British Highways and Byways from a Motor Car: Being a Record of a Five Thousand Mile Tour in England, Wales and ScotlandMurphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
History
British Highways and Byways from a Motor Car: Being a Record of a Five Thousand Mile Tour in England, Wales and Scotland
Murphy, Thos. D. (Thomas Dowler)
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Great Britain -- Maps
An incident illustrating the sentiment with which the Protector is now
regarded by the common people came under my own observation. With a
number of other sightseers, we were visiting Warwick Castle and were
being shown some of the portraits and relics relating to Cromwell, when
the question was raised by someone in the party as to his position in
English history. A young fellow, apparently an aspirant for church
honors, expressed the opinion that Cromwell was a traitor and the
murderer of his king. He was promptly taken to task by the old soldier
who was acting as our guide through the castle. He said, "Sir, I can not
agree with you. I think we are all better off today that there was such
a man as Cromwell."
That appears to be the general sentiment of the people of Great Britain,
and the feeling is rapidly growing that he was distinctly the defender
of the people's rights. True, he destroyed many of the historic castles,
but such destruction was a military necessity. These fortresses, almost
without exception, were held by supporters of King Charles, who used
them as bases of operation against the Parliamentary Army. If not
destroyed when captured, they were re-occupied by the Royalists and the
work had to be done over again. Therefore Cromwell wisely dismantled the
strongholds when they came into his possession, and generally he did his
work so well that restoration was not possible, even after the Royalists
regained power. The few splendid examples which escaped his
wrath--notably Warwick Castle--fortunately happened at the time to be in
possession of adherents of Parliament. The damage Cromwell inflicted
upon the churches was usually limited to destruction of stone images,
tombs and altars, as savoring of idolatry. This spirit even extended to
the destruction of priceless stained-glass windows, the loss of which we
can not too greatly deplore, especially since the very art of making
this beautiful glass seems to be a lost one.
At Cambridge we were within easy reach of the scenes of the Protector's
early life. He was born in 1599 at Huntingdon, sixteen miles distant,
and was twenty years a citizen of St. Ives, only a few miles away. He
was a student at Cambridge and for several years was a farmer near Ely,
being a tenant on the cathedral lands. As Ely is only fifteen miles
north of Cambridge, it occurred to us to attend services at the
cathedral there on Sunday morning. We followed a splendid road leading
through a beautiful country, rich with fields of grain almost ready for
harvest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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