# Who Would You Support In the English Civil War **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 1, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007 "2011-03-01T02:04:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/41 "2011-03-01T23:18:38Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You know how **Liberal** feels about Andrew Jackson? While I’m not nearly as rabid, that’s kind of how I view Oliver Cromwell. Guy was a bastard and I hope he’s rotting in hell. > > Hell, if I were to go to Britain, and saw a statue of Cromwell, I’d have to restrain myself from spitting on it. Not to put to fine a point on it, but why? Is it because he sacked that Irish town that wouldn’t surrender? ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/42 "2011-03-01T23:40:21Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Hell, if I were to go to Britain, and saw a statue of Cromwell, I’d have to restrain myself from spitting on it. Actually there is a statue of the morose old POS in front of the houses of parliament – a Victorian gesture to rally the nonconformist vote when assorted baptists and congregationalists could swing elections — and there was an old chap during some part of the 20th century who did pass by every day on the way to work who spat on it every damn time. I honour that man. On statues, this 30th of January I was the only person who attended at the right time for the ceremony of King Charles on Trafalgar Square. The ceremony was postponed to a later date because of alleged rioters. Of whom I saw none. Did speak to a drunk druggie though who needed a pound. The Alternative Victorian perspective… **[By The Statue of King Charles at Charing Cross](http://www.poetry-archive.com/j/by_the_statue_of_king_charles.html)** — Lionel Johnson _SOMBRE and rich, the skies, Great glooms, and starry plains; Gently the night wind sighs; Else a vast silence reigns._ … \*Armoured he rides, his head Bare to the stars of doom; He triumphs now, the dead, Beholding London’s gloom. \* ---
**Author:** ![santosvega](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@santosvega](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/santosvega)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/43 "2011-03-02T00:00:30Z")
For the King, without hesitation. I always fancied myself the iconoclastic, anti-authoritarian sort, so when I went through a spell of reading a couple of books on the English Civil War, I surprised myself and others who know me by sympathizing with Charles and the Cavaliers so readily. But the Roundheads were a bunch of assholes, and Cromwell was the biggest asshole of them all. And **Qin** , yeah, dirt poor peasants supported the Roundheads in general – those dirt-poor peasants who were English and Calvinist. Dirt-poor peasants in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Yorkshire often supported Charles. Also, **Qin** , you agree with the Roundheads theologically? I was raised a devout Catholic (though I now lean Anglican), and honestly my exposure to Protestant theology was very limited in the ethnic neighborhoods in which I grew up, so reading about the Civil War was my first exposure to some of the more hardline Calvinist theological beliefs that characterized the Roundheads, like predestination. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of Catholic dogma can seem absurd, but completely devaluing works and deeds in favour of a preordained fate determined by God at the beginning of time seems downright Manson-level psychotic to my ears. Lowborn puritans in England often fell into deep depressions and occasionally became suicidal over the prospect that they may not have been amongst the predetermined saved. That’s just fucked up. I’m rambling. But I believe that a king is better than a dictator nine times out of ten. And Cromwell may have used Parliament to secure power, but upon taking power he was as absolutist as any king in Britain’s history. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/44 "2011-03-02T00:23:03Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You know how **Liberal** feels about Andrew Jackson? While I’m not nearly as rabid, that’s kind of how I view Oliver Cromwell. Guy was a bastard and I hope he’s rotting in hell. > > Hell, if I were to go to Britain, and saw a statue of Cromwell, I’d have to restrain myself from spitting on it. I have a relative who claims he made a trip to his grave/tomb just to spit on it. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/45 "2011-03-02T01:36:16Z")
[Cromwellian conquest of Ireland](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromwellian_conquest_of_Ireland) > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Not to put to fine a point on it, but why? Is it because he sacked that Irish town that wouldn’t surrender? Are you talking about [Drogheda](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Drogheda#Cromwell.E2.80.99s_siege_1649)? > [@](#): > > Some 200 Royalists under Arthur Aston, the garrison commander, had barricaded themselves in Millmount Fort overlooking the south-eastern gate, while the rest of the town was being sacked. Wary of trying to storm the fort, which Cromwell described as, “a place very strong, and of difficult access, being exceeding high, having a good graft, and strongly palisaded” , Parliamentary Colonel Axtell, “offered to spare the lives of the governor and the 200 men with him if they surrendered on the promise of their lives, which they did”. > > According to Axtell, the disarmed men were then taken to a windmill and killed about an hour after they had surrendered. Arthur Aston was reportedly beaten to death with his own wooden leg that the New Model Army soldiers thought had gold hidden in it. Cromwell wrote of the incident, “our men getting up to them, were ordered by me to put them all to the sword” > [@](#): > > **Civilian casualties** > > It has not been clearly established how many civilians died in the sack of Drogheda. Cromwell listed the dead as including, “many inhabitants” of Drogheda in his report to Parliament. Hugh Peters, an officer on Cromwell’s council of war, gave the total loss of life as 3,552, of whom about 2,800 were soldiers, meaning that between 700–800 civilians were killed. John Barratt wrote in 2009, “there are no reliable reports from either side that many [civilians] were killed”. > > The only surviving civilian account of the siege is from Dean Bernard, a Protestant cleric, though a Royalist. He states that during the sack while some 30 of his parishioners were sheltering in his his house Parliamentarian troops fired in through the windows killing one civilian and wounding another. They then broke into the house firing their weapons, but were stopped from killing those inside when an officer known to Bernard identified them as Protestants. The fate of less fortunate civilians may therefore have been worse. > > The week after the storming of Drogheda, the Royalist press in England claimed that 2,000 of the 3,000 dead were civilians—a theme that was taken up both in English Royalist and in Irish Catholic accounts. Irish clerical sources in the 1660s claimed that 4,000 civilians had died at Drogheda, denouncing the sack as “unparalleled savagery and treachery beyond any slaughterhouse”. (Sorry, right now Wiki is my only source) The guy was a dick. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/46 "2011-03-02T02:38:22Z")
> [@santosvega](#): > > Also, **Qin** , you agree with the Roundheads theologically? I was raised a devout Catholic (though I now lean Anglican), and honestly my exposure to Protestant theology was very limited in the ethnic neighborhoods in which I grew up, so reading about the Civil War was my first exposure to some of the more hardline Calvinist theological beliefs that characterized the Roundheads, like predestination. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of Catholic dogma can seem absurd, but completely devaluing works and deeds in favour of a preordained fate determined by God at the beginning of time seems downright Manson-level psychotic to my ears. Lowborn puritans in England often fell into deep depressions and occasionally became suicidal over the prospect that they may not have been amongst the predetermined saved. That’s just fucked up. Yes, of course, I agree with that although you word it rather negatively. I’m not Reformed and Presbyterian for nothin’. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/47 "2011-03-02T03:16:58Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > (Sorry, right now Wiki is my only source) > > The guy was a dick. The garrison didn’t surrender. If you’re a garrison that refuses surrender, the town gets sacked and the lives of the prisoners are forfeit. It’s standard 17th century rule of war, and Cromwell was entirely right to do what he did. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/48 "2011-03-02T03:45:23Z")
Would any king or general or prime minister or emperor or sultan or rajah or doge or shah or chief done anything different during that time? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/49 "2011-03-02T04:07:05Z")
And what about promising to spare those who DID surrender…only to kill them anyways? ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/50 "2011-03-02T04:12:31Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Would any king or general or prime minister or emperor or sultan or rajah or doge or shah or chief done anything different during that time? You’re the one supporting the Roundheads – if the only justification you can give is that “well, everyone else acted that way”, that’s not a very good one. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/51 "2011-03-02T04:13:37Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > You’re the one supporting the Roundheads – if the only justification you can give is that “well, everyone else acted that way”, that’s not a very good one. In other areas they were more enlightened-parliamentary power for instance and their views on Jews. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/52 "2011-03-02T04:14:04Z")
What about it? Cromwell did what he had to do, with limited time. The garrison refused to surrender. Period. By that action, they doomed themselves no matter what Cromwell promised. They got what they deserved. The man wasn’t a saint by any means, but Charles and the royalists had to go, and the Irish had to be suppressed. Cromwell did both with a vengeance. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/53 "2011-03-02T04:23:41Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Such as…? 😕 Herrick. Lovelace. Carew. All way, way more fun than Milton, though I will give the other side credit for Andrew Marvell. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/54 "2011-03-02T04:24:43Z")
Ah but only Milton achieved anything like lasting fame in the sense that he’s read in high schools and are known by people outside literature connisoeurs (yeah I spelled that word wrong). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/55 "2011-03-02T06:15:40Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > And what about promising to spare those who DID surrender…only to kill them anyways? Eh, that was kinda dirty. But, again, it’s war. And it’s not like the Parliamentary men were the only ones killing prisoners. Something similar to what happened to Aston also happened at Hopton Castle, and after Camp Hill, Prince Rupert’s men sacked Birmingham and engaged in indiscriminate slaughter there. So, put that on top of vengeance for the slaughter of (mostly pro-Parliamentarian Calvinist) settlers in Ulster by the Irish Confederates in the 1641 rebellion (about 12,000 were killed in reality, and rumors inflated the numbers to 200,000), there wasn’t really any hope for leniency. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/56 "2011-03-02T10:00:04Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Eh, that was kinda dirty. But, again, it’s war. You don’t get to cite “rules of war” elsewhere when it serves you and then wave away their flagrant violation by your side at another turn. In Ireland, Cromwell’s army were the _invaders_. They killed children and other noncombatants. The stain of some evils can’t be washed away. > [@silenus](#): > > The man wasn’t a saint by any means, but Charles and the royalists had to go, and **the Irish had to be suppressed**. Cromwell did both with a vengeance. Is this a joke? ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/57 "2011-03-02T13:22:13Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > …Is this a joke? Puritans aren’t known as jokesters. (Robert Graves’ _The Story of Marie Powell: Wife to Mr. Milton_ is a great hatchet job on Cromwell’s most famous apologist.) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/58 "2011-03-02T14:17:44Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > The Roundheads were responsible for that rat bastard, Cromwell. Fuckers. (I’m part Irish) 😉 During the Restoration, they exhumed the Judge and hanged him for Charles II’s entrance. I thought that was pretty cool. Besides, Solomon Kane is fictional. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/59 "2011-03-02T14:31:42Z")
While I find their religious bent abhorrent and their Irish escapades also indefensible, at the same time, they were the anti-monarchist side. For that, and the New Model Army, Roundheads get my support. Although, **Qin** , you’re mistaken if you think it broke down along Protestant/not lines. Protestants were also on the Cav side. [QUOTE=Guinastasia] The Roundheads were responsible for that rat bastard, Cromwell. [/QUOTE] I think you rather have your cart and horse mixed up, here. Not that Cromwell \*founded \*the Roundheads, but much more so than the other way around. Also, he has a kicking [theme tune](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ1yPz14LrU) ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007/60 "2011-03-02T15:55:48Z")
Put me down as another Parliamentarian, for the purpose of the elimination of the Monarchy (by execution). Then absolutely in full support of the Diggers, and to a lesser extent the Levellers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-support-in-the-english-civil-war/573007.md?page=4)