Cromwell's Trailblazer? Reinterpreting the Earl of Essex
Graham Seel reassesses the career of Oliver Cromwell's predecessor as Parliamentary Commander in the 1640s, Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and argues that he has been harshly judged by English Civil War historians.
Historiography has not been kind to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex. It was S.R. Gardiner who, in 1893, set the tone in his magisterial work on the Civil War. 'Since the days of Nicias no general at the same time so devoted, so incompetent, and so self-satisfied, has been placed at the head of an army'.
Historians ever since, with the exception of Godfrey Davies and to a certain extent Vernon Snow, have continued to paint a similar picture. Indeed, the recent work by J.P. Kenyon is consistently damning of the efforts of Essex.
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