Comments on: Civil War Death Match: Manchester vs Cromwell

By: Investigations of a Dog » Cavalry Generals: Cromwell and Balfour

Investigations of a Dog » Cavalry Generals: Cromwell and Balfour — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 17:54:46 +0000

[...] that Cromwell told self-justifying lies about the Second Newbury campaign after the event (see this post). I think this speech falls into the same category. It certainly isn’t true that Essex’s [...]

By: Ross Mahoney

Ross Mahoney — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 15:53:39 +0000

Gavin

The latest issue of War in History has got a review of Wanklyn’s book in it.

By: Ross Mahoney

Ross Mahoney — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 14:44:51 +0000

Gavin – I think there are people like that in aspects of history. These politicians come historians, and I use the term in term sparingly, tend to distort our view of history. They then gain a degree of credence and seep into the popular imagination. The most prevalent example of this Lloyd George’s memoirs. You just have to look at Blackadder and the prevalence of the war poets to see the effect ‘his’ interpretation has had.

By: Gavin Robinson

Gavin Robinson — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 16:02:57 +0000

Maybe it would’ve been better for civil war historiography if Clarendon had been killed by a stray bullet at Edgehill or drowned on his way into exile or something. If it was just his facts that were the problem it wouldn’t be so bad, but he tended to offer specious explanations for everything, and it can be very tempting to follow them uncritically. The continuing polarisation between people who love Cromwell and people who hate him hasn’t helped much either.

By: Ross Mahoney

Ross Mahoney — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 10:51:36 +0000

Gavin – I was wondering when you would get round to this article. It is a good article and having had to teacht e English Civil War to my A Level students this year a lot of it has been a learning curve for me and this article questioned a lot of the assumptions i was presented with in the limited readin i have done this year for the course.

It is interesting to note your comparison with the First World War. It is true that there is still a lot to learn in the realm of Military History. In my opinion my of what has been written needs to be re-written as much of it is tainted with the opinions of post war politicians. For example, much of the early work of on the First World War was tainted by that of Loyd George. I imagine their is a similar case with the English Civi War with work from the likes of Clerendon et al. Military history fo most period has now got to start looking at the operational and tactical levels to really see how well thing were done or might not have been done.