.
With all this going on the Irish papists flip out and start consorting with Cromwell's enemies, so Crommie has to scrape the barrel, raise an army from men who have already been through hell for broken promises and were being asked for yet more, paid for by taxing people who increasingly view him as a hypocrite for ruling by decree and he had to then spend months on campaign away from London where the snubbed parliament could conspire and undermine him without his watchful eye. He didn't want to be there, he did not go to Ireland to bash everyone about because he didn't like the look of them, as some claim.
Then at Drogheda after a lengthy siege his men killed enemy soldiers on their own initiative. Enemy soldiers who had been trapped there after tromping through the countryside murdering protestant civilians (whomst we rarely see tears shed over).
I don't mean to be melodramatic, but in a war where civilians do not have time to escape from an undisciplined army, people get raped. Women and children. I have no doubt that some of the men killed by Cromwell's men raped children, they were dangerous ISIS-tier thugs and because Cromwell stomped the shit out of them that counts as an atrocity? hmm, nah, he was just eradicating a threat, they sought to impose their will over their fellows to sate their degeneracy and eventually the time came where they attracted the attention of someone who had mastered the craft to carry out the will of God.
>want to establish your own independent state in the spirit of fraternity and nationhood and escape foreign oppression
>OI M8 I DON'T FINK BLOODY PURITANISM ALLOWS IT!!!!!
Clever military leader, but he was also a religiously fanatic despot who tried to create a new monarchy under a different name. He was also a filthy Pur*tan and his crimes against the Irish cannot be forgotten.
>I have no doubt that some of the men killed by Cromwell's men raped children, they were dangerous ISIS-tier thugs and because Cromwell stomped the shit out of them that counts as an atrocity?
Ah yes, those horrible nuns and priests, women and children that had been massacring and raping those poor protestants right?
If he hadn't won the civil war, there would be no democracies in the world today.
I am not exaggerating.
I understand what you are saying, but it would be interesting to hear your argument to support that claim.
>priests
>raped children
it checks out
unironically the greatest englishman ever
catholics and paddies fuck off
>He was a proto-George Washington
stop this stupid fucking meme. fuck off back to the last thread you posted this brainlet
so save millions from being born irish
I'm that original guy. He isn't me.
>religiously fanatic despot
>whose most dearest held belief is that people have freedom of conscience to choose their faith, enforcing this belief against strong opposition
ahh yes, the "fanatic", ladies and gentlemen!
Cromwell's conduct in Ireland was standard practice for warfare at the time. An army would rock up to the city gates and give the city a chance to surrender peacefully, or else suffer a sacking once it eventually fell.
Sure, things like the siege of Drogheda were certainly awful, but mid 1600s Europe was an absolute orgy of violence anyway
Literally did nothing wrong
The Navy under his rule is interesting
If Cromwell hadn't reformed Parliaments forces, Charles would probably have crushed them. If Charles had defeated Parliament he would almost certainly have abolished it, and rolled back all the precedents on the limitations of English kings set since the Magna Carta. Even before the Civil War, Charles was already well on his way to stripping Parliament of any real power, so even in the case that the status quo continued (perhaps because the Parliamentarians, without an effective commander, negotiate a peace settlement in 1644 or 1645), it seems likely that England monarchy would have transitioned to a more absolutist style, modelled after the French. Charles wasn't just power hungry, he genuinely believed in the divine right of kings, and ideology tends to make things last longer than simple greed.
It's also worth noting that if Cromwell hadn't been around and Parliament had somehow won anyway, the result would either have been a corrupt and ineffective Parliament that would quickly have been reconquered by Charles' children. Or another generalissimo would have emerged to seize the crown. Remember, everyone expected Cromwell to declare himself king, and were quite surprised when he didn't - which gives a very telling pointer on what would have likely have happened if someone other than Cromwell had become as dominant in the Parliamentarian faction.
So Charles I winning the civil war is the most likely outcome without Cromwell. With the monarch supreme, not just Parliament itself but the idea of parliamentary government wouldn't have existed. That means that there would have been no Glorious Revolution in 1688, when Britain transitioned from an uneasy balance of power between Parliament and monarch to the firm establishment of Parliament's primacy over the monarchy
meant for (which is not to say that the king had no power over parliament from that point, just that it became far more possible for parliament to get rid of a monarch than for a monarch to get rid of parliament as an institution).
Without the glorious revolution there would have been no Enlightenment. Yes, French philosophers were influential in developing the Enlightenment, but many (I know for certain that Voltaire did at least) stated explicitly that they were inspired by England's move away from absolutist monarchy (not that they need to say it, since it's apparent in their writings where they got a lot of their ideas from). Perhaps just as importantly, England provided a refuge for progressive intellectuals in France who angered the king (again, I'm thinking of Voltaire). Without a semi-democratic England to inspire and foster Enlightenment ideas, it's almost certain that the Enlightenment wouldn't have happened. And I concentrated on the French, because I know that as soon as I mentioned the Enlightenment there'd be a lot of comments about how that was a French thing, but English intellectuals were just as important during the Enlightenment too.
Also during this period, England was instrumental in protecting the Dutch, who were the other people in Europe experimenting with representative government (although their developments had limited impact outside the Netherlands. Perhaps they can be credited with reinforcing England's direction towards more representative government, but that's it). I'm aware that Scandanavia had parliaments too, but they aren't relevant because their ideas never influenced anyone else.
>Using that word on Old Ironsides
With no Glorious Revolution and no Enlightenment, there would have been no American Revolution. Whatever modern Americans think about the uniqueness of their Founding Fathers ideas, the Founding Fathers themselves talked a lot more about preserving their rights as Englishmen and the Glorious Revolution than they did about creating an entirely new form of government. And without the Enlightenment and the American revolution, there would have been no French revolution. So basically, we've accounted for every country that became a democracy because they were influenced by Britain, France or America. And that's all of them.
And that whole chain of dominoes starts with Cromwell. The man shaped history perhaps more than any single man ever has. Not just because of his political influence. The politics and ideas of 17th - 18th century Europe are inextricably linked with the economic development in that period, i.e. that hugely fucking important thing called the Industrial Revolution. Without Cromwell the industrial revolution might well never have happened, and today we'd be living in primarily agricultural societies largely similar to 18th century Europe in terms of technological development. Because of him we live in free societies, where the average life expectancy is above thirty and we don't mostly live lives of grinding agricultural poverty (pic very fucking related).
And today he's despised and ignored just because he killed a bunch of Irish (and he didn't even kill as many as people say he did). So much for the wisdom of hindsight.
>he's despised and ignored just because he killed a bunch of Irish
Actually the true reason he is despised and ignored is because he toppled the monarchy and created a commonwealth.
If that was true George Washington would be equally despised. I mean, partly it's because he was a dour, fun-hating republican (and was replaced by a king who new how to party). But mostly its because the Irish (and the fucking cunts in America singing IRA songs and going on about 'muh heritage') kick up a shitstorm every time anyone says anything good about him.
I disagree because Oliver was hardly the first or last English commander to have a career exterminating Irish people. However, monarchists encourage hatred toward Cromwell because they can never forgive him for beating them.
Think about how furious you would have to be to dig up a corpse and hang it.
Really think about it.
>Think about how furious you would have to be to dig up a corpse and hang it.
How is Charles II's action all the way back in the 17th relevant to him today?
>I disagree because Oliver was hardly the first or last English commander to have a career exterminating Irish people.
Tell that to the Irish. Whether it's rational or not, they are especially butthurt about Cromwell in particular.
The monarchy persists in Britain and that is how it is relevant.
Goodnight.
This
He's a puritan who banned plays and singing afaik.
>Cromwell is hated because the Brits just can't stand the thought of someone killing one of their beloved monarchs four hundred years ago.
You're obviously not British, or you'd realise what a dumb fucking thing this is to say.
It's not really accurate to say that he banned plays and singing (and Christmas). It makes Cromwell sound like the anti-fun dictator, personally responsible for every puritan law.
There was a strong puritan movement in England and Scotland already, which had been pushing to ban all sorts of things for decades before Cromwell came along. The most you can say about Cromwell is that he agreed with them and provided that section of the population with the opportunity to enforce their ideals on a country-wide scale; there's little evidence that he was personally the driving force behind the bans.
He was a butcher so deep in the blood of his own self righteousness to even realize it.
Diggers and levellers forevermore.
>Think about how furious you would have to be to dig up a corpse and hang it.
that was pretty common desu
>Remember, everyone expected Cromwell to declare himself king, and were quite surprised when he didn't
At least according to Barry Coward, he was on the way to crowning himself king. The subject is very complex and difficult to disentangle. There are decades of historical debates falling for against against cromwell declaring himself monarch. However, you have to wonder why he appointed his SON to rule in his stead...
>Monarchist country smears a man who defeated the monarchy
How is this in any way controversial?
The revolution against Charles I's reckless rule turned, as so many revolutions do, into a defacto bloody military dictatorship.
The return of Charles II, the election of a new Parliament and the restoration of an episcopal Church of England was in a sense a liberation from that dictatorship.
It would however take the Dutch invasion and the revolution of 1688, gloriously bloodless in England but certainly not so in Ireland, to resolve the issues between Monarch and Parliament that had first come to a head in 1642.
Cromwell's rule wasn't bloody in England, though. I don't see how it has to do with my point that he was eying the kingship, and appointing his son as his successor when he died.
Cromwell had been offered the Crown and refused it because of the unnecessary trouble it would cause from Royalists (not all in exile) and the European powers.
He had the substance of power and didn't need anything else, and he knew that this son would never hold out after his death - Richard Cromwell had little backing from the military.