ABSTRACT
The image of Oliver Cromwell which survives today is unclear: in many ways it is self-contradictory. He is remembered as a successful military leader, as an ambitious acquisitor of power. But also he is identified with an attitude loosely termed ‘Puritanism’, which is largely understood as a suspicion of man’s unhedged appetites, and an insistence on total deference to the will of God. The views held of Cromwell by his contemporaries were no less irreconcilable. As early as 1647, his former friend John Lilburne was accusing him of a betrayal of his pledge to campaign for civil liberties; his private attempt to draw up an agreement with the king suggested an exclusive interest in advancing his own ambition (see Gregg 1986:191). Literally at the same time, Joshua Sprigge wrote on the achievements of the New Model Army, stating that Cromwell was clearly a man singled out by providence, which had designed him for the greater good of the kingdom (see Morrill 1990:262). Then, as now, Cromwell’s behaviour appeared obscure in motivation.
