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Oliver Cromwell

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Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was born on the 25th of April 1599 to Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward, a family of minor gentry. He had been educated at Huntingdon Grammar School and Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge. Cromwell was famous for being both skilled militarily, creating the famed Ironsides cavalry platoon, and politically, becoming the First Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. He held extremely strict Puritan religious beliefs.
Oliver Cromwell was born at Cromwell House in Huntingdon to parents Robert and Elizabeth Cromwell (nee Steward). The Cromwell’s were a relatively wealthy family, and Oliver, being one of the younger siblings, would be given a house and lands that would earn up to 300£ a year, enough to live off but still fairly low in the gentry system. He attended Huntingdon Grammar School, and then went off to study at Sydney Sussex College, Cambridge.
With a Cambridge education in tow and sponsoring from a wealthy family, Cromwell joined the Parliament of Huntingdon in 1628, though failing to stand out during his short time as a member. A year later the Parliament was dissolved and Oliver fell into obscurity for the next eleven years.
During those eleven years, he experienced a religious crisis, which led to him obtaining his extreme Puritan beliefs and the belief that he would be guided to carry out God’s purpose. Cromwell was later called into Parliament. In 1642, 12 years after the Huntingdon Parliament’s dissolving, Cromwell was called back into the newly formed Long Parliament.
Civil war broke out between the Parliament and King Charles I in 1642. Though having no previous military experiences, he did have an extensive knowledge of horses from the land he owned. He proved himself to be a capable commander, rising from the rank of Lieutenant-General in the space of a few years. He became convinced that if he could produce a well-disciplined army, they could defeat Royalist Prince Rupert and his

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