‘The Letters, Writings, and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume I’, ‘II’ and ‘III’ review

Among the most extraordinary figures from English history, Oliver Cromwell stands out for a number of reasons: at the age of 40 in 1640 he was merely a backbench MP and minor gentleman, but he died as Lord Protector and was very nearly king; at the outbreak of civil war in 1642 he was an inexperienced soldier, yet he rapidly demonstrated his flair as an officer and military strategist; finally, he was a religious zealot, who advocated freedom of conscience for Protestants, but not for Roman Catholics.

Cromwell is often seen as Charles I’s leading opponent on the battlefield and at Westminster, but his prominence rests squarely on the creation of the New Model Army in 1645 and his promotion as its Commander in Chief after the execution of Charles I in 1649. It is no wonder that the late Professor Barry Coward, an expert on all things Cromwell, entitled one of his talks ‘Will the Real Oliver Cromwell Please Stand Up’.

Readers of History Today will be familiar with Oliver Cromwell’s most famous utterances, such as his instruction to the artist Peter Lely to paint him ‘pimples, warts and everything’, or in popular parlance ‘warts and all’. Yet this is only recorded in Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting in England (1764), published over a century after Cromwell’s death, and its veracity is highly debatable.

Similarly, Cromwell’s famous dismissal of the Rump Parliament in April 1653 when he declared ‘you have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!’ is also a later construct. Consequently, this precise form of words does not appear in the latest edition of Cromwell’s writings. It can only be traced to a speech by Leo Amery in the House of Commons on 7 May 1940 and recorded thus in Hansard.

Amery undoubtedly found inspiration for his memorable formulation in the work of Cromwell’s first editor, Thomas Carlyle, who published a disjointed version of this speech in his hugely popular Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches in 1845. Carlyle’s work attracted great public interest and was reprinted in numerous later editions, in which he included newly discovered manuscripts written by Cromwell. Unfortunately, some of these turned out to be forgeries and according to John Morrill, general editor of the new and definitive three-volume Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, this created chaos as Carlyle tried to weed out his errors in subsequent editions.

Carlyle was also rather more than cavalier in his approach as an editor: changing words and phrases and breaking up Cromwell’s words with an idiosyncratic running commentary. These mannered asides, aimed at an imaginary scholar named Dryasdust, now have little appeal for a modern reader. Nevertheless, this publication made a significant impact on public perceptions of Oliver Cromwell as a soldier, politician and England’s first Republican head of state. Admiration of Cromwell, previously a largely ignored or reviled figure, grew to the point where, by the early 20th century, he was anachronistically viewed as a promoter of democracy and of parliamentary freedom. Biographies boomed and attempts were made to publish more accurate versions of his papers. In 1904 Sophia Lomas tidied up Carlyle’s text by returning to the original manuscripts rather than printed versions. This was not always possible as many of Cromwell’s holograph papers have disappeared, while his campaign reports, describing the sometimes controversial treatment of his enemies, only survive as official parliamentary publications.

The aim of this new edition of Cromwell’s writing is to provide authentic, annotated texts based on the most authoritative sources. The nine editors present us with 1,077 items consisting of 555 letters, 211 speeches and 43 recorded conversations, along with official reports, declarations and routine papers. The focus is on documents that reflect Cromwell’s own words, whether in his own hand, signed or authorised by him, or recorded contemporaneously.

Material from Cromwell’s early life is sparse, but what survives shows the centrality of his religious beliefs as a driving force behind his military and political achievements. The first item is an invitation to the vicar of Toft to act as godfather to the Cromwells’ eldest son, Richard, later Lord Protector for less than a year after his father’s death. The next is a complaint in the 1629 Parliament that another cleric, Dr Alabaster, had preached ‘flat Popery’ at St Paul’s Cross. A letter of 1638 to Oliver’s cousin, Mrs St John, describes Cromwell’s spiritual state: O I lived in, and loved darknesse, and hated the light, I was a chiefe, the chiefe of sinners … I hated godlinesse yett God had mercy onn me. Cromwell’s descriptions of his later military successes were also invariably given a religious spin. His forces arrived too late to take part at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642, but in July 1644 he described the Parliamentarian victory at Marston Moor as ‘a great favor from the Lord’, which had been ‘obtained by the Lords blessing upon the godly party principally’. God, he wrote, had made their royalist foe, led by Prince Rupert, ‘as stubble to our Swords’. In 1650 Cromwell saw his victory over the Scots at Dunbar as ‘one of the most signal mercies God hath done for England and His people’, while the defeat of Charles II and the royalist hopes at Worcester the following year was a ‘Crowning mercy’. When he marched into Scotland, Cromwell had earlier released an official declaration justifying the regicide on the grounds of both religion and liberty.

Cromwell also famously examined his religious conscience when making momentous political decisions. On being offered the title of king by Parliament in 1657, Cromwell sought guidance from God. His response four days later was an emollient tour de force in which he thanked Parliament for demonstrating their affection to him, but stated that he was not ‘able for such a Trust and Charge’. Even in debating the terms of the new constitution, contained in the Humble Petition and Advice, Cromwell went on in his speech to insist that the civil liberties of the nation should be subordinate to the interests of God.

Such is the continued public fascination with Cromwell that 20 years ago he was voted one of the top ten Britons of all time in a poll conducted by the BBC. Yet his reputation as ‘a great man’ who made ‘great history’ is tainted by his brutal campaigns in Ireland when Parliament’s forces were responsible for the greatest recorded massacres in Anglo-Irish history at Drogheda and Wexford. This new edition provides the most complete and accurate version of Cromwell’s writings for the foreseeable future and it will allow readers to assess his character in Cromwell’s own (attributed) words, ‘warts and all’.  

The Letters, Writings, and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, Volume I: October 1626 to January 1649
Andrew Barclay, Tim Wales, John Morrill
Oxford University Press, 784pp, £190
Buy from bookshop.org (affiliate link)

Volume II: 1 February 1649 to 12 December 1653
Elaine Murphy, Micheál Ó Siochrú, Jason Peacey
Oxford University Press, 896pp, £190
Buy from bookshop.org (affiliate link)

Volume III: 16 December 1653 to 2 September 1658
Joel Halcomb, Patrick Little, David L. Smith
Oxford University Press, 688pp, £190
Buy from bookshop.org (affiliate link)

Jackie Eales is Professor of Early Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University.