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Full Description
Richard Cromwell succeeded his famous father Oliver as Lord Protector in
1658, and resigned 274 days later, making way for Charles II to return to
England and take the Crown. Born in 1626,
Richard was a disappointment to his father. Despite this,
Cromwell named Richard as his successor. However, although Richard was
intelligent and not uncharismatic in his own right, but he did not have the
desire to rule as his father had and struggled to establish his authority as
Lord Protector.
Upon the Restoration, Richard was pilloried by his contemporaries. The poet John Dryden, in
'Absalom and Achitophel,' described him as 'the foolish Ishbosheth.' He was called 'Queen Sick' by royalists.
Despite this, Richard was never tried for treason
and lived to a grand old age, making him the
longest-lived British head of state for three centuries. During a long life in
exile, Richard visited the courts of Europe and took part in many adventures,
before returning to Hampshire in 1680.
This remarkable book is
the first modern biography of Richard Cromwell and offers a profound
reassessment of his life and abilities. As Cromwell's successor, for instance,
the role of finding a balance between the army, a war-weary civil society and a
Parliament stuffed full of disaffected royalists and Presbyterians, would have
been beyond almost anyone; in effect, his father left him a hospital pass. It
also looks in detail at the complex and difficult relationship between Richard
and his overbearing father, Cromwell.
What emerges is the
fascinating, untold story of a man who was both lead protagonist and survivor
of an age of unparallel turbulence.
