PROTECTOR OF THE REFORMED: OLIVER CROMWELL’S RELIGIO-POLITICAL MOTIVES AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PROTECTORATE IDEOLOGY

Abstract

This dissertation situates the actions of the Cromwellian Protectorate (1653-58) into an evolving construct of power for the expansion and innovative use of the office of Lord Protector to further the aims of those at its core. Specifically, this dissertation centers four principal areas of Protectorate development to illustrate this expansion. First, the religious protection of the Piedmont Protestants put the Reformed conception of history into political action and demonstrated the projected power of the Protectorate to intervene into European affairs in aid of co-religionists. Second, the collection of a large sum of money on the Piedmont Protestant’s behalf demonstrated the Protectorate’s administrative power and economic strength. Third, the shift from the aid for the Piedmont Protestants to beleaguered Protestants of central Europe illustrates a further extension of the Protectorate’s projection of strength which combined with the potential for military alliance but also competition with other strong Protestant forces. Finally, the renewed push for colonial strength demonstrated the Protectorate’s desire for a wider imperium to aid in its claims of European supremacy. Finally, the words and actions of the Lord Protector himself are scrutinized within this framework. The kingship question, too, is assessed from the legal perspective of the MPs assembled to judge the limits and possibilities of both the office of the king and the office of the Lord Protector. As each of these examples illustrate, the Protectorate sought to develop a novel locus of power in the office of the Lord Protector and sought to further their influence and power both in Europe as the head of a Reformed Protestant alliance and in the colonial Atlantic via the realignment of power towards the metropole. Each of the actions described work towards the development of a Protectorate ideology as each function in a developing system of Protectorate governance in unique but connected ways across foreign, domestic, and imperial policies. This Protectorate ideology defeated the ideology of the Commonwealth as the interests of specific parties, namely those of the Army and of the wealthy merchant class that helped to enable the Protectorate, came to dominate many of those favoring Parliament’s enhanced role at the end of the Civil Wars.