oliver cromwell essay

Oliver Cromwell was the second ruler of England after Charles the 1st execution. He did not want to take the title King so he became the Lord Protector. He became a ruler only because of how corrupt the parliament was. He was a very religious man he was a puritan and he thought that everyone should live their lives in his example, as a puritan he believed that if you worked hard you would go to heaven and pointless enjoyment was a bad thing. This was the reason for why he shut down a lot of inns and theatres .Most sports were banned any boy caught playing football on a Sunday would get whipped .Swearing was a fine if someone kept swearing they would be sent to prison. He divided England in to 11 areas each ruled by a trusted general, most of these generals had been in Cromwell’s common wealth army. He had even banned Christmas, Christmas was supposed to be a happy time epically after the civil war. Cromwell banned it because Christmas was supposed to be a time of celebration not to eat and drink too much. Even with all of these rules he was not strict himself, you could say he was a hypocrite for forcing so many rules but not following them himself. He was a religious man but he hated the Irish Catholics. When he was in power he wanted to ‘tame’ the Irish. He sent an army there even though he had promised to treat those well who surrendered to him. He still killed the people of Wexford and Drogheda who did surrender to him. He used terror to ‘tame’ the Irish. He made all the Irish children work in sugar plantations in the West Indies he knew they would die there so they could not have children. When his life ended he and the 11 generals where hated people. His body was carried to Westminster abbey by 30000 soldiers to be buried. Charles the 1st was a king of England before his execution he was a quiet king this was because of his stammer. He loved art and spent a lot of money of it this was one of the things which contributed to his financial postion.Charles was a religious man who wanted church services to be big and grand with colour this annoyed people who wanted church services to be simple. Charles angered a lot of members of parliament by choosing favourites, his favourite advisor was the duke of Buckingham he was murdered in 1928.parliment said that Charles could choose his own advisors but only if the person chosen was acceptable with the terms. He had constant arguments with parliament this led to shutting down parliament for 11 years this was called the 11 years tyranny. Charles could do this under something g called the royal prerogative; he also had the divine right of kings. Even though parliament was shut down it didn’t make people angry as many members or parliament gained money at the people expense. What made the people of England angry is the methods Charles used to collect money. He also collected money without parliament. His chief advisors were William laud and the archbishop of Canterbury. He had a tax four of coast town to improve the navy; this was pointless because England wasn’t in war with anyone. He then started making inland towns pay the tax as well. In 1637, Charles tried to impose a new prayer book on the scots (He was crowned king of Scotland in 1633).This prayer book was more like the opposite of what the scots wanted church services to be like they wanted plain and simple and the book was more about having rituals and grander etc. This led to the scots invading England and occupying Durham and Newcastle. In November 1640 Charles had no choice but to recall parliament as only parliament had the money to fight a war with the scots or give them a sum of money to go back to Scotland .Thy only agreed to help him if he agreed to the following:
Laud and Strafford to be removed as advisors and put on trial. Both men were eventually executed.

Ship Money was to be declared illegal

Charles had to agree that Parliament could never be dismissed without Parliament agreeing to this. If, for whatever reason, parliament was dismissed, no more than three years could pass before a new one was called.
These demands challenged Charles belief in the divine right if kings. King and parliament where on the verge of a war. In 1642 Charles tried to arrest his 5 leading critics in parliament. They ran away to London. Charles raised his royal standard at Nottingham in august 1642 and called on all his loyal subjects to support him. He made oxford his headquarters for war. All of these led to the English civil war which ended in Charles execution and Oliver Cromwell’s rule.