English Civil War

Annual competition for essays on Oliver Cromwell.

In this edited version of a lecture given on 25 March 1999, to commemorate the anniversary of Cromwell's birth, John Morrill provides us with a series of snapshots, at different ages, of the troubled visionary who aspired to lead a new chosen people out of the bondage of Stuart tyranny.

The early life of Oliver Cromwell, who was born on 25 April 1599.

Sean Kelsey reconsiders the events of January 1649 and argues the trial was skilfully appropriated by rump politicians in paving the way for the new Commonwealth.

Barry Coward grapples with a question which has become more difficult to answer as a result of recent scholarship. He finds the answer lies in the New Model Army, in religious passion and in Charles himself.

John Adamson argues that the importance of the Celtic fringe in the events of the 1640s has been exaggerated.

Jane Ohlmeyer argues that the English Civil War was just one of an interlocking set of conflicts that encompassed the British Isles in the mid-seventeenth century

John Morrill re-examines a stormy period of religious history.

Ivan Roots applies the 'new British' perspective to the 1650s.

Joad Raymond on a previously unpublished insight into the personality and projection of 'Lord Oliver' during Britain's unique 1650s experience.