The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said: “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man”.
How far is this true of the life of Oliver Cromwell who rose from being an obscure yeoman farmer in East Anglia to become one of the most revered, and by some reviled, figures in British history?
Finding the answer to this question is difficult as Cromwell’s early years are shrouded in mystery and obscured by myths created by those hagiographers and biographers who wanted to portray him as a great man or an unprincipled tyrant and dictator.
To sort the fact from fiction and to build up a clearer picture of the making of the man, we invited a distinguished biographer of Cromwell, John Morrill, Emeritus Professor at Selwyn College, Cambridge, to discuss these early years with our contributing editor Professor Andrew Hopper of the University of Oxford.
