Friday, November 21, 2008
Why not the crown?
While reading this week about the English civil war I found one thing particularly intriging about it. Why when Cromwell took power after King Charles I, did he not accept the crown from parliment? He took all the power of England without the responsibility of the crown. He played by all the same rules of the king so why Lord Protector over King Oliver? He was more militarily minded than thinking for the good of England. He waged several wars and depleated the treasury in the process. I am not familiar with all the rules of a monarchy but it seems to me if he was not the king then he should have had no right to name a sucessor, not that his sucessor did much but regaurdless. Some historians call him a dictator with genocide on his conscience others praise him as a hero of England. He certainly left a reputation with England king or not.
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3 comments:
I think the reason he choose to be called "Lord Protector" instead of "King" was because he wanted to make a point that he was different: he wasn't going to be a pampered king who was in it for the nobles, he was in it to protect the country. Thats what I think anyway :)
What I got from the readings was that Cromwell was there to put an end to what the King Charles I was doing. He wanted the Parliament to regain power and be heard again. He might not have done it in the best way, but at least he created some change in England. I don't think he was ever aiming to get the crown because he did not want to continue with the same form of "government" in England, he wanted the country to be ruled in a very different way.
I felt the same way. I wondered how a feud between the king and parliment ends up giving the power to a military leader. Obviously he took it by force from parliment. It kind of goes back to the senate, all that backstabbing eventually gets you to the top.
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