Oliver Cromwell

At the same time his victories at home and abroad helped to enlarge and sustain a Puritan attitude of mind, both in Great Britain and in North America, that continued to influence political and social life until recent times.

Cromwell was born at Huntingdon in eastern England on April 25, 1599, the only son of Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. His father had been a member of one of Queen Elizabeth’s parliaments and, as a landlord and, justice of the peace, was active in local affairs. Oliver Cromwell was a minor East Anglian landowner. He made a living by farming and collecting rents, first in his native Huntingdon, then from 1631 in St Ives and from 1636 in Ely.

Cromwell's inheritances from his father, who died in 1617, and later from a maternal uncle were not great, his income was modest and he had to support an expanding family - widowed mother, wife and eight children. He ranked near the bottom of the landed elite, the landowning class often labeled 'the gentry' which dominated the social and political life of the county.

Robert Cromwell died when his son was 18, but his widow lived to the age of 89. Oliver went to the local grammar school and then for a year attended Sidney Sussex College. Cambridge. After his father’s death he left Cambridge to look after his widowed mother and sisters but is believed to have studied for a time at Lincoln’s Inn in London, where country gentlemen were accustomed to acquire a smattering of law. In August 1620 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourhier, a merchant in the City of London. By her he was to have five sons and four daughters.