Oliver Cromwell, painted by Samuel Cooper. Source

They say history rhymes.

How much does it rhyme?

Oliver Cromwell led the second of England's two schisms with the Roman Catholic church:

Date	Religio-Political Result	Lead Advisor	Physical Result	Property Re-distribution Result
1540	England separates from Roman Catholic rule	Thomas Cromwell	'Dissolution' of the monasteries	Henry VIII hands ecclesiast-owned property to elites
1650	England separates from Roman Catholic teaching	Oliver Cromwell	Religious buildings destroyed	Charles II hands ecclesiast-owned property to elites

Thomas Cromwell led the first.

Here's Thomas:

Thomas Cromwell - as painted by Hans Holbein the Younger's inkjet. Source

The faces are different but how different are the two Cromwell's biographies?

Let's compare - starting with Thomas.

Thomas Cromwell's rise to power is an enigma.

From History Learning Site:

How Cromwell became Henry’s chief minister is not clear. What Cromwell actually did for the king between November 1530 and 1533 is difficult to clearly establish with any authority. For a man who was to be so keen to keep notes once he was chief minister, Cromwell did not do the same pre-1533. While it is not clear why Cromwell, especially with his non-noble background, came to prominence, intelligent guesses can be made ¹.

Also poorly documented is the early life of Oliver Cromwell.

From Oliver Cromwell (Wikipedia):

Cromwell was born into the landed gentry to a family descended from the sister of Henry VIII's minister Thomas Cromwell (his great-great-granduncle). Little is known of the first 40 years of his life, as only four of his personal letters survive, along with a summary of a speech that he delivered in 1628.

Where did these four letters and summary of a speech come from?

From The Cromwell Association:

The collected letters and speeches of Oliver Cromwell... were first published in 1845 by Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle’s fascination with Cromwell grew out of his interest in the concept of heroes and hero worship and he set out in the early 1840s to write a biography of Cromwell. The challenge proved too great and he deliberately destroyed his manuscript. He decided that the best alternative was to produce an edition of Cromwell’s own words and that is what he produced.

Thomas Carlyle Source

So from only four of his personal letters and a summary of a speech that he delivered, Thomas Carlyle produced an edition of Cromwell's own words that we treat as a biography.

The biography component was added by Carlyle - as 'elucidations'.

This meticulous fabrication elaboration began Oliver Cromwell's promotion to his current status as a significant player in English history.

From Thomas Carlyle:

The first edition of (Thomas Carlyle's) Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches: with Elucidations was published in 1845; it was a popular success, and did much to revise Cromwell's standing in Britain.

But Thomas Carlyle's biography of Oliver Cromwell also caused controversy.

Even the bits that Carlyle claimed he hadn't made up elucidated.

In fact, especially the bits he hadn't elucidated.

From The Squire Papers, The Norfolk Antiquarian Miscellany, Vol II, Part I, Walter Rye, 1877, p 16:

Students of Carlyle will remember the fierce controversy which arose some years ago as to the genuineness of some letters alleged to be by Oliver Cromwell, communicated to Carlyle by an anonymous correspondent...

Various expressions and words which occur in them... seemed to many most unlikely to have occurred in correspondence of the period in which they were alleged to have been written. But I do not think any of the critics noticed that " London Lane," in Norwich, where " Cornet Squire " was directed to purchase some hosiery for Cromwell, (p. 279) was never so called, and that London Street (as it is now called) was then, and until quite recently, called " Cockey Lane."

The list "of those who joined us at the siege of Lynn" (pp. 291-2-3) seems to me to bear the strongest internal evidence of forgery.

The proportion of unusual Christian names is also most absurdly large, e.g.,

Rye extracted the unusual Christian names from Cromwell's alleged letters into a list. His struggle to reconcile them with Christian names believed common in Ye Olde 17th Century England becomes clear if the list is sorted by region of origin:

Mediterranean	Augustan or Roman	North-West European
Aaron	Amphillius	Allwurd
Ahimelech	Cladius	Alwyn
Aram	Constantine	Egbert
Eleazar	Octavius	Hubert
Hezekiah	Villellius
Hiram
Icheil
Isaiah
Ishmael
Israel
Japhet
Jesophat
Jonathan
Levi
Manna
Moses
Pious
Selah
Sheckaniah
Shem
Simon
Tobias
Zatthu
Zecheriah
Zered

Nevertheless, says The Cromwell Association:

[Carlyle's] work... proved to be very popular and helped to shape the image and profile of Cromwell in the second half of the 19th century. The work was to a large extent replaced... in 1937 by William Cortez Abbott’s edition... but Abbott lacked by his own admission Carlyle’s ‘arresting style’ in the linking narrative text and interpretation.

So despite struggling to fake a believable Oliver Cromwell story, Thomas Carlyle kept going until he produced something believable. Or at least usable.

Why?

Because Carlyle and other Romantic Movement writers seem to have taken on the task of re-writing - romanticising - England's brutal history.

And if publication dates can be trusted. the mid-19th century seems to be when that effort got underway. The physical extent of that re-write of England's history is touched upon in Location Analysis: Peterborough-Stamford Wild Hunt and especially Location Analysis Peterborough-Stamford Wild Hunt - Part Four IHASFEMR.

But with people like Rye uncovering evidence of forgery in Oliver Cromwell's biography, it was clear a rewrite was needed. Like other attempts to pimp up the devastation of England's Civil Wars, that re-write came in the 1930s. Specifically 1937, when William Cortez Abbott re-worked Carlyle's biography of Oliver Cromwell. Giving Protestants and Pilgrim Fathers the Oliver Cromwell they know and love today.

But had probably never heard of at the time they were protesting and pilgrimming.

Now, switching to analysis of Oliver's ghostly alter ego, Thomas Cromwell...

Despite his own enormous alleged impact on English, British, and even western European politics, Thomas Cromwell's achievements went unrecognised for a long time.

About 100 years longer than Oliver Cromwell's enormous alleged impact on English, British, and even western European politics went unrecognised.

From Caroline Angus's The Letters of Thomas Cromwell:

Four hundred years passed between Thomas Cromwell’s death in 1540 and the recognition that this faithful servant was more than another agent of Henry VIII. Born a common man with no recorded education, Cromwell became a wealthy lawyer, politician, minister, and peer of the realm, and created the modern style of government in England. An extraordinary man of wisdom, charm, strategic cunning, and boasting an incredible memory, Cromwell redefined bureaucracy, broke a nation from Rome, reformed parliament, created royal supremacy and developed the revolutionary administrative procedures still in place today.

Which sounds exactly like Oliver Cromwell's achievements. So much so that it's easy to see how Oliver Cromwell's achievements would overshadow Thomas Cromwell's apparently identical achievements 100 years earlier.

In fact, using Caroline Angus's observation that 400 years passed before Thomas Cromwell's achievements were recognised, we can take a stab at guessing who might have teased his biography out of Oliver's biography.

Using Caroline Angus's dating of Thomas Cromwell's re-instantiation as a major political figure:

1540 + 400 = 1940.

So about three years after William Cortez Abbott reconstructed Thomas Carlyle's overly dramatic biography of Oliver Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell emerged. A Thomas Cromwell whose achievements are - if the fake dates and fake Christian name are stripped out - indistinguishable from Oliver Cromwell's achievements.

Thomas Cromwell's missing early years continued to be a mystery until 2009, when Hilary Mantel (1952 - 2022) filled them out with her best-selling historical fiction: Wolf Hall.

Mantel also helped complete Carlyle's 1837 invention of the French Revolution. Her historical fiction - A Place of Greater Safety - was published in 1992.

Who knows? Perhaps even Wikipedia's faked Samuel Cooper portrait of Oliver Cromwell was AI generated from the dramatic biography of another Carlyle:

Scottish actor Robert Carlyle Source

Finally, from Thomas Carlyle (Wikipedia):

On 10 June 1834, the Carlyles moved into 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, which became their home for the remainder of their lives. Residence in London wrought a large expansion of the Carlyles' social circle; they became acquainted with dozens of leading writers, novelists, artists, radicals, men of science, Church of England clergymen, and political figures.

People with purpose, as they say.

What their purpose was is analysed across much of this site. But the English Civil War parts are explored in investigations tagged Civil War.

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