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.
