"We must not be led by Victorian writers into regarding this triumph of the Ironsides and of Cromwell as a kind of victory for democracy and the Parliamentary system over Divine Right and Old World dreams. It was the triumph of some twenty thousand resolute, ruthless, disciplined, military fanatics over all that England has ever willed or wished. Long years and unceasing irritations were required to reverse it. Thus the struggle, in which we have in these days so much sympathy and part, begun to bring about a constitutional and limited monarchy, had led only to the autocracy of the sword. The harsh, erratic, lightning-charged being, whose erratic, opportunist, self-centred course is laid bare upon the annals, was now master, and the next twelve years are the record of his well-meant, puzzling plungings and surgings."
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RevolutionariesFarmersMembers of the Parliament of EnglandMilitary leaders from EnglandHeads of state
Original Language: English
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Sources
Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume Two: The New World (1956), p. 274
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
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Oliver Cromwell
1599 – 1658
englischer Politiker
128 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Oliver Cromwell →
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