Oliver Cromwell remains one of British history’s most controversial figures. Should he be remembered positively as the parliamentary leader who stood against the tyrant Charles I and ensured Britain continued on its path to glorious constitutional monarchy or negatively as the Puritanical ‘king-killer’ who ‘banned Christmas’ and massacred Catholics in Ireland?
Oliver Cromwell was a man of relatively modest means who rose up from a country estate in East Anglia to become chief leader of the parliamentary side in the English Civil Wars that lasted from 1642 to 1649 and beyond. As a devout Puritan and also an elected Member of Parliament he realised that Charles I was a tyrant who had to be stopped before he destroyed Parliament and undermined English liberties forever.
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