In a weary speech to parliament on 4 February 1658 Oliver Cromwell told MPs that ‘I would have been glad, as to my own conscience and spirit, to have been living under a woodside to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken such a place as this’. In the 1630s, Oliver Cromwell raised chickens and sheep for their eggs and wool. 20 years later he was offered the crown. He helped lead an army to defeat and execute Charles I, becoming one of the most successful military leaders in British history. He now led a country that had become a republic, it had sailed into unchartered waters. As the nation leaned on the leadership and dogged personality of Oliver Cromwell would it be strong enough to sustain the religious and political ideals upon which it had been founded?

Oliver Cromwell – 1st Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland

and Ireland (1653-58)

Richard Cromwell – 2nd Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland

and Ireland (1658-59), son of Oliver Cromwell

Charles I – King of England (1625-49)

Charles II – King of England (1660-85), son of Charles I

Thomas Fairfax – Commander of the New Model Army

George Monck – Prominent military leader under the Commonwealth

John Lambert – Prominent Parliamentarian and military leader

Arthur Aston – Prominent Royalist and military leader, Governor of Drogheda

Prince Rupert – Royalist cavalry commander, nephew of Charles I

David Leslie – Scottish cavalry commander

Praise-God Barebone – Puritan preacher and MP, gave his name to Barebone’s parliament

Menasseh Ben Israel – Portuguese rabbi

GM Trevelyan – Historian

John Evelyn – contemporary writer and diarist

Music - The Old Bachelor - Henry Purcell

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