Cromwell Quotes
Actually, most extreme conservatives do live in different centuries at the same time. One is the century in which they are living physically. The second is an earlier one—the century from which his ideology stems. Likewise, most liberal reformers and revolutionists also live in two centuries. The first is the one in which they live physically. The second is in the future where their hopes, dreams, and reforms lie.
The Regicide of Charles I was still a very sensitive subject with Englishmen loyal to the King in the Colonial era. So this was an incredibly radical and incendiary statement for an American minister to make. However, he did acknowledge that a people had a right to have a king {634001} unlike Thomas Paine who did not—see {634004}.
“Coligny” was Gaspard de Coligny, 1519–1572, the Huguenot fonder. “William the Silent” was William of Orange the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish, and Cromwell was the leader of the English revolution. All three were major figures in advancing the concept of individual freedom of the ordinary man and all three were profoundly influences by John Calvin.
About 2000 Irish were slaughtered while Cromwell only lost 64. In the Irish Rebellion of 1641, many English Protestants—men, women and even children were massacred by Catholic rebels who were out of control of their leadership. See {639336} for an example. Cromwell, when he landed in Ireland with his troops, made no bones about the fact that he was there to avenge the massacres of 1641 {639283} . This was his first “payback”. 150 years later the Irish Protestants memorialize the massacres of the Rebellion of 1641. The Catholics, memorialize, the massacre at Drogheda. Each group uses these and other similar events to justify their positions of antagonism against the other. See {639282} for a moral analysis of Cromwell’s action here.
This is an excellent example of a theme that has been used since biblical times to justify massacres by military men. Namely that if the first town that you conquer is treated terribly enough, the word will get around and the next town the people will pressure their military to surrender to avoid the same fate. Therefore, they argue, as Ludlow does, that the massacre will reduce future violence. That perverse ethical logic has lasted for a long time. However, that was not the only motive here—vengeance was a major factor. This is another good example of the fact that many of the worst moral atrocities of men were perpetrated and led by men who thought that there were being moral and consonant with God’s will. See {639301} for Oliver Cromwell’s description of the massacre.
Browne, an Englishman by birth, was the instrument of the Protestant Reformation in Ireland.
New Ross was under siege by Cromwell and his English Parliamentarian troops. After two days, the town tried to negotiate terms of surrender and one of the main things they asked for was freedom of religion to practice Roman Catholicism. This famous response set the stage for religious bigotry over the next years. Cromwell’s reasons for not allowing Catholicism to be practiced was not only one of religious zeal. At the time, the Roman Catholic Church was a major geopolitical power under a Pope who commonly supported or even dispatched troops for geopolitical and religious ends. The Vatican was particularly resentful of England for separating from the Church and asserting that the King of England was the head of the Church and not the Pope. Therefore Cromwell and many Englishmen had to deal with the reality that every practicing Catholic in the realm was a potential spy, traitor, and/or rebel. This fear of control of countries by the Pope strongly affected America, and was responsible for the defeat of the first Catholic Presidential Candidate, Al Smith. It was also a major factor in the election of John F. Kennedy so he dealt with it head on.
