"Poor King Charles laid his head on
the block
JANUARY 1649
Down came the axe, and...
In the silence that followed, the
only sound that could be heard was
a solitary giggle, from.. Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector
of England
OLE
Born in 1599 and died in 1658
SEPTEMBER."ă

OLIVER CROMWELL. The unforgettable Lord Protector, whose personality still attracts our interest. This man, cousin of John Hampden, born in Huntingdon after traumatic civil war and the regicide, become Lord Protector and also the ruler of England, Scotland and Ireland. He refused to be King, but he had power like the real King had. After death he was buried in the Westminster Abbey. But let’s look at it once more and from the beginning. The future Lord Protector was born on April 25, 1599 in Huntington, near Cambridge. Cromwell’s father was the younger son of a knight and therefore they had only very little property. So, Cromwell grew up in poverty. But they had enough money for a good status in society. First Oliver studied at Huntingdon grammar school (nowadays the Cromwell Museum) than at Lincoln’s Inn. Two days before his seventeen, in 1616 Cromwell started attending the Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. He belonged into gentry and therefore he came there not for a degree but for a polite learning. But he had studied there only one year. The result was probably the death of his father. After that event Oliver Cromwell lived quietly in small poverty and he took an active part in local political affairs. In the years 1628-29 Cromwell represented the city Huntingdon as a Member of Parliament in the Short Parliament. It is not sure, but probably he was a member of a parliament thanks to aristocratic patronage. Oliver belonged between the poorest men in the House of Commons. In that time he was still a silent Member of Parliament. After the demission of the Short parliament in 1629 he had small problems in business and therefore he moved in 1630 to St. Ives where he worked as a farmer (yeoman). After the death of his heirless uncle (mother’s brother) in 1637 Oliver inherited not very big income and a house near the Cathedral. During this time, Cromwell was still in contact with wealthy London merchants and Great puritans interested in colonial development, because his grandfather had a house one mile from Huntingdon and it was very often visited by these important people. Since 1630 Oliver Cromwell became a strict Puritan.