Risen from obscurity – a study day on Cromwell’s early life.
For over half his life Oliver Cromwell lived in Huntingdon in relative obscurity.
He was well connected but his family fortunes were on the wane. Briefly he
had served as the town’s MP in the parliament of 1628 but he was not in any
way a national figure until he was well into his fifth decade.
Recent work by historians has begun to cast significant new light on some
aspects of Cromwell’s early years. Diligent research has revealed some
surprising answers which will lead to further re-appraisal of the character of
Oliver Cromwell.
This study day, organised by the Cromwell Museum in partnership with The
Cromwell Association, aims to present these findings to an interested general
audience.
The study day will take place on Saturday 22nd October 2011 at Huntingdon
Library & Archive, Princes Street, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA.
The cost of the day, including coffee on arrival and buffet lunch, is £30 per
head, (£25 for Cromwell Association members and full-time students). Please
note that lunch will be served at the nearby Commemoration Hall.
Programme
Chairman: Professor John Morrill, Professor of British and Irish history,
Selwyn College, Cambridge. Professor Morrill is a vice-president of the
Association and author of numerous books and articles on Cromwell,
including the entry for Cromwell in the Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography. He is currently leading a team of academics to produce a new and
definitive edition of Cromwell’s letters and speeches.
10.30
Coffee and registration
11.00
Introduction and welcome
11.10
Oliver Cromwell and his family connections, 1599-1640
Simon Healey
When Cromwell began raising his Ironsides, two of the first
recruits he made were his brother-in-law John Disbrowe and
his cousin Edward Whalley. It is hardly a revelation to say that
family connections mattered in early modern England, but it is
instructive to look at Cromwell's extended family, firstly to see
what was routine and what was unusual about the background
of the future Lord Protector, and secondly to explore the
connections Cromwell had at his disposal.
(1) the Cromwells of Hinchingbrooke: both Sir Henry and Sir
Oliver, heads of one of the wealthiest non-noble families in
England; and by comparing and contrasting Oliver's father
Robert Cromwell and Robert's four other brothers, the younger
sons of Sir Henry Cromwell.
(2) the Cromwell cousinage, particularly the Barringtons, the
Whalleys and their connections.
(3) Cromwell's mother's family, the Stewards of Ely, and their
connections
(4) Cromwell's wife's family, the Bourchiers of Little
Stambridge, Essex
Simon Healy: has worked for the History of Parliament Trust for
almost 22 years. His London University thesis on State
formation and the political nation in early Stuart England is still
not quite finished(!), but will hopefully be submitted by the time
he gives this talk in October 2011.
In 2010 he published articles on three members of the
Cromwell family in The House of Commons 1604-29 ed. AD
Thrush and JP Ferris, together with more than 200 other
articles on MPs from the same period, elected to the Commons
from the length and breadth of England and Wales. His other
publications include topics as diverse as parliamentary
debates, Catholic converts, Crown finances, the Newcastle
coal trade and John Donne.
11.55
Farmer Oliver?
Patrick Little
Historians have always been impressed by Cromwell’s rural
origins. As one authority puts it, ‘No man who rises from a
working farmer to head of state in twenty years is less than
great’. This paper explores the rural context of Cromwell’s
career, and the way in which his image as a ‘plain’ and ‘honest’
man from a fairly ordinary background was cultivated by those
around him – not least during the protectorate, when he was
routinely accused of self-aggrandisement and hypocrisy.
Dr Patrick Little is the chairman of the Cromwell Association,
and editor of Oliver Cromwell: New Perspectives (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008).
12.40
Lunch break. A buffet lunch will be served in the
Commemoration Hall approx 300m from the Library.
The Cromwell Museum will also be open over the lunch
break.
2.00
Oliver Cromwell and the underground opposition to Bishop
Wren of Ely
Andrew Barclay
Very little is known about Cromwell’s religious beliefs before
1640. Yet a surprising number of later sources claim that during
the 1630s he had been attending secret nonconformist services.
Are these just predictable Royalist smears or do they have some
basis in fact? Building on the latest research, this talk will
suggest that such stories are less easy to dismiss than might be
assumed at first sight. Some details do check out. The more
plausible versions even contain tantalising hints of connections
between the disaffected Protestants of the diocese of Ely,
especially during the Laudian ascendency of Bishop Wren.
Historical evidence does not come much more elusive or
insubstantial than this. But some hard facts can be established
and together these point towards the possibility that Cromwell in
the late 1630s was more religiously subversive than most of his
biographers have dared to assume.
Andrew Barclay is a Senior Research Fellow with the 1640-1660
Section of the History of Parliament Trust and is the author of
Electing Cromwell (Pickering & Chatto, 2011).
2.45
From Civilian to Soldier, Oliver Cromwell in 1642
Sue Sadler
When Cromwell took up arms in August 1642, he was nearly a
fortnight ahead of the official beginning of the Civil War. His
activities regularly appear in accounts of activists dragging
moderates over the brink, and studies of his extraordinary
career. Aspects of his transition from civilian to soldier in the
summer and autumn of 1642 are well known, and his
determined actions during a time of doubt are frequently used to
show the metal of the man who would become Lord Protector.
Yet, like so much of his early career, there are gaps in the story,
and Cromwell’s later trajectory casts a shadow over events that
merit re-examining. We will review his entry into the war, by
embedding it in its local setting and casting it in the light of his
reputation amongst contemporaries during this critical phase of
Cromwell’s life.
S.L. Sadler was formerly a part-time Lecturer in History for
Anglia Ruskin University, principally at Huntingdonshire
Regional College. She studies the limits of authority and has
published articles on aspects of the civil war and regional history
centered on Cambridgeshire and the fens, was a contributor for
the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and most recently
wrote ‘”Lord of the Fens” Oliver Cromwell’s Reputation and the
First Civil War’ in Patrick Little ed. Oliver Cromwell: New
Perspectives (2009)
3.30
General discussion and Chairman’s closing remarks.
4.00
Close
Please book using the booking form. All bookings must be received by
12th October.
We regret that we are not able to accept credit card payments for this
event.
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