Brian Ross wrote on Jan 17
th, 2022 at 3:48pm:
Cromwell is a good example. The English were a republic in all but name but turned their backs on the idea in favour the monarchy of Charlie II. Why? Was their something wrong with republicanism? Was Charlie II a better monarch for having his dad's head removed? All good questions.
Oh and a fine tch, tch, tch... just for you...
Up to a point, Lord Copper, up to a point.
You jumble things, Bbwian, as is your reflex and habit.
In the spring of 1657 Parliament voted to invite Cromwell to become king, since kingship was an office “interwoven with the fundamental laws” of the nation, as Cromwell himself stated, and there would be an end to constant innovation. Torn between his desire for “settlement” and his continued yearning for a godly reformation, he hesitated for many weeks and then declined the title. Cromwell did agree, however, to a new constitutional arrangement that restored many of the trappings of monarchy, including the restoration of a House of Lords. That decision provoked a republican backlash, and Cromwell’s final parliamentary session (January–February 1658) ended in bitter recrimination and in accusations of a new “Egyptian bondage.”
Ever since the campaign in Ireland, Cromwell’s health had been poor. In August 1658, after his favourite daughter, Elizabeth, died of cancer, he contracted malaria and was taken to London with the intention of living in St. James’s Palace. But he died in Whitehall at three o’clock on September 3, the anniversary of two of his greatest victories. The embalmers bungled their work, and his putrefying body was secretly interred several weeks before his state funeral and the interment of a probably empty coffin in Westminster Abbey on November 23, 1658. In 1661, after the Restoration of Charles II and on the anniversary of the regicide, a corpse that may or may not have been Cromwell’s was exhumed and hung up at Tyburn, where criminals were executed. That body was then buried beneath the gallows. But the head was stuck on a pole on top of Westminster Hall, where it is known to have remained until the end of Charles II’s reign.
...
In the spring of 1657 he was tempted by an offer of the crown by a majority in Parliament on the ground that it fitted in better with existing institutions and the English common law. In the end he refused to become king because he knew that it would offend his old republican officers. Nevertheless, in the last year and a half of his life he ruled according to a form of government known as “the Petition and Advice.” This in effect made him a constitutional monarch with a House of Lords whose members he was allowed to nominate as well as an elected House of Commons. But he found it equally difficult to govern either with or without parliaments.
Although in the late 17th century Cromwell was execrated as a brave bad man, it was admitted that he had made his country great. In the 18th century, on the other hand, he was considered a nauseating hypocrite, while the 19th century, under the influence of the writer and historian Thomas Carlyle, regarded him as a constitutional reformer who had destroyed the absolutism of Charles I. Modern critics are more discriminating. His belief in God’s providence is analyzed in psychological terms. Marxists blame him for betraying the cause of revolution by suppressing the radical movement in the army and resisting the policy of the Levelers. On the whole, he is regarded only in a very limited sense as a dictator but rather as a patriotic ruler who restored political stability after the Civil Wars and contributed to the evolution of constitutional government and religious toleration.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oliver-Cromwell/Legacy
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