Was Oliver Cromwell a religious fanatic who loved banning stuff, or a pioneer of liberal values? Sunday’s Observer reported that a group of historians have dredged up some documents that suggest that he was seriously committed to religious freedom.
Despite his reputation for brutally suppressing Irish Catholics, it emerges that Cromwell was open to them practicing their faith, so long as they no longer posed a political threat by supporting royalists. Another document confirms his enthusiasm for readmitting Jews to England and his willingness to offer them religious freedom. The article quotes one of these historians, John Morrill, emeritus professor of British and Irish history at Cambridge University: ‘Cromwell’s commitment to religious freedom and religious equality is much more radical than a lot of historians have thought.’
It is unsurprising that this man should make us flustered. He puts our whole political tradition in doubt
The curious thing is that this view of Cromwell should seem surprising.
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