The Making of Oliver Cromwell

• Published in: Seventeenth-century news Vol. 80; no. 3/4; pp. 146 - 150
• Main Author: Allsopp, Niall
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: College Station Seventeenth-Century News 01.10.2022
• Subjects: Biographies; Historians; Persuasion; Politics; Religion

At one especially dramatic moment, Cromwell crests the ridge at Langport, Somerset and takes in the view of the Somerset levels, recognizing a miniature version of his native Fens (277)-Hutton's observation is characteristically acute, both in terms of topography and in the sense of narrative theatre, as anyone who regularly bursts through this very vista on the Great Western railway line can attest. On the one hand, Hutton's conclusion suggests, persuasively, that by 1646 the full complexity of Cromwell's nature had been revealed: "courageous, devout, resolute, principled, intelligent, eloquent, able, adaptable and dedicated, but also self-seeking, unscrupulous, dishonest, manipulative, vindictive and bloodthirsty" (338). [...]Hutton slightly undercuts this by frequently writing as if Cromwell had arrived fully-formed from the beginning: doubtful anecdotes about his student life are dismissed because they "could have been deduced anyway from his later character" (19). All of Cromwell's greatest hits are here-for instance, electrifying the Commons with his tearful defence of John Lilburne, specks of blood visible on his collar from a shaving accident (62)-but Hutton, persuasively, emphasizes the element of politician's performance in such occasions.