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Central View: Oliver Cromwell: Briefly, Britain was great again

William Hamilton
Central View
Bill Hamilton.
Courtesy Photo |

On Oct. 19, 1781, when the British Army surrendered at Yorktown, Lord Cornwallis ordered his band to play the British ballad “The World Turned Upside Down.” In 2016, when the Pink Queen (read Hillary) failed to take her “rightful” seat atop the Monarchy (AKA the Washington Establishment), the main-stream media (MSM) began to experience a “World Turned Upside Down.” The MSM are still in a state of shock.

But even earlier history reminds us that Oliver Cromwell — trying to make Great Britain great again — led the fight to overturn the British Monarchy and replace it with a form of government more responsive to the needs of the British people. Sound familiar?

Granted, there is no one alive today to tell President Trump, “I knew Oliver Cromwell, and you are no Oliver Cromwell.” Even so, Oliver Cromwell made some statements that could be applied to today’s GOP-controlled Congress and to President Trump.



With regard to Parliament (read Congress), Cromwell said, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately…Depart, I say, and let us be done with you. In the name of God, go!” Moreover, that statement might also apply to Republican Senator Bob Corker who almost single-handedly arranged for President Obama to skirt the Constitution’s treaty process and achieve President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, a deal that President Trump has now de-certified.

Consequently, Senator Corker’s influence, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is greatly diminished. So, Cromwell might say of Senator Corker, “Depart, I say, let us be done with you so the Republican Governor of Tennessee can appoint President Trump’s supporter, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, in your place!”



If, by some miracle, Oliver Cromwell were alive today, Cromwell might say of President Trump, “I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else.”

While there are plenty of people in the D.C. Monarchy and the MSM who say that President Trump is no Gentleman, it is clear that he knows what he fights for and that he loves what he knows, albeit some of what he knows may not be exactly accurate.

During the presidential campaign of 2016, the noted writer, Peggy Noonan, wrote that voters had a choice between a “Crazy Man and a Crook.” Say or think what one might about President Trump; however, like Oliver Cromwell, Peggy Noonan’s “Crazy Man,” Donald J. Trump, now occupies a place in history.

Backed by his New Model Army, Lord Protector Cromwell’s foreign policies returned Great Britain to the first rank of nation-states. Alas, Cromwell’s reforms were short-lived. Cromwell died in 1658. By 1660, the Monarchy was restored. Today, despite a legion of anti-Cromwell detractors, many historians rank Oliver Cromwell among Great Britain’s top-ten statesmen.

After Cromwell’s Commonwealth was overturned and the Monarchy restored to power, the anti-Cromwells dug up Cromwell’s body and beheaded his corpse. While President Trump may have “turned the world upside down,” he would be well-advised to recall Shakespeare’s words in Henry IV, “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame, and was a recipient of the University of Nebraska 2015 Alumni Achievement Award. Dr. Hamilton is the author of The Wit and Wisdom of William Hamilton: The Sage of Sheepdog Hill, Pegasus Imprimis Press (2017).


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