Spotlight on Ironsides

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 780, 2 July 1954, Page 12

Spotlight on Ironsides

CROMWELL AND HIS GENERALS, by Maurice Ashley; Jonathan Cape, English price 21/-.

(Reviewed by

F. J.

Foot

ROMWELL was undoubtedly a military commander of genius. The author dedicates this work to his friends in the Cromwell Association and devotes the first quarter of it to the Dunbar and Worcester campaigns. As every schoolboy knows, the Scots army was shattered at Dunbar-13,000 were killed or captured for the loss of 30. A year later Charles II was in alliance with the Kirk. He engaged himself to establish the Presbyterian religion in England. (A distinguished editor has often reminded me by how narrow a margin it failed to become the State religion.) The invasion was defeated at Worcester. In Ireland, Cromwell’s military. genius was seen to extend to sieges and combined naval and military operations. As to Cromwell’s other qualities there is much difference of: opinion. That he established order at home and was respected abroad is certain, but the order often resembled a wilderness and the stability ended with his life. On the whole, he kept the loyalty of his subordinates, but it may be said that they

were his sons Henry and Richard Cromwell, sons-in-law Ireton and Fleetwood, his brother-in-law Desborough, _ his cousin Whalley, and his former regimental subordinates. It may be asked whether this book helps to spotlight Cromwell’s generals, and the answer is no. The fact of the matter is that it is not quite possible to portray Cromwell’s generals without their master gradually pushing them_gut of the picture. The Rebellion in England, like the Revolutions in France and Russia, threw

up a crop, of competent generals. One school of thought claims that they were godly men, devoid of self-interest, the forerunners of the modern movement to abolish monarchies and second chambers and to dethrone bishops. The other side looks on them as monsters, in rebellion against their country, destroyers of cathedrals, dripping with the blood of executed Scots and Royalist prisoners and of the women and children of Drogheda, and getting pay which makes a modern general’s scale look like pin money. Mr. Ashley has something to say for both points of view, but is on the whole a Roundhead. He does not, I think, give due importance to the numerous and contradictory religious animosities which had their bearing on the political background. That the attempt of the Scots failed was due to fanatical Fifth Monarchy men like Major-General Harrison, who believed in some interpretation of the Book of Daniel, which has convinced no one else before or after them. The reader will probably have his own opinions, but will, I think, be interested in this point of view, which is competently presented within a small compass.