Oliver Cromwell Quotes
I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.
Cromwell is often credited with coining the phrase “warts and all.” This is not strictly correct. The phrase that could be extracted from his quotation is “warts and everything”. Over the years writers and editors have, as is not uncommon, “improved” the phraseology and it is the “improved” version with which most people are familiar, even though it is not 100 percent authentic. The meaning is however, and for this Cromwell is the first known originator.
Oliver Cromwell, 1599-1658, Revolutionist, Ruler, & Lord Protector of England, Statement to the artist, Samuel Cooper, who had been engaged to paint his portrait, Quoted in Horace Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England
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Oliver Cromwell was an English general and statesman who, first as a subordinate and later as Commander-in-Chief, led armies of the Parliament of England against King Charles I during the English Civil War, subsequently ruling the British Isles as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658. He acted simultaneously as head of state and head of government of the new republican commonwealth.
