Cromwell

A re-typeset premium edition of Belloc's classic text, which has been out of print for 22 years

A landed Puritan enthusiast, made rich by the Great Pillage, Oliver Cromwell felt called by God to do His work by any means. Like a judge of the Old Law bearing a mandate, he would rid the Elect of its foes, especially Papists.

Backed by the money power of London, he used subterfuge to kill the king, and his talent on the battlefield to crush the outgunned Royalists. In Ireland, he mounted genocide: butchering Drogheda, as he presided over the the looting of a nation.

With Charles I beheaded, Cromwell as Protector ruled Britain with an iron fist. In toppling the old regime to carve out a republic, had he merely made himself another king?

Master historian Hilaire Belloc paints a portrait of the revolutionary squire who was the chief slayer of monarchy, killed to make way for rule by wealth. Who in pursuing his dark quest ordered up the deaths of innocents, and knew nothing of God's mercy, only His awful will.