Oliver Cromwell: The Man Who Killed a King

he's the man who killed a king Oliver Cromwell the English Puritan turns military dictator is today most famous for signing the death warrant that led to Charles the First's bloody execution in 1649 over a hundred years before the American and French Revolutions shook the globe this small time British farmer from the British sticks proved with steel that the Divine Right of Kings was not so holy after all what possessed a guy who worked in agriculture to drop his tools one day and go and commit regicide the story is even more fascinating than you probably think from his humble background Cromwell would rise to become a leading Puritan and tireless advocate of religious freedom even as he committed war crimes on the battlefields violence and pursued personal empowerment with a terrifying zeal an idol for some an ogre to others this is the true story of the man who spearheaded England's civil war [Music] [Music] like many great men of history Oliver Cromwell was born into surprisingly modest circumstances well modest for the landed classes of Britain who in the dying days of the sixteenth century we're the only ones who really mattered the second of 10 children young Oliver was the product of a Protestant family that had done well out of the Reformation seven decades earlier rising from brewers to owners of a smaller state he could trace a family link back to Henry the eighth's advisor Thomas Cromwell and his nearby grandfather frequently entertained James the First's royal hunting party young Oliver may not have been rich but he was certainly well-connected he was also growing up in the shadow of Britain's most notorious terrorist attack in 1605 vengeful Catholic said gunpowder beneath the House of Lords intending to blow up the King the plots discovery fired off a wave of anti-catholic fervor across England something that may well have helped form young Oliver's strict Protestant outlook terrorism beside though the reign of James the first was mostly stable and Oliver lived a mostly stable life he attended school spent a year at Cambridge University no need to be forced to return to the family's east anglia estate after his father died in 1620 he married Elizabeth bosha and as that really should have been that however in 1625 something happens that would act as a catalyst for all the bloodshed that was about to follow on March the 27th James the first died his son Charles the first inherited the throne it was the start of a long march towards catastrophe Charles the first was by most accounts shy and rather sweet fellow in private in public he was everything the growing Puritan movement in England feared his wife was a Catholic he supported a form of Anglicism that appeared dangerously close to Catholicism oh and he was super keen on raising taxes to send his friend Lord bucking and gallivanting off to fight Foreign Wars that England did not stand a chance of winning when the new king convened his first Parliament in 1625 it became known as the useless Parliament because its members refused to vote through those new taxes that Charles wanted annoys Charles dissolved the parliaments after just 12 days one yet later he tried again only for the MPS two also refused raise taxes that would be wasted on Buckinghams boneheaded buccaneering so once again Charles dissolved parliament and by the way get ready to hear that sentence a lot while London was indulging in high politics back in East Anglia Oliver Cromwell was in the grip of a severe spiritual illness plagued for years by serious depression he finally slipped into a funk one night that became a fever and that nearly became death when he finally recovered he was a changed man Cromwell would later describe his experiences emerging from darkness into light the light of Puritanism from then on he would be a staunch defender of the Puritan faith the road to Damascus style conversion may explain what happened next in 1628 Charles the first decided once again to try raising taxes and calls yet another Parliament's this time cromwell decided to join using those connections that we talked about earlier he managed to literally get himself a front row seat to the most explosive Parliament in decades by 1628 Charles had resorted to extracting money from his subjects at sore point known as forced loans they were as unpopular as daylight robbery tends to be and became even more so when buckingham used the money not just for disastrous adventures in Spain but also to launch an identically disastrous war with France that Charles had resorted to locking up MPs who refused to pay only added fuel to the dumbster fire that was now the new Parliament as a young Cromwell looked on Charles refused to accept the new Parliament's assertion of their rights to refuse unwarranted taxation Parliament blamed Buckingham for influencing the king only for a young army officer to then assassinate Lord Burnett Charles blamed MPs for the death of his friends and you guessed it he dissolved parliament he did this in something of a fit of pique and that piqued by the way lasted for eleven years no Parliament would sit from March of 1629 to April of 1644 became known as the years of personal rule for Cromwell personal rule was tough Sean of his parliamentary standing he wound up losing contact with his old network selling his property and taking on a small farming came to survive by 1636 Cromwell was a broke unimportant nobody with zero prospects even considered emigrating to America and joining him with the pilgrims thankfully the 1630s closed with dew bits of good luck for Cromwell first in 1636 is fabulously wealthy childless uncle died and left Oliver everything second in 1639 Charles the first did something spectacularly stupid he tried to force his religious beliefs on Scotland at that time Scotland had been in union with England Wales for less than 40 years Scots still worshipped Presbyterian star with none of the fancy stuff so beloved of Charles when Charles tried to ram his religious reforms through the Scots they went nuts known as the bishops was the following battle saw Scotland invade and occupying northern England Charles sued for peace and the Scots said essentially sure on two conditions one no more of this fancy religious bollocks and to pay us all of our war expenses so completely broke with an occupying army in the nation's north Charles was forced to grit his teeth and summon and other Parliament's this attempt would go even worse than all of his others the parliaments of 1640 got off to a farcical start known as the short Parliament this time it lasted only three weeks before oh yes Charles dissolved parliament but he was still broke so he called for yet another parliament just six months later and finally we reached the end of our run of Charles dissolving things because the second Parliament of 1640 is known fittingly as the Long Parliament although the Long Parliament wasn't a straight revival of the 1628 Parliament it did feature some familiar faces among them was Oliver Cromwell now influential Puritan with new connections Cromwell became MP for Cambridge during the eleven years of personal rule had lost his shyness in the first week of the Long Parliament he made an impassioned speech attacking the Kings imprisonments of Freeborn John in the seconds he launched a ferocious broadside of Charles's attempts to force his brand of Christianity upon his people while the speeches were partly you know Churchill they were passionate enough that Cromwell began to get noticed while an act putting some of Charles's taxes on a legal footing kept the Kings somewhat happy Parliament also passed bills accusing his advisers of treason and making it illegal for Charles to dissolve Parliament without their consent oh and they also attacked his Catholic wife because that's just how things entirely went down in 17th century Britain by 1641 things had completely deteriorated a civil war had erupted in Ireland royalist coup had been crushed in Scotland then Parliament went and presented Charles with something called the grand remonstrance this was basically a top-10 list with a title the reasons we hate you you stupid tyrants never a man to take criticism well Charles became convinced that this was all a Puritan plot against him on January the 4th 16 of 42 Charles led a group of soldiers into the House of Commons to arrest five prominent MPs a move unprecedented in English history but the MPs they weren't there they'd been tipped off and fled embarrassed convinced the world was against him Charles left for London on January the 10th when he arrived in his traditional Haven of Oxford he began raising an army in March Parliament voted to raise their own by now everyone had a fairly good idea of where this was heading in August 1642 the first English Civil War finally began pitching royalist forces against Parliament's army it would ultimately lead to some 200,000 deaths unfortunately for most but not all for Oliver Cromwell this would be the moment when he stepped out of the shadows into the blinding light of history from the get-go Cromwell was at the heart of the war even though he was just a farmer with no fighting experience one of the very first engagements of the conflicts came when he's successfully garrisoned Cambridge against a royalist attack but it would be at the Battle of Edgehill in October where Cromwell really became a soldier the battle was a stalemate but Cromwell was able to witness firsthand the effectiveness of the Royalists horse mounted troops convinced the parliamentarians needed cavalry to win the war he headed back to East Anglia to raise a mounted army it's almost impossible to overstate how effective Cromwell's horsemen would become by mid 60 forty-three they'd secured East Anglia for Parliament in 1644 they wiped the floor with Charles's own mounted troops at the Battle of Marston Moor Cromwell was such a natural leader of men that he was soon promoted to left-handed general and given the nickname iron sight his men were professional disciplines and loyal qualities sorely lacking in the rest of the parliamentary army in fact it was Cromwell's obvious military skill that stops him from exiting the story at this point fed up with xrs de Kratz leading their army Parliament passed a motion in 1645 to kick every MP and Lord out of the military as MP Cromwell should have been among them the Parliament passed a second law allowing him to continue serving under a new leader Thomas Fairfax they knew the winning the war rested on Cromwell's cavalry in 1645 cromwell's horseman played the decisive role at the Battle of Naseby here they effectively wiped out the royalist army Charles held firm for another year but in 1646 Cromwell took his stronghold of Oxford Charles fled into the night disguised as a servants he travelled north and threw himself on the mercy of his old enemies the Scots unsurprisingly the Scots traded into England and with that the first English Civil War was over [Music] remarkably for a regicide or dictator Cromwell responded to Charles's capture by trying to force Parliament to cut a deal with him Cromwell sincerely believed that the only way forward was to restore Charles the first to the throne only with a new constitution in place to stop him running around and raising taxes and dissolving Parliament's the hero of the parliamentary cause even droid a rebellion against Parliament that year using his influence to force out 11 Presbyterian MPs that he considered ante Ami if Charles the first had been just a little bit less of a stubborn ass it would have all ended right here sadly being an ass was what Charles was all about despite losing the war he refused to accept any deal with Parliament instead he got a secret deal with the Scots to make the whole of Britain Presbyterian if they're just invade and restore him to the throne and the Scots they agreed and so we come to the embarrassment that is the second English Civil War embarrassing because of its farcical lack of coordination Royalist uprising is paralysed Wales in southern England in 1648 but the Scots didn't invade until Cromwell and Fairfax had already subdued them in August Cromwell Road North met the Scottish army and annihilated it so much for that however there were two important outcomes from this second dust-up the first was that the army forcibly purged Parliament of MPs who didn't support Cromwell and Fairfax this severely reduced long Parliament became known as the rump the second was that Charles's role in the Scottish invasion was inevitably discovered with Cromwell's blessing the rump dragged Charles before it and held a mock trial Charles he was sentenced to death only 59 MPs including Cromwell dared to put their names on the execution order on January the 30th 1649 Charles was publicly executed in London his head lopped off and held aloft for the crowds to see unpopular as he was it's thought only a hundred or so men in the whole of England wanted to see him dead it's just a shame for Charles that one of those men happened to be Oliver Cromwell yet powerful as Cromwell was at this stage he didn't just transition straight to ruler of Britain after Charles died it was the rump that now held supremacy and Cromwell was pretty fine with that they supported his army and besides history still had one major task for him in 1650 Cromwell was sent to end the Irish war the Irish rebellion had been bubbling away in the background the entire time England was in chaos now that the chaos was seemingly over it was only natural that England would want its wayward province back sadly to achieve the same Cromwell did some truly terrible things cromwell's massacres at Droid ER and Wexford are still remembered for their cruelty both involve Cromwell besieging a town then offering no quarter to soldiers or civilians thousands and thousands died while some historians have suggested the scale of suffering was exaggerated those little arguments that both sieges constituted atrocities still they did end the Irish rebellion and Cromwell returned to England in 1650 just in time to land himself in the mess of the third English civil war that year Charles's son shall ii reopened his father's pact with the Scots and was proclaimed king of Scotland Parliament demanded that Scots be crushed but Thomas Fairfax refused to attack first so Cromwell was made commander in chief and he was sent north in September of 1650 one he finally defeated the Scots at the Battle of Worcester and this marks the end of the civil wars in Britain so what does a general he was won three civil wars and crushed a rebellion do in peacetime well luckily for Cromwell a different sort of war was now brewing in Westminster the rump was going mad with power through 1652 to 1653 it passed no useful legislation except to make itself immortal the ranters come into being as a stopgap a temporary measure until the wars were over and new elections could be calls and now they were voting to end elections permanently by April 1653 Cromwell had had enough in a delicious historic irony he sent troops into Westminster echoing Charles's own breach of Parliament 11 years earlier a gunpoint he told the rump you have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately in the name of God go there on GaN Cromwell gave Parliament one last shot in July 16 53 he convened a new National Assembly popularly known as bare-bones Parliament's it's 140 four members were hand-picked for their saintliness Cromwell expected them to rule his new Puritan Britain as in license men instead they voted to dissolve themselves and hand all the power over to Oliver Cromwell Cromwell is often portrayed as a power-hungry tyrant but all evidence indicates that he really did try and refuse absolute power in the end though he capitulated the 15th century title of Lord Protector was revived for his reign and a new constitution was drawn up known as the instrument of government it's split power between Cromwell a 15 man council of state and a new Parliament of 400 elected representatives from England Scotland Wales and Ireland's this was actually kind of progressive never before had Scotland or Ireland been guaranteed their own mb's and seats or beards they only got 30 H not that this mild progressive then stops the parliamentary wheels from soon falling off though elections to the first Protectorate Parliament were held freely resulting in a swath of Presbyterian ante on e free thinking and Royalists MPs being returned oh and also some of the members from the rump came back not exactly the biggest Cromwell fans Cromwell had hoped that the new Parliament would pass necessary legislation to move England's offer war footing but instead they set about reducing Cromwell's powers when they tried to reduce the army t allows it in January 1655 Cromwell dissolve Parliament the new dissolution came as word was leaking out about Cromwell secret 1654 deal with Catholic France to ally against Spain once again English taxes were being used to finance boneheaded adventuring by an overbearing monarchy dissolved Parliament's like it was going out of fashion the irony was lost here on absolutely no-one and many of Cromwell's allies began to turn against him still he wasn't broadly unpopular just yet as a guy called pan Roddick discovered in March of 1655 sure that Cromwell's rule was about to collapse pan Roddick organised a Royalist uprising intended to put charles ii on the throne he gathered men and set off across england rallying locals to his cause only for local soup shut their doors to him Panna cottas men simply ran for their lives pen radix dismal it was crushed before I'd ever began pen robux uprising may have been amateur hour but it gave Cromwell the excuse he needed to scrap the new constitution and set up a military dictatorship England and Wales were split into 12 district seats under the control of a despotic major-general hugely unpopular the system lasted barely a year before Cromwell was forced to scrap it and a revived Parliament in September of 1656 only the second Protectorate Parliament wasn't freely elected purged of Cromwell's enemies stuffed with toady's it finally voted in February of 1657 to make Cromwell King oh yes he was really made King the very thing that Cromwell had fought so hard to rid Britain off to be absolutely fair though Britain's entire system of government relied on a king or queen to give royal assent and wave things through so having won was something of an urgent legal matter besides Cromwell was already a king in all but name he was totally referred to as his highness he lived in Charles the first sold palace and was handing out knighthoods to all of his friends so yeah that's what a king does on June the 26th 16:57 protector of Britain decided to make it official Cromwell was crowned in a lavish ceremony that was almost in every respect a coronation the only difference was that he kept the Lord Protector title instead of becoming king if you're struggling to see the difference here well so were many of Cromwell's old comrades in fact they were struggling to see the difference between the Protectorate and the years of Charles's personal rule King Oliver was levying taxes to fight pointless Wars and dissolving Parliament at the drop of a crown oh yes and we're not done yet because he totally did it again in February 1658 the second Protectorate Parliament voted to grow a backbone and readmit MPs excluded by Cromwell and so that was it for the second Protectorate Parliament the last few months of Cromwell's life saw him withdraw from public affairs his daughter Elizabeth died of cancer in early 1658 and it seemed something in Cromwell some vital spark just vanished he stopped receiving people or even really ruling perhaps he realized what had become and was disgusted by it perhaps not on September the 3rd 1658 the man who was almost king Oliver passed away that night a terrific storm wracked England houses were torn apart and scattered by the winds ships sank beneath the rolling waves it was said that the storm was Satan come to take the Lord Protector soul although the Protectorate would survive another year under Cromwell son Richard it effectively died with Cromwell Richard would last less than a year before being deposed and replaced with the revived rump the rump would in turn barely reconvened before an army general known as George Monck marched on London and ordered the rump to readmit its excluded members the Long Parliament was then revived just long enough to vote for its own dissolution the new convention Parliament that followed in 1660 immediately voted to restore charles ii to the throne so the English interregnum ended charles ii was on the throne with the only new limitations on his powers being those proposed by the long Parliament's back in 1640 everything that happens in the intervening two decades the three english civil wars the Irish rebellion the Protectorate the or became effectively pointless Cromwell had raised an army and killed a king but within two years of his death his achievements that all turned to dust On January the 30th 1661 Cromwell's body was disinterred 12 years to the day of Charles the first execution alongside the corpses of two other prominent parliamentarians it was symbolically hyung-tae burned gallows before being beheaded as late as 1685 you could still see the former Lord protect his head on a spike outside Westminster was all the bloodshed for nothing without a doubt Cromwell did some terrible things during his long career he committed atrocities in Ireland and his personal ambition turned what could have been the world's first liberal revolution into a gigantic flop it would fall to American and French revolutionaries over a century later to complete what the English had started but Cromwell was also a truly great general their leader of men who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Washington or Bolivar without Cromwell you have no parliamentarian victory in the English Civil Wars without Parliament's victory none of the ideas that would later influence the founding fathers gained any traction Cromwell he was an ogre a despot a fool and a failure he was also the man who killed a tyrant king and in doing so assured in our modern world so I really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below do not forget to subscribe we got brand new videos just like this twice a week so subscribe so you get those in your inbox and click that Bell notification thing because subscribe doesn't always tell you why we put out these videos if you do want to see them do click that like I say liked it subscribe why not and I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: Biographics

Views: 1,467,411

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler, oliver cromwell, oliver cromwell bio, biography of oliver cromwell, who was oliver cromwell, what did oliver cromwell do, english history, uk history, uk monarchy

Id: I8qRbxKARKY

Length: 22min 52sec (1372 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 21 2018