Hundreds of lost documents have been unearthed revealing the Puritan leader’s radical views on religious freedom
Photograph: Print Collector/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Print Collector/Getty Imagesliver Cromwell was far more committed to religious freedom and equality than historians previously thought, according to new research. The findings suggest he wanted Jews to be allowed to practise openly in England and Irish Catholics to have the right to worship freely, as long as it was in private.
Along with eight other scholars, Morrill has spent the last 11 years hunting down and examining the 1,253 documents containing Cromwell’s words that exist in libraries and archives all over the world: “Cromwell thinks that persecution is always counterproductive, because if you target militants, you finish up radicalising moderates. He also believes the way to convert people isn’t by persecution, but by kindness.
A key piece of evidence historians have previously relied upon to demonstrate that Cromwell despised Catholics is, printed in London in 1650. Morrill and his team unearthed two earlier versions of this declaration, printed only in Ireland, with a different title. Although Cromwell later killed dozens of Irish priests and forced hundreds more into exile, Morrill – who is himself an ordained Roman Catholic deacon – argues this happened because Cromwell was convinced many priests had instigated theOliver Cromwell from a portrait attributed to Van Dyck.There is little in Cromwell’s writings, he said, to suggest Cromwell wanted to persecute Catholics for being Catholic, rather than for their politics and supporting the king.
Many of the original documents the academics tracked down, often using web catalogues and newly digitised archives, have been thought missing for hundreds of years or were incompetently transcribed in the 18th century. This includes precise accounts of meetings revealing how keen Cromwell was to invite Jews, who were expelled by Edward I in 1290, back to England.
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