Alt-history — wrong Cromwell in the succession?

By succession, I'm talking succession to The Protectorate that eventually was established in 1650s England to replace the beheaded King Charles 1. And, that means the succession to Oliver Cromwell.

As with a similar piece a week ago, I'm here because of a new book in my reading.

The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689 by Jonathan Healey
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A little bit dense, but not unduly so, and informative throughout. For me, it was most so on the period from the Second Civil War of 1648 through the end of the Protectorate.

I had not realized how, in 1648, much of Parliament was still willing to treat with Charles and on lenient terms.

On the Protectorate, I knew the basics: Rump Parliament, Charles' execution, Cromwell off to Ireland to become a four-letter word, Cromwell scuffing with various Parliaments, then son Richard unable to hold power. But the details of the different Parliamentary arrangements at different times in the Protectorate? How Cromwell was often more Independent, less Puritan, on the degree of religious tolerance he was ready to show? That and more was new.

So were some of the fine details of William vis a vis James II/VII. And, that should be enough without spoiling anything.

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First, a couple of more detailed notes that I learned about the Protectorate years in the book.

The biggest is that he was himself offered the crown. 

In early 1657, a backbencher in Parliament, Sir Christopher Parke, offered up a new constitution. Yes, on paper. For Anglophiles in America who don't know their British history enough, during both the Commonwealth after Charles' execution and the Protectorate, England (and Scotland and Ireland to the degree covered by the Protectorate) had a written constitution. Although the Heads of Proposals had not been formally adopted, as I see it, it was a de facto constitution before the Instrument of Government, though it was never actually adopted by a Parliament. But, I digress.

Parke's proposal had two main constitutional items. One was that it would bring back a House of Lords. (The Protectorate had a unicameral, Commons-only Parliament.) The second is that Cromwell would get the crown.

But, it actually limited Cromwell's powers more than the Protectorate, in part by increasing parliamentary power separate from a Protector-King, and by scaling back the size of the army, the New Model Army that had put him in power, that chased most MPs out of what became the rump, and that insured the Barebones parliament wouldn't sit long. It also, outside of constitutional structure, scaled back the religious tolerance of the Protectorate. In addition, even though hereditary, such a crown would be based on the will of the people as expressed in Parliament. To extend this fully, it extended the logic of the deposition, if not the execution, of Charles.

So, the "grandees" of the army hotly opposed it.

And, Cromwell was irate, blaming them for all the problems of the Protectorate. He also claimed that he had been offered the crown already with the never-adopted Instrument. (As to that matter, looking at the actual text of the Instrument, to riff on C.S. Lewis about Jesus but with better grounds, Cromwell was either loony or a liar, and I'm pretty damned sure which of the two it was. Why he made this claim, I have no idea and Healey doesn't venture one.)

He eventually refused, but more because of religious Independents like Baptists and Quakers than the army. Shades of Caesar, but with shades of sincerity, Parliament offered it again, more than once. Finally, the offer was withdrawn. The rest of what became known as the Humble Petition, though, and thus as England's, and by extension, the forerunner of the United Kingdom's, last written constitution was accepted, including the "Other House," which was not going to be called a House of Lords.

Digression done. Fast forward 18 months.

Cromwell, in his upper 50s, had already been ailing at the time of offer of the kingship. Some speculate that, in addition to not wanting the restriction on powers, and in addition to seeing the idea of kingship judged by god in 1649, he didn't like the hereditary thing.

If so, then why didn't he seek out another successor than son Richard? As Healey states, Richard wasn't a soldier and so didn't have an army base of support. Add in that Oliver had plumped for the army as his support in 1657. He had, it seems, two better and more logical choices. One was younger son Henry, though it appears he had no desire for the position. Another, whom Healey says would have been a better Oliver Cromwell had he been in that position then, was John Lambert. Unfortunately, over the 1657 crown proffer, and Lambert's vociferous opposition to the crown from the start, an already decaying relationship between the two totally imploded.

Others? Charles Fleetwood appeared to have his chance, but demurred even more than Cromwell's son Henry. Desborough couldn't get the army behind him when, even more than Fleetwood, he led it to desert Richard, and wasn't of a governing sort anyway.

Both of them were related by marriage to Cromwell. Lambert had that lack of relation as an additional handicap.

But, the ultimate fault lay with Oliver himself, with his ongoing triangulations seeming to shift base from year to year.