Abstract

This article strips back the post-Restoration veneer to uncover the realities of Cromwell’s political career from the late 1640s through to his death in 1658. Specifically, it focuses on the trial of Charles Stuart, and the motivations behind it, as well as exploring Cromwell’s attitudes towards the abolition of kingship that followed the regicide. Finally, it briefly examines Cromwell’s reign as Lord Protector and the extent to which the regime was a monarchy in all but name. Above all, it will show that Cromwell was no hypocrite. Instead, it is important to appreciate that for Cromwell – as for many others in the 1640s and 50s – political considerations waited on religious ones. Political forms and titles were relatively unimportant for Cromwell; they were a means to an end. As he would famously put it during the debates of the army council at Putney in late 1647, they were but ‘dross and dung in comparison of Christ’. It is his lack of care about titles or forms of government that makes Oliver Cromwell worth caring about.