ROUNDHEADS, ROYALISTS AND RADICALS
“THE HEAVY CAVALRY, OR CUIRASSIERS, WERE FEW IN NUMBER AND DESCENDED FROM THE HEAVILY ARMOURED KNIGHTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES”
OLIVER CROMWELL 1599-1658
THE MILITARY GENIUS WHO ROSE FROM OBSCURITY TO CONQUER AND RULE THE ENTIRE BRITISH ISLES
A great-great-nephew of the Tudor statesman Thomas Cromwell, Oliver Cromwell was born into a minor gentry family and educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Elected to Parliament as the MP for Huntingdon in 1628 he nevertheless worked as a gentleman farmer for much of his early life and suffered from depression. Cromwell also developed uncompromising Puritan beliefs and when he was re-elected as the MP for Cambridge in 1640 he became a solid supporter of anti-Episcopalian Parliamentarians.
Cromwell sided with Parliament when war broke out in 1652 and secured Cambridgeshire for the Roundheads. He witnessed the
