Description
Born in Huntingdon and educated at Huntingdon School and Cambridge University, Oliver Cromwell was a moderately wealthy landowner in East Anglia before being elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon in 1628. However, Charles I dissolved parliament in 1629 and ruled without one for eleven years, eventually calling a new parliament in 1640. Cromwell returned as MP for Cambridge and emerged as a committed Puritan and critic of the King. He played an active role in the revolution of 1648–49, which lead to Charles’s trial and execution. Despite probably having no military training, Cromwell became a highly effective commander and was responsible for large scale massacres in the coastal towns of Drogheda and Wexford during his campaign in Ireland (1649–50).

In 1650 he was made Commander in Chief, responsible for all parliamentary forces. He lead a campaign to impose English control over the Scots, defeating Charles II’s army at Dunbar in 1650 and a second Scottish royalist army at Worcester in 1651. On 20 April 1653, Cromwell forcibly expelled the Rump Parliament and became Lord Proctor, Head of State. He retained this position until his death at Whitehall on 3 September 1658, probably the result of a chest infection and pneumonia.

This portrait, by the Yorkshire based portrait painter John Lambert (c.1640–1701/2), is derived from a three-quarter length version by Robert Walker (active 1641–c.1658). It has been selected as the featured work for September to mark the 350th anniversary of Cromwell’s death, at the age of 59.