A profoundly strange character.
Both one of the few people in the 17th century who embraced the idea of separation of Church and State and a man who genuinely believed that he was God’s own general placed on earth to do His Will.
Both a man who ran the New Model Army on strict grounds of merit against fierce opposition from those who believed that noblemen should lead and the man who crushed the Levellers in the name of property rights.
Both a man committed to republicanism to the extent of turning down a crown and a man who engineered legislative purges again and again, but also a man who tried repeatedly to hold elections and write constitutions that would create a legimitate and effective government – trying to force a country to be the Republic he wanted versus the one they wanted.
If not for him, Charles I might never have died “with the crown on,” but because of him the English Commonwealth would not survive his death.
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