The English Experiment & the Death of a King (Interviewed In Time)

by Colin Croad

  RTI: Would you not say that your highness is, to all intents and purposes, a king already in everything but name?

  Cromwell: You dare say to me, sir, that I am your king? You would dare call me that which I have fought so hard to oppose?

  RTI: I mean no disrespect, your highness. I merely wish to point out all those things which, at any time that a man has a difficult decision to make, are sometimes hidden in the darkness. I respect and admire your highness for all you have achieved and for all you have done for this kingdom.

  Cromwell: I appreciate your support, sir, though I am not one who is easily swayed by the flatteries of man. So, in answer to your question regarding my status as uncrowned king, I would have to categorically refute such a claim. Many men would brand me as such, but I am not their lord and sovereign!

  RTI: You would say then that in their desire to restore the old order, in their fear of the unknown and combined with the fact that you are seen by many as the true leader of this land, they would make you king?

  Cromwell: That is exactly what I mean, sir! You have a way of picking out the meat from the gristle!

  RTI: Why don’t we look at some of the things you have achieved for this kingdom of ours, your highness?

  Cromwell: Where would you have us start, sir?

  RTI: Let me ask you about your relationship with God. The people of this land know that you are a pious man, but I think it may help to discuss how you see God’s will in your life.

  Cromwell: If I were to tell you of the wonders that God has performed in my life then we would be here for more than one night, sir! He has turned this mortal sinner into a saved soul! I cannot express to you or any other man the love God has shown me over the years! His mercy has redeemed me from sin, and I believe God gave me the chance to take this land of ours out of the darkness of sin and falsehood and into the bright light of righteousness and the true worship of His Spirit through the protestant church, in particular the puritan church to which I, and all true believers in God, belong! Without God and His mighty works, we would all still be under the yoke of oppression and, worse still, possibly under the Scottish Kirk or even popery! God forbid that the people of this noble and righteous land should ever feel the burden of tyranny and false belief ever again! Yes, God himself has delivered His people from slavery and used me as His weapon!

  RTI: You believe, then, that God has picked you out for special dispensation and gave you the mission of saving the people of this realm from the evil that had descended upon it?

  Cromwell: Yes, that is exactly how it is! The people of England had fallen into iniquities and sin, were selfish and greedy. The king sat upon his throne making decisions that were not to the benefit of the commonwealth, and the nobles of this land were mostly paying tribute to the king in the hope that he would show them favour first before resolving the genuine grievances of the commons! It was a land of indulgence, greed and lawlessness, a land that was heading straight to hell with the king leading us all the way there! Then, when I was still quite young, and despite the fact that I had suffered adversity and some doubts as to His purpose for me in my earlier days, God came to me and slowly revealed to me His purpose, not just for me personally, but for the kingdom as a whole. My family had lost status many years ago after having had to sell properties and lands, but I soon discovered that God had done this to reveal to me that possessions are but fleeting and that we should not put too much store in them. This had a profound effect upon me, and it wasn’t long until I accepted the Holy Spirit into my life, confessing Christ as Saviour. In time, God provided a loving and dutiful wife, my own dear Elizabeth, who bore me nine children, though sadly not all were to survive. Over time, and with the Holy Spirit speaking to me and guiding me, I became a prominent figure in the full and unconditional restoration of this realm. I rejoiced in the full knowledge that God had chosen me to be the instrument of His wrath, the weapon with which He was going to destroy the sinners who would not repent! Amen!

  RTI: You must gain a great deal of inner peace and satisfaction in the knowledge that God is with you in all things, your highness.

  Cromwell: The sense that He is there in all things, that He sees all things and that He knows all things does give me a tremendous feeling of peace and contentment, especially as I know that whatever happens, and no matter where I go, He will be with me, always. Praise God!

  RTI: Praise God indeed, your highness! Yet, there are those who might claim that you haven’t exactly been the epitome of tolerance when it comes to some believers. How would you respond to that accusation?

  Cromwell: Gods blood, sir! I feel you are talking about those among us who say they are the true believers in Christ, but in reality are no more than heretics, those popish fools who are deluded and betrayed by man! I wish to God that I could bring them all back into true belief and fellowship, but their priests and cardinals have blinded them with superstition and all those bangles and trinkets which go to make up their heresy! Give me just one hour with any catholic and I would show them the true meaning of Christ!

  RTI: Indeed, your highness, and the good Lord knows how you dealt with them in Ireland.

  Cromwell: The Catholics in Ireland were their own architects to what they subsequently suffered! Sadly, the Irish were not going to accept the futility of their situation or denounce popery as false, would not admit that they were rebels and should be dealt with accordingly. This led to the campaign becoming protracted and bitter. What’s more, their previous treatment of Protestant settlers in Ireland in their vicious rebellion called for severe and brutal reprisals! I didn’t care if they were Irish, Scottish Welsh or English. First and foremost they were rebels who had brutally rebelled against the authority of the land and had to be punished, made an example of! I would have neglected my duty to God and Parliament if I had dealt leniently with any of the rebels, if I had forgotten their popish acts of barbarism. No, God Himself was with me when I dealt with them in such a manner.

  RTI: How do you feel about the Catholics today, and is there any sign of reconciliation?

  Cromwell: Reconciliation? I think you underestimate the true power of the sovereign Lord, sir? If a man chooses to follow the Catholic faith in private, then that is between him and God. It is wrong and should be dealt with if discovered, but if that man is a law abiding, God fearing man, then the punishment should reflect that. However, the false worship of God that is Catholicism must be expunged from this land. It is the true and undeniable fact that only through the protestant worship of God can man find peace and gain entry into the kingdom of Heaven, Amen!

  RTI: Yet, your highness, only recently you have declared your intention of allowing the Jewish people back into the realm after they were forced out by Edward I. Why did you decide this, when they are non-believers in Christ? Surely, to you that must be as bad as Catholicism isn’t it?

  Cromwell: To answer this question I feel I need to explain something about what I feel as a whole. Whilst I am against anything other than the true belief of Christ through the protestant religion, I am also aware of the sanctity of each man’s conscience, and that each man will and must follow what he believes to be true. I wish I could see into men’s souls and help them to find the truth, to help them dig out the impurities and false beliefs, but the simple truth is I can’t. As I’ve already said, I would like nothing more than to eradicate the lying sects that plague this world, but there are times when I must be content with the knowledge that this must be done by God’s will, not mine. The Jews, throughout history, have been persecuted by one nation after another. Yet, despite all their hardships, despite all the adversities they have had to endure, wherever they have lived they have always emerged as prosperous and united. The Bible tells us that they are God’s chosen people, that the Messiah would be from their people and that no matter what man did to His chosen people, He would always be there for them. Now, in the Netherlands, these same Jewish people are helping our competitors in trade, our potential new enemies across th
e water, to become prosperous and a real threat to the stability of this realm. I want the Jews to come back to this land so that they can use their financial skills to restore the country’s wealth, to help make the nation whole again. I believe that with their help, we will not only restore our fortunes, but we can rise to become an even greater nation than before!

  RTI: That does sound a very ambitious plan, your highness. What do you think your people will say about it?

  Cromwell: It has always been my hope and ambition, my dream, to restore the morality and peace to this land. We are God’s anointed, a very special breed of men who, I believe, are destined for great things. It is also my dream to bear witness to the second coming of Christ. I believe that if the Jews return to this land, they will convert to Christianity and that may well signal the beginning of the end times, the times when Jesus will walk amongst us yet again, and we will see the kingdom of heaven on earth! Amen!

  RTI: Obviously, all these dreams and hopes of yours would have to be approved by Parliament. Your dealings with them as Lord Protector haven’t always been smooth. How would you describe your relationship with them now, your highness?

  Cromwell: First of all, sir, let me state that the reasons parliament and I haven’t always been in agreement is due to the fact that I believed most of the MP’s to be self-serving and not pious enough for the tasks ahead of them! I have always tried to adhere to the proper process, that which I believe we have fought so hard for, yet when it came to actually making a difference, when it came to actually making decisions that were for the benefit of the commonwealth, then many of them were found wanting! I tell you no lies, sir, when I say that many were the times when I sat in session with those selfish and incompetent fools and I silently prayed to God to rain down burning coals upon the heads of the lot of them! Eventually, as you know, I could stand by and see the country in pain no longer, and I decided to act! Dismissing Parliament was never my intention. Taking over the reins of government mostly by myself was never my desire, but I felt that God wanted His people to be healed, and that the MP’s were not acting in the interests of those same people. So, with a heavy heart, I dissolved the assembly and set about the difficult tasks ahead of me. With regards to the relationship I have now with the MP’s, I would say that it has settled into something akin to a mutual agreement. I have the right to call Parliament or dismiss Parliament as I see fit, but I have agreed never to make a decision without first consulting a council of state. I’ve always tried my best to give Parliament the chance to redeem itself, always tried to show them the way and encouraged them to do the right thing. But, no matter how hard I tried, no matter what words I used to help them choose the right path, it seemed as if they were like blind men, oblivious to the sufferings of the common people! That is why I came down so hard upon them, those who would not listen to the anguished cries of the poor and needy! Those men who called themselves the guardians of the new kingdom also would not pay heed to the genuine demands and grievances of the soldiery, and so they had to be punished, in the same way that God punished the Israelites for their folly! I’ve always maintained that I would rather have a plain and simple man in office, who fights for what he believes in and is true to his beliefs, than to have someone who is no more than a gentleman.

  RTI: So, what you’re saying then, your highness, is that things are almost the same as when the kingdom was ruled by a monarch, is that it?

  Cromwell: If you choose to look at things as simply as that, sir, then yes it is! However, there is one significant and fundamental difference between then and now and it is this: the king thought he had been given the divine right to rule this land as he saw fit. It was the same for all monarchs of this land. Each one inherited the throne from the one before and with it came the God given right to rule as well or as badly as they wanted to. I, on the other hand, am a reluctant leader. I never wanted to be the Lord Protector. I had a dream of an enlightened body of MP’s whose goal and ambition was the restoration of the commonwealth! I believed that I would be a part of that body of men, not its leader, but a part. Once I saw how these self-serving men were behaving, once I saw how they put their own self-interests first before that of the common people, I felt the outrage of the Holy Spirit within me and knew that God wanted me to act on behalf of the people! Reluctantly, and with great sadness, I forced the Parliament to dissolve. I did not want this, sir! I never wanted it or any of the trappings that went with it! Do you see the difference, sir?

  RTI: Yet you still allow people to address you as ‘your highness’, and you still allowed Parliament to vote you an expenditure of £100,000, didn’t you?

  Cromwell: I fear your tone is both disrespectful and devoid of the truth, sir, and it tires me greatly! In the gospel according to Mathew it states clearly that to the worker belongs the wages! I will say to you once more, and once more only, that the burden placed upon my shoulders was done so by God, and that my sole purpose in the capacity of Lord Protector is to protect the interests of the common people, not mine or those who rule the shires! Do you understand me, sir, or must I have you removed by the guard?

  RTI: I meant no disrespect to your highness. I apologise unreservedly. Would it please your highness if we could talk about something more positive and less challenging?

  Cromwell: I would ask you to keep your questions and opinions more civil and respectful. What have you in mind?

  RTI: Perhaps we could discuss your reputation as a battlefield commander. You have never lost a battle when you were in command. The most notable of which must surely be the Battle of Preston, where your army of 9,000 defeated a Scottish army twice that number. What would you attribute to the series of victories you have achieved over the years?

  Cromwell: As I’ve said before, God called me to His service many years ago. He had a plan for me to bring this land of ours back from the brink of damnation and the tyrannies that had befallen it, and with the sure and certain knowledge that He was riding into battle with me, I knew no fear, and I felt no remorse! With each blow from my sword, I knew it was taking me and the kingdom closer to God! The ungodly were blinded by ambition and their false belief in the divine right of kings to rule over us. It did not pain me to smite them down, in the same way that it would not trouble my conscience to strike down any heretic or sinner who, in their ignorance and folly, opposed the will of God! I was imbued with a sense of purpose and belonging, a feeling a man can only have if he is close to His Holy Spirit. He gave me the power to command and lead men forward into battle. He gave me the vision and the determination to build an army of God, a new model army, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the time of The Old Testament! Armed with His presence, I would have led my holy warriors forward, my men of God, into the jaws of hell itself, knowing full well that they would have followed me there! All those great battles, Marston Moor, Naseby, Preston and, yes, in Ireland too, my men showed what true warriors in Christ can do to the ungodly! A sound faith in His glory will smash the sinners every time!

  RTI: You did achieve great things in the civil wars, the likes of which any great Captain would be proud of. Yet, I feel that the glory was in some way tarnished by how Parliament eventually dealt with the king. What would you say to that, your highness?

  Cromwell: My God, sir! Do you have no sense of what is right and wrong? Do you not see the errors that were being perpetrated by that man of blood upon his subjects? Am I the only man in this kingdom who still believes that what we did we did for England?

  RTI: Again, I mean no disrespect, your highness. I merely ask that question which has been asked by the common folk and nobility alike. Such greatness that you have achieved in the name of God came at a price.

  Cromwell: Indeed, sir, I know exactly what you mean. Ultimately, whoever won those terrible wars would have to punish the leaders of the losing side. An example would have to be made. I struggled long and hard over this issue. Whilst the king was held captive, there was a real hope that he would recognise his folly,
that false belief in the divine right of kings, and negotiate with Parliament and in so doing retain his crown. I didn’t desire his death! I didn’t want Parliament to try him for treason! No, sir, we all hoped and prayed to the living God that the king would see reason and help us to help him back onto the throne. Once we discovered that he had played us and the people of this land false, only when we discovered that he had secretly negotiated with the Scots to send an army against this land, that we finally realised the true nature of our so called majesty! Did you know that he had promised the Scots that they could establish their kirk in this country as part of his rescue plan? We were fools to have trusted him. We were fools to have believed that the king had the interests of his people at the forefront of his mind. By his actions, the first war had broken out. We, Parliament, had laboured long and hard to extinguish those flames of death, and we finally succeeded in bringing the Royalist cause to its knees where, we hoped, peace and order could finally be restored to this land. It was that man of blood who schemed against us, who took advantage of our trust in him to make plans that would set free the evil that is war once more! Once you take all of this into account, sir, you can see that whilst we were reluctant to begin with when it came to deciding what to do with the king, it became very evident that the king would not rest until he had been restored to the throne on his terms and his terms only! The man had to die if England was to find peace and order again. I signed his death warrant with the knowledge that if I didn’t then I, and all of those who had opposed him, would never see justice in this land again, and that Parliament would have been all but destroyed, removed from this kingdom for ever! You forget, sir, that if victorious, a king will always make an example of all of those who opposed him.