TS: Oliver Cromwell vs Abraham Lincoln

?

no shit

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Still, the latter was cruel to the Irish, but everyone should remember that everyone hated the Irish as they were backwards primitives anyway. Even though he crushed the Scots, it is great to think of a time when they were actually a real military threat.

Cromwell sucks, but most people do. The end result of his actions was for the better. And yes, Tim Roth rocks.

I've noticed some revisionist Irish books recently which discuss Cromwell's campaign in Ireland in terms other than equating it with some Waffen SS sweep through Ukraine. I think they say that the storming of Drogheda (where the defending garrison was massacred) would not have been considered out of order by anyone at the time - the city's wall was breached, the garrison were offered a chance to surrender, they declined to take it. Storming cities in that setup typically saw attacking forces take enormous casualties (see Cromwell's later loss of around a thousand guys in an unsuccessful attempt to storm Clonmel); the accepted rule was that if defenders brought it to this by not surrendering after the walls were breached (if given the chance) then their lives were forfeit.

I don't know what the revisionists say about Wexford, where Cromwell's army massacred the entire population of the town.

One thing that should be said about Cromwell in Ireland is that he insisted that his blokes buy things off the locals rather than just taking them, and unlike the armies in Ireland of the Royalists, Covenanters, and Confederates, his guys did not go round raping and pillaging on a casual basis, so one must thank him for some things. However, there is still this real sense of him as a crazed nutter with a lust for blood... one of his letters back home after the siege of Drogheda recounts how the garrison fled into a church, which was then set alight by Cromwell's troops, "And from within they cried 'I burn, I burn'. Scary man.

Hi, Aleister Crowley.

Hi, Aleister Crowley.

Or someone else...

HONEST ABE, BITCHES

Not true

to be honest, the way you learn about Cromwell in school in Ireland is so obviously demonising of him that I bet his army marched around Ireland handing out sweets to little children and playing with little bunny rabbits.

So the savagery of Cromwell's army in Ireland is deniable. I have read recent scholarship about how his army was less savage towards Irish people than the army of the Irish catholic Confederates (more inclined to buy things from locals, less inclined to rape and pillage).

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/12/all-ladies-like-whiskers.html

Reminder that the Los Angeles federal courthouse has a statue of Abraham Lincoln where he's a shirtless young stud suggestively tugging at his waistband like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model: pic.twitter.com/32bjqEERYi

— Zack Stentz (@MuseZack) February 20, 2019

Really nice rev by Keith Thomas on an odd book on Cromwell, which has many descriptions of the English land (and sky) scape.

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/06/23/the-making-of-oliver-cromwell-hutton-thomas/

Highly ironic to revive this on Juneteenth in order to give a shout out to Cromwell.