Schama will disappoint some Irish republicans, by saying that only disarmed soldiers were killed. A bloodthirsty episode would have served the purpose of driving the war to a speedy conclusion,' he said. Cromwell has always been an ambivalent figure for historians. His image was damaged by propagandists loyal to Charles II who returned England to a monarchy in 1660. Arguments have raged over whether Cromwell was a devout man who reluctantly assumed power or an autocratic Christian fundamentalist.
Heroes are for children.
History should not be the happy chronicle of the unfurling story of a great nation. For many people in Ireland Cromwell is the English Hitler and anything else is appeasement. He was an imperialist bigot but not the genocidal lunatic that Irish folk memory has turned him into.