Cromwell, O Homem de Ferro

Being a lay student of these times I was naturally interested in this movie, and to a great extent I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable, but what happened to the Battle of Marston Moor? Was history wrong and the battle never fought? Cromwell was depicted as the over all commander of the New Model Army (i.e the "Roundheads") at the battle of Naseby. He wasn't, Sir Thomas Fairfax was. Cromwell was the commander of the cavalry.

The Civil War was not a conflict over religion, although it played it's part. It was about "the divine right of kings", against the governance of, by and for the people, i.e. Rex v Parliament. Divided loyalties and opinions were split right across the board.

The capital charges of treason brought against the king was, to my mind, not altogether trumped up, and had some validity. However it was of course a "show trial", and to bring it about the laws had to be changed rapidly. There was no edict at the time that allowed anyone to put a monarch on trial. Issac Dorislaus (a Dutch lawyer) came to the rescue of Parliament. He wrote an order that would enable it to set up the court. This order was based on an old Roman law which stated that a military body (in this case the Parliamentary forces) could legally overthrow a tyrant. Naturally Charles I did not agree, either to this law, or that he was a tyrant. He was still the King, still the Head of State, and as such, above the law. He could do as he wished, and was answerable only to God. For him it was an unfortunate way of looking at things.

The casting of this movie was extremely well thought out, but with one exception. Cromwell himself. I'm not criticising Richard Harris in any way. He played the role superbly, but I'm sure he didn't have an Irish accent. Also he had some extremely noticeable warts on his face which Richard Harris did not. Had the make-up artists gone on vacation? To his credit Richard overcame this miscasting, and acquitted the characterisation of the brusque, complex, and religiously enigmatic Oliver Cromwell with great fervour and passion, and I doubt if anyone else could have done it any better.

On the subject of accents, I wonder whether or not the Scottish accent adopted by Alec Guinness was apt. As Charles I left Scotland at the age of 4, and lived in England until his death, surely he would have cultivated an English one? True he had a Scottish tutor, but I'm still left to wonder. Perhaps someone could set me right.

(Just as a byline, I find it curious that Richard Harris, being an Irishman, accepted the part. In the greater part of Ireland the very name of Oliver Cromwell is loathed and reviled, and for good reason, so it says much for Harris's devotion to the acting profession that he actually did.) Being a musician, I was highly amused at seeing (and hearing) bugles played on horseback during a 17th century battle, reminiscent of the US 7th cavalry. Such instruments weren't developed to such an advanced stage until late into the following century (the 18th).

As another reviewer has noted, Cromwell was certainly not one of the "Five Members" who were to be removed from the House and arrested. These were: John Pym, John Hampden, Denzil Holles, Sir Arthur Haselrig and William Strode. A sixth man, Lord Mandeville (the future Earl of Manchester) was also to be taken.

There are quite a few more historical mistakes and omissions on which other reviewers have remarked, and I don't intend to repeat them. But in defence of the producers it must be said that "The English Civil War" was a momentous stage in British, perhaps even world history, and to illustrate it all in a couple of hours is impossible. Much as Shakespeare, when writing "Henry V", managed on a small stage to capture the flavour of Agincourt and events leading up to it, so this production coped well with a similar task on film. Therefore if certain liberties were taken, and artistic licence used, I think they can, in this case, be excused. Should it have encouraged one student to scuttle towards the history books (or now websites), to learn more about the whole period, then I would say it was a job well done.

The movie is some kind of misnomer ,cause Cromwell's reign is reduced to a short laudatory comment at the end of the movie.However,the film is good with a splendid cast.Richard Harris is every inch a puritan,never cracking a smile during the 2hours+ film.Harris's performance unlayers every nuance of his strength and his weakness (perhaps his best moment is when he discovers the man he's just executed was right).

Alec Guiness's king is impressive and his relationship with the catholic queen should have been more developed .Dame Dorothy Tutin's rendering is subtle and she makes all her scenes count.There is also Robert Morley and Timothy Dalton who give strong support.

Queen Henrietta took refuge in France and her daughter Henriette married the king Louis XIV 's brother ,"Monsieur" .Sadly she was to pass away at a very early age probably of peritonitis(few historians still speak of poisoning).

"Cromwell" ,which I saw when it was released ,has stood the test of time quite well,thanks to all these wonderful actors.In his own way,Cromwell was an incorruptible person ,ahead of his time,who predates Robespierre .The fact that he substituted a dictatorship for another one does not ruin his main revolutionary idea:a king is not infallible, the absolute monarchy means tyranny.A century and a half later ,minister Turgot told Louis XVI :"do not forget Charles the first,Sire!"

This film ultimately fails as an historical drama. It has some pretty good elements. The production values of the costumes, scenes, etc., are overall quite good. Guinness is great as Charles: he looks a lot like him, and he does a good job at conveying the king's tyrannical, autocratic stance, his conviction in his belief that he's right, his nobility to the end, and the fact that while he usually ended up taking bad positions or doing the wrong things, he did so not entirely for bad reasons (at least in his own mind), for he was sure that he was right. The film also makes some modicum of effort at showing Cromwell's more troubling qualities, too, making him out to be the noble hero, but not entirely covering up his transformation into ruthless, hypocritical dictator.

However, the film has equally strong bad points. It tends to drag at many points and frequently gives the impression of being an overly drawn-out stage production that fails to be fully convincing. More serious, though, is the problem that, although presenting itself as historical, it plays fast and loose with history. It does not fully explain the causes of the Civil War or the differences of viewpoints within each side, especially the Parliamentarians, not all of whom were fighting for the same reasons. It portrays the Royalist forces as the flashy, well-equipped and stronger element when in reality the Parliament forces were not only much more numerous, but usually much better equipped as well (after all, it was not a war of rag-tag, grass-roots rebels trying to topple the government; each side represented in part one branch of the government and Parliament, not the king, was the body that held the purse strings). In addition, the Royalists often did quite well in battle despite their inferior forces. It clearly makes Cromwell out to be too important from the start: rather than being one of the key leaders in the beginning, he really started out as a military commander and simply rose to prominence over time. Finally, Cromwell, despite some of his autocratic tendency coming through, is still shown to be too much the reluctant, noble hero, and the film only hints at his other face, one which in short order made him none too popular in England, let alone Ireland. Needless to say, nothing is mentioned of his willingness to shed the blood of Royalists and Catholics, or to destroy historic architecture that conflicted with his Puritan views.

It is to be admitted that Oliver Cromwell (a.k.a. THE LORD PROTECTOR, "Old NOLL") was a great figure in British history. But Cromwell was a flawed hero. He did rebel against his liege king, Charles I, and voted for his monarch's execution. He also truncated Parliament, when he found it impeded his own reforms. His treatment of Irish Catholics, while typical of the ruthless massacres of religious opponents in the period of the Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648), is still a stain against his fame. Still, in the period that he was the dominant figure (1644 - 1658) he rebuilt the British army and navy, restored Britain to major power status, and actually did one act of surprising religious toleration - he allowed the Jews to return to England in 1655, a reform that Charles II decided not to undue when he was restored to the throne five years later.

Such a career deserves a careful movie. CROMWELL is not that film. It does do well in showing King Charles I (Alec Guinness) as a untrustworthy individual (though one driven to such actions because of his need to maintain his rights as monarch). It does make one serious howler regarding Charles I and his trial for treason. Charles may have been a liar and betrayer at times - but Sir Edward Hyde (who was a leading supporter of his, and would be a statesman in his son's reign and the father-in-law of the future James II) did not testify at Charles's trial as a witness for the prosecution.

Such glaring errors are frequent in the movie (for example, Prince Rupert was not dismissed so callously by his uncle King Charles - Rupert was a very fine cavalry leader, and would remain a fixture in English society when Charles II was restored). The subtle acting of Guinness is not matched by Harris, who rants and raves throughout the film - even in the closing moments talking about his intentions to create better schools and laws. Charles and Cromwell are two fascinating characters, and both deserve a better film than this as the sole film about the English Civil Wars (except for Vincent Price's THE CONQUEROR WORM) to come out.

For some reason the English cinema seems to prefer the sixteenth century to the seventeenth. There have been numerous films about the Tudor dynasty, most recently "Elizabeth: The Golden Age" and "The Other Boleyn Girl", but fewer about their Stuart successors, apart from Restoration romps and bodice-rippers like "Forever Amber" or "Stage Beauty", which generally feature a walk-on part for Charles II.

"Cromwell" is one of the few exceptions. As the title suggests, it is based on the life of Oliver Cromwell and concentrates on the 1640s, the decade during which Cromwell rose from a modest Huntingdonshire country squire to commander of the Parliamentary forces during the English Civil War and played a leading role in the deposition and execution of King Charles I. It has less to say about Cromwell's rule as Lord Protector of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1650s.

The film has been criticised for its historical inaccuracies. This sort of thing can normally be put down to a lack of adequate research, and the film does indeed contain a few mistakes of this type. (Cromwell's son Oliver junior was not killed at the Battle of Naseby but died of natural causes, and the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester are shown as sitting in the House of Commons rather than the House of Lords). In most cases, however, inaccuracies which might appear to be careless errors are really deliberate distortions made to fit in with the film's underlying agenda which is to whitewash Cromwell's character and to present him as a hero of democracy.

In the period leading up to the Civil War, Cromwell's prominence in the opposition to Charles I is exaggerated. In a meeting which never took place, he is shown as telling the King that England should be a democracy and he is incorrectly numbered among the five members of Parliament whom Charles attempts to arrest.

During the war itself the film depicts Cromwell as single-handedly transforming the Parliamentary Army, after a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Edgehill, from a disorganised rabble into an effective fighting force and as a military genius whose tactics are responsible for the defeat of a numerically superior Royalist force at the Battle of Naseby. In fact, Edgehill was an indecisive battle rather than an outright Royalist victory- if Charles had won as decisively as he is shown doing here the war would probably have been over very quickly- and at Naseby it was the defeated Royalists, not the victorious Roundheads, who were outnumbered. The film omits the Battle of Marston Moor, arguably a more decisive turning-point than Naseby, possibly because Cromwell was not in overall command of the Parliamentary armies on that occasions. (The commanders in that battle were Sir Thomas Fairfax and Manchester, neither of whom are shown in a good light in the film). To emphasise Cromwell's piety, the famous prayer of the Royalist Sir Jacob Astley at Edgehill is put into his mouth.

The main reason why the film does not concentrate too much on Cromwell's record after 1649 is that that record will not bear too much scrutiny if one regards him as a hero. Although one view of history has traditionally seen the Roundheads as fighting for parliamentary democracy, Cromwell made himself dictator of Britain by force of arms, succeeded where Charles had failed in ruling without Parliament and had himself proclaimed Lord Protector, monarch in all but name. Had his son Richard, who briefly and ineffectually succeeded him, been a man of the same ruthless stamp, Britain might today be a Hereditary Protectorate under the House of Cromwell. The greatest stain on Cromwell's memory, the brutal subjugation of Ireland which cost several hundreds of thousands of lives, is totally ignored. (The film gives the impression that he spent the years in question, 1649-53, living peacefully on his farm in Huntingdon).

As a costume drama the film is not a bad one and succeeds in bringing seventeenth-century England to life. Richard Harris is not particularly good in the title role, especially as he is not always successful in concealing his Irish accent. (Given Cromwell's antipathy to, and persecution of, the Irish, it seemed ironic to have him played by an Irishman). There is, however, an excellent performance from Alec Guinness as Charles I, who is treated more objectively than are his political opponents. There is no attempt to blacken Charles' character, although there are a couple of inaccuracies. Charles did not treat his nephew Prince Rupert as shabbily as he is shown doing here, and his trusted adviser Sir Edward Hyde did not testify against him at his trial. (Had Hyde done so, he would doubtless have been executed at the Restoration instead of becoming Charles II's chief minister). Guinness plays Charles as a man who, beneath his outward dignity and firm belief in the Divine Right of Kings, is nervous, hesitant and self-doubting, something indicated by a stammer. One senses from Guinness' portrayal that although Charles was a bad king he may not have been a bad man.

Some have seen a film which praises a republican rebel as revolutionary, but in fact hagiography of Cromwell is far from something new. The film's politics fall broadly within the Whig tradition, which saw English history in terms of a steady progression towards the triumph of liberty and Protestantism- two concepts which for the Whigs were practically indistinguishable- and the Civil War as a vital step in this process. The film also shows the influence of Thomas Carlyle, who regarded Cromwell as one of the heroes of history and eulogised him in his "Heroes and Hero-Worship". By 1970, however, this approach to history was starting to look outdated and Carlyle's idea of hero-worship hopelessly naive. If the charismatic dictators of the twentieth century have taught us anything, it is to beware of the strong man on the white horse. 7/10