Cromwell

Antonia Fraser gives us a biography that shows Cromwell "warts and all" as he desired to be portrayed in his portrait. She shows empathy towards the dispossed Irish and the victims of his massacres at Drogheda and Wexford. Thankfully the British soldiers were to suffer enormously in Jamaica later in the Protectorate. I recommend this book to anyone of Irish descent. I was surprised to learn that Cromwell and the Tudors were of Welsh descent. To me this makes them the arch-traitors of the Celts. If you can stomach reading about the English rape of Ireland, you will learn much about their attitudes which led them to crusade for Protestantism in Ireland. I wish Antonia Fraser would have called Cromwell a messianic Jesus freak but she is on the whole charitable towards him. He was simply ruthless towards the Irish during the English Civil War. He was merciful towards the Scots and Welsh. He just couldn't stomach Catholicism. However he tolerated the Catholics of Dunkirk once he acquired it and showed some mercy towards individual Catholics in England whose estates were being seized. The man was complex to say the least. He had more respect and kindness for the Jews than the Catholics. I couldn't give this book five stars since it is impossible to love a book about a man who absolutely hated the Irish people. He believed in a fictional account of a supposed massacre of English Protestants at the hands of Irish Catholics. It made him go absolutely insane regarding the Irish. If it weren't for the widespread English belief, perhaps they really wanted to believe it, in this massacre which Fraser points out there is absolutely no evidence of, I would say Cromwell's hatred of the Irish puts him in the same category as Hitler vis a vis the Jews. Read this book if you have any curiousity about Cromwell.

Fraser's book is best at trying to place Cromwell in his time. It is pointless to upbraid her for writing a book about someone who could be an unpleasant, violent and designing character - Europe was full of even more violent generals and religous fanatics at the time By carefully following his career and the people around him she shows how he rose from mediocrity to high office AND was a brilliant general even though he started as at the age of 40 I thought it was well written and a good introduction to a complex character in a complex time

Growing up an Irish Catholic American, I grew up hating Oliver Cromwell without really knowing why (an influence of my Irish grandmother). Fraser's biography of this brilliant and driven soldier is thoroughly researched and surprisingly sympathetic. She gives a great insight into what drove this man as well as giving a broad look at the political, cultural, and religious influences behind the brutal English Civil War. Cromwell was a brilliant general whose strategic and tactical genious beat the King's trained forces. His genius, unfortunately, did not extend to the political sphere. This is a great account of a flawed individual.

I don't know much about the English Civil War. I do know a fair bit about military history (having read a lot of it over the past 25 years) and so I somehow came into possession of a second-hand copy of Antonia Fraser's biography of Oliver Cromwell. This is a well-written, thorough (perhaps a bit too thorough) biography of a fascinating, very deeply religious man and successful soldier.The author backgrounds Cromwell reasonably well, given that sources for his early life are presumably scarce, but the heart of the book (after the first 90 pages or so) is his military and political career. He started this as a Member of Parliament, became a junior soldier (a captain to start), moved up through the ranks to the top of England's military, then reverted to politics as Lord Protector, and was even offered the crown as king just before he died. All of this last happened in the final sixteen or so years of his life: a very eventful period. The book divides into three stages after the early life segment: subordinate commander in the Army, commander of the Army, and finally Lord Protector. The last is the longest, with much discussion in detail of English politics of the era, the wars they fought and why, and issues ranging from religious tolerance to the fate of Royalists who stayed in England when the King was executed and Parliament took on the reins of government. The military chapters are especially well done. Fraser isn't a military historian, but she exhibits a considerable grasp of the nature of battles and why things happen the way they do. The battles are covered in considerable detail, so that Cromwell's genius can be understood (he appears to be the only English general in history able to control that country's cavalry) and his impact fully appreciated. The political section of the book bogged down for me a bit, I suppose because the politics of those days hold little interest for me, and that section of the book is the longest. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the book greatly, and would recommend it.

The book is now known as "Cromwell Our Chief of Men". An excellent and balanced insight into a great leader and military commander who did what he thought was right for Britain, though many still despise him for that today. Read it.