7 minute read
History news
TALKING POINTS Re-evaluating Cromwell
New research suggests that Oliver Cromwell was more tolerant of alternative religious beliefs than had previously been thought. ANNA WHITELOCK reports on the fall-out from the news
“H as history got it wrong about Oliver Cromwell’s persecution of Catholics?” The question posed in The Guardian’s headline refers to new research claiming that Cromwell was far more committed to religious freedom and equality than previously thought. Taking to Twitter, Paul Lay (@_paullay), author of Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate (2020), noted: “Important this is being said, but it is not new to historians of the period.” “Indeed,” as Arthur_S (@allanholloway) pointed out, “much of it is covered in the 1973 biography of Cromwell by Antonia Fraser, a Catholic herself, who points out that Cromwell was an Independent and believed in the right to dissent and religious observance.”
Nick Anstead (@NickAnstead) was prompted to write: “It is interesting that the anti-Catholic/anti-Irish view of Cromwell is mentioned here as the ‘traditional view’. It is now perhaps the dominant view, but surely it is also a revisionist view, attacking the Victorian admiration of Cromwell.” Lay, whose interventions continued throughout the discussion, replied with “The Victorian admiration of Cromwell was hardly universal, as the controversy over the statue outside parliament demonstrated.” To which Anstead replied: “That is certainly true, but I think generally we could say their historiography was more positive about him, compared to our own?”
Sir Roger’s Stand (@gdh1959) added that “Cromwell played a big role in our country’s evolution, and one for which we must thank him. But he was multifaceted, and his faults have also resounded down the years.” The response to the original article from Pádraig Barry (@gainline2011) was pithy and pointed: “[It] will start debate this side of the Irish Sea, that’s for sure.” He went on to say that “In this country it is almost a given that Irish people ‘know’ their history. Sadly, this is often untrue.” To which Lay replied: “I suspect every country is like that. But, given centuries of Anglo-Irish relations, the singular bogeyman of Cromwell is of interest in itself – as is, on this side of the Irish Sea, the utter lack of public knowledge of the 17th century and its legacy.”
A portrait of Oliver Cromwell, c1653. Was he an advocate of religious freedoms after all?
The Cold Hibernian (@ColdHibernian) asked: “Wouldn’t the IRA and Cromwell have got along? Both Republican groups who used murder and intimidation to coerce the populace?” Lay gave that view short-shrift. “1. He would have put them to the sword, mercilessly. 2. He wasn’t a Republican.” But Gary Hageman (@Troasts3) noted: “I have found it curious that the IRA and the New Model Army both use the same term for their leadership, the Army Council.”
The final word in response to the original
headline went to Archie Conington (@Archie Conigton): “Can’t be massively groundbreaking new research lol this was discussed last year in my A-level History module on 1625–1701.” Lol indeed!
Researchers found signs of herpes in DNA extracted from the teeth of four skeletons, including this jaw of a Dutch man from the 17th century
HE ALTH
Origins of the modern herpes virus may lie in the Bronze Age
The herpes strain that infects an estimated 3.7 billion people across the world today may have become widespread some 5,000 years ago in the wake of mass migrations into Europe from the Eurasian steppe during the Bronze Age, according to new research.
University of Cambridge scientists located and sequenced ancient ge-
nomes of HSV-1 for the first time, using
DNA from human remains found over a huge geographical area and time pe-
riod. The team identified herpes in the
remains of four people, from regions as disparate as Britain, the Netherlands
and Russia, who died at different times
across a 1,000-year period. Using samples from these remains, scientists determined that HSV-1 became dominant around 4,500 years ago.
Dr Lucy van Dorp, co-lead author of the study, said: “By comparing ancient DNA with herpes samples from the 20th century, we were able to analyse
the differences, and estimate a muta-
tion rate – and, consequently, a timeline for virus evolution.”
As well as migrations and increasingly dense populations, the study suggests another reason why herpes spread quickly in the Bronze Age: the establishment of kissing in Europe, previously not a common practice here. Indeed, the earliest known mention of kissing is from religious Sanskrit texts written in India around 1500 BC.
HISTORY IN THE NE WS
A selec tion of the stories hit ting the histor y headlines
The exterior and interior of a scale model of a longhouse planned for the Isle of Man
Skeleton of soldier unearthed at Waterloo
Archaeologists at the site of the battle of Waterloo in Belgium have discovered the skeleton of a fallen soldier, not long after the dig resumed following a halt enforced by the pandemic. The remains of horses – used to move cannons and ammunition, or for cavalry charges – and three amputated limbs were earlier excavated at Mont-SaintJean Farm, where the Duke of Wellington established a field hospital.
The Napoleonic Wars were brought to an end by the clash on 18 June 1815, when the former emperor of France was defeated by Wellington’s British-led coalition allied with a Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher. Napoleon was then exiled to the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died six years later.
What makes the recent find remarkable is that, though the fighting resulted in tens of thousands of casualties, archaeologists have rarely found skeletons at the site. An enduring theory for this absence of human remains, based on contemporary newspaper reports, is that the bodies of the dead were collected and ground into fertiliser.
The battle of Waterloo, depicted in a contemporary illustration
Viking village approved on the Isle of Man
A project to create an interactive historical attraction on the Isle of Man has been given a boost with the approval of building plans for a replica Viking village. Once completed, the site at Sandygate will include a longhouse, temple, forge and barn, and will host battle re-enactments and Norse crafts workshops. The aim of landowner Chris Hall, who devised the idea in 2012, is to tell the history of Viking traders and settlers on the Isle of Man from their arrival in the ninth century.
African anti-colonial hero to stand in Trafalgar Square
The latest artwork to grace the Fourth Plinth at London’s Trafalgar Square, to be unveiled in September, will commemorate a key figure in early 20th-century resistance to British colonial rule in Africa.
Antelope, by Samson Kambalu, honours preacher and educator John Chilembwe, who was killed in 1915 while leading an uprising in Nyasaland (now Malawi). Based on a photograph from 1914, the statue depicts Chilembwe wearing a hat – a powerful act of defiance at a time when colonial law forbade Africans from wearing hats in front of white people. The short-lived uprising failed to gain widespread support, and Chilembwe was shot dead by African soldiers under colonial control.
The sculpture also features European missionary John Chorley, who appeared in the 1914 photograph. However, the artwork – by Malawi-born Kambalu, associate professor of fine art at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford – depicts Chorley at half the size of Chilembwe, subverting the typical distortions seen in historical narratives written from white European perspectives.
Antelope is the 14th work to stand on the Fourth Plinth since 1999. Previous installations included a giant HMS Victory in a bottle, and a lamassu, a human-headed winged bull of ancient Assyria.
Artist Samson
Kambalu with a miniature of his sculpture Antelope, to be displayed in Trafalgar Square from September
Copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio sells for nearly £2 million
A copy of the First Folio – the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays, published in 1623, seven years after his death – has sold at auction in New York for $2.4 million (nearly £2m). Of the 36 plays included, 18 – Twelfth Night, The Taming of the Shrew and The Tempest among them – might have been lost if they hadn’t been collated for the First Folio (pictured below) by John Heminges and Henry Condell, actors in Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men. Of around 750 copies printed, some 230–235 are known to survive.
