Oliver Cromwell was far more committed to religious freedom and equality than historians previously thought, according to new research. The findings suggest he wanted Jews to be allowed to practise openly in England and Irish Catholics to have the right to worship freely, as long as it was in private.
Academics have unearthed an obscure 17th-century pamphlet which reveals that despite his bloody and well-established reputation as a ruthless persecutor of Catholics in Ireland, in 1650 Cromwell was actually willing to allow Irish Catholics the freedom to privately practise their religion without interference.
Newly discovered documents, detailing meetings the Puritan leader had with lawyers, merchants and clergymen in 1655, also reveal for the first time the precise reasons why Cromwell “strongly supported” the readmission of Jews to England and his willingness to offer them religious freedom. “Cromwell’s commitment to religious freedom and religious equality is much more radical than a lot of historians have thought,” said John Morrill, emeritus professor of British and Irish history at Cambridge University.
Along with eight other scholars, Morrill has spent the last 11 years hunting down and examining the 1,253 documents containing Cromwell’s words that exist in libraries and archives all over the world: “Cromwell thinks that persecution is always counterproductive, because if you target militants, you finish up radicalising moderates. He also believes the way to convert people isn’t by persecution, but by kindness.”
Traditionally, historians have argued that Cromwell invaded Ireland in 1649 to punish the Catholic Irish nation and commit atrocities, which led to an immense transfer of wealth and power from Irish Catholics to English Protestants. “However, our general review of his letters and speeches in Ireland shows his principal purpose for going to Ireland was, in fact, to deal with the Royalists problem,” said Morrill.
Many English Royalists had fled to the sanctuary of Ireland to regroup after Cromwell executed Charles I, and were forming new alliances with Irish Catholic confederates and Ulster Scots: “Those are the people he treats most harshly in Ireland.”
A key piece of evidence historians have previously relied upon to demonstrate that Cromwell despised Catholics is a declaration he made denouncing the Irish Catholic clergy, printed in London in 1650. Morrill and his team unearthed two earlier versions of this declaration, printed only in Ireland, with a different title.
“The new versions we found make it clear that while Cromwell is severely critical of the Irish clergy for stimulating rebellion and supporting the massacre of Protestants, he is trying to demonstrate to the ordinary people of Ireland that they have nothing to fear from him,” Morrill said. “That what the priests have told the people – that he’s come to ‘extirpate’ or destroy Catholics and Catholicism in Ireland – is completely untrue, and on the contrary, he’s going to protect religious freedom in Ireland.”
The Irish versions of the pamphlet claim Cromwell will tolerate private Catholic worship and ordinary Catholics will not be made to conform to Protestantism.
Although Cromwell later killed dozens of Irish priests and forced hundreds more into exile, Morrill – who is himself an ordained Roman Catholic deacon – argues this happened because Cromwell was convinced many priests had instigated the 1641 rebellion, where terrible atrocities were inflicted on Protestants.
There is little in Cromwell’s writings, he said, to suggest Cromwell wanted to persecute Catholics for being Catholic, rather than for their politics and supporting the king.
This fits in with documents his team found, showing Cromwell negotiated with the prominent Catholics to agree that, if they guarantee political loyalty and live peacefully with him, he will give them religious freedom.
Other newly discovered correspondence upholds the sincerity and provenance of a letter historians have, until now, doubted Cromwell wrote to a French cardinal. In it, Cromwell conveys he is currently prevented by parliament from fulfilling his desire to offer more freedom to Catholics, but the cardinal has evidence Catholics suffer less persecution under Cromwell than his predecessors, the Stuart Kings.
Many of the original documents the academics tracked down, often using web catalogues and newly digitised archives, have been thought missing for hundreds of years or were incompetently transcribed in the 18th century. This includes precise accounts of meetings revealing how keen Cromwell was to invite Jews, who were expelled by Edward I in 1290, back to England. “He wanted Jews who could help finance trade with the Caribbean and he had no problem with granting religious freedom to get their expertise.”
Lawyers “rather grudgingly” informed Cromwell Jews could lawfully return, but he would not be able to give them new rights without parliament’s agreement, which he wasn’t going to get. “So he does what he can, allowing them to come back and have a synagogue and a burial ground. And from that time on, there were Jews back in England.”
The research will be published in a three-volume book, The Letters, Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, in September. Morrill hopes it will offer a more nuanced view of Cromwell as “a flawed man, who was deeply tolerant, but struggled with the responsibilities of power in a fractured and divided nation”.
Essex University professor John Walter, an expert on early modern history, said the “exciting” documents Morrill has unearthed suggest Cromwell was actually an extraordinarily tolerant leader by the standards of the time: “Morrill is absolutely right to pose this representation of Cromwell as a complex and godly man who – not least for political reasons – wants to readmit Jews to England and produce stability in Ireland, by offering religious freedom to Catholics,” he said.
In the 17th century, Royalist and Catholic propaganda painted Cromwell as a man of blood and violence, and historians have, until now, failed to properly interrogate the accuracy of this portrayal, he said. “This analysis is rightly saying: look at these key documents and think again.”
