WI: Cromwell accepts the crown in 1657?

Isaac Beach

Banned
Exactly what it says on the tin. I asked some of my deviant followers what they'd like to see in a map and one person suggested what might happen if Oliver Cromwell accepted the English crown in 1657? What would be the particular fallout of that matter?
I want to make a map on the subject and I'd like to make it as accurate as possible given I usually go by ballpark figures, which I know would be torn apart for herein.

So, any ideas?
 
Exactly what it says on the tin. I asked some of my deviant followers what they'd like to see in a map and one person suggested what might happen if Oliver Cromwell accepted the English crown in 1657? What would be the particular fallout of that matter?
I want to make a map on the subject and I'd like to make it as accurate as possible given I usually go by ballpark figures, which I know would be torn apart for herein.

So, any ideas?


Would be a very different man to go for the crown
 
AHC + WI Dredd Scott wins and no Harper's Ferry

Suppose somehow different Judges took a different decision in that awful decision.

Suppose John Brown either died in Kansas or was talked out of his crazy plan.

How likely is it that Secession and Civil war would be prevented or at least postponed?
 
Suppose somehow different Judges took a different decision in that awful decision.

Suppose John Brown either died in Kansas or was talked out of his crazy plan.

How likely is it that Secession and Civil war would be prevented or at least postponed?

wrong thread?
 

Isaac Beach

Banned
Would be a very different man to go for the crown

I'm not gonna lie, I'm not very well read on him or that period of history. Hence it's a challenge.

Cromwell was particularly pious though, wasn't he? A religious sort? Could some premonition -and I think I read somewhere that he claimed to have those sorts of things- from God that he should take the crown, I wouldn't know, to be perfectly honest.
 

Ramontxo

Donor
I have always wonder what would have happen with a "Washington" alike Cromwell (or Napoleon for that). Instead of establishing a dictatorship he respect and (i don’t know how plausible this would be) even open the franchise for the parliament establishing a democratic (or as close to that as possible) Commonwealth with a third "American" or Colonial house. That would really be a British wank..
 
Wiki says Cromwell "agonised for six weeks over the offer", perhaps he wasn't as staunchly anti-monarchy (at least as long as he was in charge) as he is sometimes portrayed.

True, though in the end he was a soldier, and I've read that he was very nearly convinced to side with Charles I during the civil war.
 
Wiki says Cromwell "agonised for six weeks over the offer", perhaps he wasn't as staunchly anti-monarchy (at least as long as he was in charge) as he is sometimes portrayed.

True, though in the end he was a soldier, and I've read that he was very nearly convinced to side with Charles I during the civil war.

I think this might be one of those occasions where wiki is less than reliable.

Did Cromwell consider it? Yes. Of course he did. Monarchy was the de-facto model of rulership at the time. Various groups did beg him to take the throne for the sake of stability.

Did he agonise over it for weeks? Its hard to say. We've no idea when he started considering it or not so timeframes are iffy.

A lot of the accounts we have of this period are from the Victorian period where historians were at pains to stress how much of a good guy Cromwell could be. Some of those accounts of his decision-making smack a little of that standard trope of 'It took you ages and ages but in the end you made the right call' type of thing. A dramatic flair to the process of being an upstanding historical character.

We've no real way of knowing his thought processes, so I think its a little unrealistic to say 'No this requires a completely different Cromwell'. It is unlikely but the man, like many at the time, was driven by a passionate belief in divine providence and so its not impossible he would have taken the throne if he felt God willed it.

To speculate on the OP's idea:

@ You might see a series of minor rebellions and upsets, particularly within the New Model Army. Several Colonels recorded in their memoirs that they confronted Cromwell in this period and threatened to rebel. Whether they would, mind you, is another thing.

@ In the event of any uprising Cromwell would likely win. By this period the nation was utterly sick of civil war. Just think how few people turned out to support Charles II at Worcester in 1651. Plus Cromwell was an able commander.

@ Beyond that I suspect it would likely go as OTL. There would be very little difference to the governing of England - regardless of the title he used Cromwell was firmly in power in 1657.
 
King Oliver I of House Cromwell would be the most hated monarch in Europe and his dynasty is likely to be treated similarly to how the Bonapartes were treated. With essentially open contempt and ridicule. Inside his own country it will probably serve to formalize the new state arrangement. Relations can be normalized with Parliament and they can be more confident about his successor in the long term.
 
Wouldn't it still fall to pieces when Richard IV ascended the throne? Or will King, at least in Britain, be the title for whoever is in charge?

However I still see Charles II regaining his throne sometime in the 1660s in this situation (unless he's become openly Catholic).
 
Wouldn't it still fall to pieces when Richard IV ascended the throne? Or will King, at least in Britain, be the title for whoever is in charge?

However I still see Charles II regaining his throne sometime in the 1660s in this situation (unless he's become openly Catholic).

My idea would be a compromise with the New Model Army Republicans. Instead of a hereditary monarchy under a Cromwell dynasty, the commonwealth adopts an elective monarchy where parliament elects a new king at the death of the old King. But the candidates for such kingship can only be Britishborn Protestants. So no inviting in foreign princes or restoring the Stuarts, but also no Prince Richard inherits the throne.
 
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