Oliver Cromwell, the Regicide and the Sons of Zeruiah

Abstract

In the middle of the night following Charles I’s execution, Oliver Cromwell stood over the coffin, peering down at the body to which the severed head had been surgically reattached, and is reported to have muttered the words ‘cruel necessity’.² Whether or not this report — from a very distraught and highly partial observer, with an uncertain oral history before it was written down — is true, these words are, we shall suggest, precisely the words that would have been passing through his mind. Cromwell was, we shall argue, at once a bitter opponent of Charles, a reluctant regicide, and a firm monarchist. To understand how this can be so, and how he attempted to square circles in his own mind and in the making of public policy, we need to look with renewed care at his recorded words and actions over a period of some 15 months from the time of the Putney Debates to the final show trial.

This essay is based on extensive discussion between the two authors. It was fully written by John Morrill on the basis of these discussions and then subjected to revision and redraft after further debate between the authors.