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I am glad to welcome you again, dear viewers. Special respect to our sponsors. You are with Old Potsdamoch.
An in-depth analysis of Oliver Cromwell's impact on British history and the challenges England faced during his era.
Key Takeaways
- Oliver Cromwell played a crucial role in solving England’s political and military problems during a turbulent era.
- England’s dominance was not always assured and was challenged by internal divisions and external threats, especially from Scotland.
- The ethnic and political complexity of the British Isles shaped centuries of conflict and alliances.
- The personal union of England and Scotland under James Stuart was a significant turning point in British history.
- Cromwell’s legacy influenced England’s development and was carefully preserved despite later challenges.
What the video covers
- The video introduces Oliver Cromwell as a pivotal figure in British history, ranked tenth among the 100 Greatest Britons.
- It critiques modern perceptions of historical figures like Princess Diana compared to Cromwell, emphasizing his significant legacy.
- The historical context of England is explored, focusing on its geopolitical challenges, especially with Scotland.
- The complex ethnic and political makeup of the British Isles is explained, including the Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Norman influences.
- Scotland's distinct social structure, clan system, and its longstanding conflict with England are detailed.
- The Auld Alliance between Scotland and France is discussed as a strategic counterbalance to English power.
- The Tudor dynasty's end and the personal union of the English and Scottish crowns under James Stuart are highlighted.
- The video sets the stage for understanding Cromwell's role in addressing England’s internal and external problems.
- It emphasizes the volatile nature of Anglo-Scottish relations and the broader European political landscape of the time.
- The narrative promises to explore how Cromwell’s actions shaped England’s future and how his legacy was preserved.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview of Oliver Cromwell
- 05:00Ethnic and Political Landscape of the British Isles
- 09:39Scotland: Clans and Social Structure
- 14:14The Auld Alliance and Anglo-Scottish Conflict
- 19:54The Tudor Dynasty and the Union of Crowns
- 24:26Setting the Stage for Cromwell’s Impact
- 32:00Cromwell’s Military and Political Reforms
- 46:12Legacy and Preservation of Cromwell’s Achievements
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
And today we will talk about the most outstanding person born on the British Isles: Oliver Cromwell. And although he only took a modest tenth place on the list of 100 Greatest Britons, that is a modern poll. Princess Diana, for
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example, entered the top three greatest Britons in history. Mmm, of course, I have nothing against Lady Di, but as someone far removed from gloss and tabloids, I struggle to understand how she ranked higher than both Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. And then there
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is Cromwell in tenth place. It is genuinely offensive. Of course, I am not going to teach the English their own history, but what is England, the "healthy person's" version, to all of us? It is an impregnable island that is
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unthinkable to attack, sending endless squadrons across the globe, allowing Britain to seize infinite colonies whose riches flow to the island, making it even wealthier and more prosperous, which in turn allows the islanders to send even more squadrons, control even
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more colonies—and so on in a cycle. And any war on the continent for England is just a new opportunity. We choose a side, support it with hard British pennies—oops, phooey, shillings—and meanwhile, we grab the enemy's colonies that we like while
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they are busy on the continent. I say this with sincere respect. You really have to be skilled to build such a scheme. And from the outside, it seems as if it has always been that way. Alas, that is far from it. Far from it. So
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today, I would like to talk about what problems the country and the monarchy faced. What did this unassuming man do to solve them? Spoiler: everything. And most importantly, what did England itself do later to preserve the legacy of this great man, rather than squander
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it like some others? I say this with shame. So, today: Oliver Cromwell. But before moving on to describe his actions, I would like to outline in very broad strokes what problems England faced in those dark times.
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Let's start with the island itself. There was absolutely no talk of complete English domination. To avoid making the introduction endless, I will focus on the main problem, though there are many others, namely Scotland. If, for us, a Scot is a guy in a kilt, or
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Dr. John Watson, or whiskey, then for English kings for many centuries, it was a major pain in the backside.
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Exactly a pain in the backside. The English and the Scots are completely different peoples, who are much more different than, for example, we are from the Poles. This is not a figure of speech. Russians and Poles are at least
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Slavs. The language is similar, the roots are common, even though we fight over politics and religion almost permanently. But on the British island, the mix turned out to be much more volatile. Look at how the English did it. Initially, the island was home to
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the Celts and Britons, then the Romans arrived, civilized them with baths and aqueducts, and mixed everyone in, even including Sarmatians and, uh, Afro-Romans. Well, and when Rome crumbled, they left everything to the mercy of fate. And that’s when
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Germanic tribes rushed from the continent to the island: the Angles, the Saxons, and some Jutes. They partially slaughtered these Romanized Celts, partially drove them into the mountains of Wales and Cornwall, clearing the plains for themselves.
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You’d think, just live and be happy, eat and sing heroic songs. But it wasn't that simple. First, the Vikings stopped by and snatched up a third of the island. This is the so-called Danelaw. And in 1066, William the
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Conqueror arrived with his Normans. Normans are just the same Vikings, but Gallicized and in knightly armor, though back then, mostly chainmail. And with a mania to count everything, build castles, and impose taxes. The English ethnos is ultimately a layer cake: a
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Roman foundation and a Germanic-Saxon base. And all of this was well-pressed and drilled by a Franco-Norman feudal elite. But what was going on in the north at that time? Oh, there was an equally hellish cauldron, but a completely different hellish cauldron.
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The Romans poked their heads in, looked at the local scenery, crossed themselves, and said, "We don't need this." Then they built Hadrian's Wall and lived happily ever after. And they told the northern inhabitants: "Live however you want, just stay away from
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us." And in this northern cauldron boiled the Scots, Gaelic settlers from Ireland who eventually gave the country its name. And the Picts—who the hell even knows who they were. Later, a bit of Norwegian blood mixed in, and even
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some Anglo-Saxons on the southern plains of the Lowlands. But the backbone of Scotland was and remained the mountainous Highlands. And there, besides having different genes from the English, everything was different in terms of social structure too. The basis of life in the mountains remained
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the old, time-tested system from the early Iron Age. Clans. A clan isn't a feudal state; it’s a family, a gang, and a cult all rolled into one. A clan chieftain doesn't care about the laws of some king in Edinburgh, let alone a
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king in London. Well, you understand, the highlander's main law is simple. Steal cattle from your neighbors.
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Slaughter a rival clan, listen to your chieftain, and keep your broadsword sharp. All this, as we understand, caused permanent Anglo-Scottish turbulence with an uncertain outcome.
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Yes, England was much richer and more populous, but the main rule of politics kicked in here. We fight those nearby and befriend those far away. And the English were a close enemy not only for the rugged Scots but also for "Belle
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France." As a result, France and Scotland fell incredibly in love with each other. The so-called Auld Alliance was formed, concluded as early as 1295 and fully active until 1560. And when necessary, a weighty French penny—oops, darn it, IQ—fully offset
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Scotland’s economic lag. And when needed, that French penny was backed up by a French bayonet. And this is far from being a tale from the distant past. Look, the middle of the 16th century.
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In England, everything seems to be going well. Henry VII had more or less set the country in order, having chopped off quite a few heads in the process. Yes, that’s how it worked back then; there was no other way. And
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it seems the golden age of Queen Elizabeth had arrived, when, as we think, everything was just great for the English. But meanwhile, at this very time, Mary of Guise was wreaking havoc in Scotland. Truly wreaking havoc. As we know from French history, the
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Guise family was neither dull nor idle. Well, Mary didn’t disgrace the family, and since she was French, she relied, naturally, on the help of France. And when things got tough and the English invaded, a French "forester" arrived
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and handed out a solid thrashing. Yes, in the mid-16th century, a French expeditionary corps was operating in Scotland, and quite successfully.
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Together with the Highlanders, they successfully pushed the English out. So, the Scots were a deep-seated, age-old problem for England. And one must give credit to Queen Elizabeth. She finally solved it, though with a touch of original British humor. Since she
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herself was the "Virgin Queen"—hussars, silence! No one disputes that she had as many favorites as Catherine the Great. But if the documents say virgin, then that’s how it is. And that means the Tudor dynasty ends with her. So, without thinking too long—or
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maybe thinking quite a while—Elizabeth appointed the Scotsman James Stuart as her heir. Yeah. The son of Mary, Queen of Scots, whose head Elizabeth had, well, you know. In other words, a Scottish dynasty was established on the English throne. A
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personal union between the kingdoms emerged, meaning one king, but two very different states. And although this seemingly stopped direct wars, just think about how an average Scotsman looked at an average Englishman.
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That’s right, like a piece of dung. Moreover, the
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in London to grab shares and royal pensions. And what was described above is far from all of England's troubles on the island. I simply brought up Scotland as an example. There was also the no less feisty Ireland. And in
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England itself, as in all these " Europes" of yours, there were very serious difficulties based on religion at that time. Of course, the British didn't approach matters of faith as thoroughly as the Germans, who, with the help of neighbors and allies,
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nearly wiped themselves out during the Thirty Years 'War. But there was no shortage of problems and blood. Well, even briefly describing all of this within the framework of one video is impossible, so I will just note it.
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Such problems existed. And now, finally , let's move on to my favorite topics: economy and foreign policy. But before we start, I must ask for a minute of your attention. I fully understand that everyone is tired of this, and it’s
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not exactly pleasant for me to repeat it, but facts are facts. The channel hasn't collapsed only thanks to your support. I’ll go further: on the contrary, old Potsdamoch has fired up like never before. Only your support determines when there will be new
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content, how much of it there will be, and if there will be any at all. So, once again, a huge thank you to the sponsors, both on Boosty and directly to the card. Your donation is literally a few minutes of video in the next
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episode. And a huge request: if you have the opportunity to help, help not the author, but the channel, so we can keep going. Now, let's get back to the video topic. First, the economy. And here, on one hand, things seem okay,
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but on the other, there’s nothing to boast about. Yes, capitalism is beginning to develop in England, there's some money, but let's briefly compare it with the main neighbors. GDP per capita in England was probably higher compared to France and Spain,
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but there was a problem. Those very heads were several times more numerous in France and Spain. So, the total GDP of the states looked sad for England.
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With Holland, it was the opposite. If you gather everything down to the last penny, oh, blast it, to the last shilling of the kingdom, there would probably be more shillings in England than in Holland. But the efficiency of
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a single person is quite another matter . Under Charles I, Cromwell's immediate predecessor, whose head he did away with, Dutch maritime trade exceeded the English by at least fivefold. Next, naturally, the 17th century was all about colonies everywhere. And in this
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regard, things weren't great for the Britons before Oliver "Robertovich." Yes, they have a little something already. A patch of land here, a small island there. There's even some trading post in India, but the Britons are afraid to even sneeze there. They bow
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low to both the Dutch and the rajas. And why is everything so dismal? Because there is no fleet. Yes. That is to say, none. For the first half of the 17th century, the English fleet was a truly pathetic sight. We judge English
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naval power by the actions of Elizabeth’s "seadogs," like Hawkins and Drake, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada, of course. But here are a few trivial facts. Those very same British took an epic beating from the Spanish just the year after the
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Armada's defeat. Klim Sanych has a fantastic video about this. Under normal conditions, the English stood no chance against the regular Spanish fleet. Remember the previously mentioned French expeditionary force that arrived by sea in Scotland as if they were coming home, during the time
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of good Queen Elizabeth. And the Barbary pirates, who in the mid-17th century sailed from Africa to England to steal girls. I’m not joking, and that tells you something, you see?
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Piracy isn't about heroic battles. I mean, sure, those happened, but it's an emergency that must be avoided at all costs. Piracy is about maximum profit with minimum risk. And no Murat Reis is going to sail all the way around Europe
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from Africa to England just for a beating and some fame. He doesn’t need the risk. He needs a hold full of wenches. So, there was no risk. The Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon, who became the very same Murat Reis, wasn't afraid
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of the Royal Navy at all. He didn’t just attack a sleeping English village under the cover of darkness. He methodically captured an islet in the Bristol Channel in 1625, made it his base, and from there, he leisurely looted the coast of Cornwall to hell. I
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repeat, 1625. The year. Well, what can you say? Glory to the Royal Navy. And you know what the most insulting part is? The English navy doesn’t even have a leg to stand on. A classic case.
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"I just couldn't do it, I just couldn't ." The Royal Navy at that time was a heartbreaking sight. Just enough to make you weep. Nominally, there were 30 to 40 pennants of all classes on the rolls. But only a fraction were
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actually seaworthy. And maybe a dozen and a half could even fire their guns. Most ships had been rotting at anchor in Chatham or Portsmouth for decades.
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There were no permanent guard squadrons in the English Channel. The sea remained an open thoroughfare for the Dutch, the French, and, of course, the Barbary pirates. The fleet was led by favorites of the Crown, like the Duke of Buckingham, who viewed their
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departments purely as a personal feeding trough. Budget funds were embezzled at the allocation stage.
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Intendants wrote off funds for "dead souls." Shipyards bought rotten, unseasoned oak. Gunpowder in storage would get damp and clump together.
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Officer commissions were openly sold, just like they were in the army. There had been no money for sailors' wages for years. To recruit men for rare expeditions, authorities would conduct raids in port taverns, so-called "press gangs," sweeping up drifters, tailors,
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and potters. Sailors deserted or mutinied in droves. It reached the point of absurdity. Hardened sea dogs would abandon ships at port and march on foot to London to trash the Admiral’s office, demanding their back pay for at least the year before
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last. That was the British fleet of the early 17th century. And, dear viewers, I am by no means a fan of Charles Stuart. Nepotism, corruption, and favoritism flourished under him, too.
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And he made plenty of simple mistakes, especially regarding the fleet. For instance, instead of building and maintaining a dozen frigates and sloops to protect the few colonies England had at the time—and the coast itself—so that a shortage of British and Irish
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women might actually appear in the Arab markets of Africa...Charles blew all the money on the Sovereign of the Seas.
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Truly a magnificent ship, but damn, the gilding alone cost as much as a small frigate. So, despite all this, I must say in Charles I's defense that embezzling—truly effectively embezzling—the naval budget at that time was impossible for the simple
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reason that there effectively was no such budget. Really? I mean, a state military budget as we understand it, with expenditure lines, five-year plans , and stable funding, simply did not exist in England in the first half of the 17th century. So how did the
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English financial system work at all? It worked on a rather medieval principle. The King should live off his own means. That is, the monarch pays for the state, the courts, the guards, diplomats, and mistresses from the personal income of the crown, such as
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leasing royal lands, customs duties, fines, and some taxes approved by Parliament. Everything else is under the control of that very Parliament.
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Yes, and it would seem that the system commands nothing but respect. But there was a catch. On average, the crown's income under Charles I fluctuated between 500,000 and 800,000 pounds per year. Seems like a lot. Well, is it
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really? To raise a small army for a small war, to give the royal guards silver halberds, to drape a mistress in diamonds and gold, and then in diamonds again. It was perfectly enough. But the fleet of the 17th century is a whole
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different level. The aforementioned Sovereign of the Seas cost 66,000 pounds to build and about 20,000 a year to maintain with active use. To hell with it, with this Rolls-Royce of the 17th century. Let's take a standard two-deck ship with 50 guns. The
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backbone of fleets in the first half of the 17th century. The total comes to 25,000 pounds. And nearly 10,000 a year for maintenance. For context, a fleet of fifty small battleships would eat up the entire British budget for the year.
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And a fleet isn't just battleships, which only allow you to seize control of the sea. To actually utilize naval dominance, you need endless frigates and sloops capable of turning those seas upside down. And that is also money, and quite a lot of it. In short,
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Charles I was certainly a fool and corrupt, but even if he had completely shut down the state, sold all the diamonds off himself, and sent all his favorites (the author disapproves) to be sold in Algiers, he still wouldn't
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have had enough money for something capable of sparring with the Spaniards, and especially with the Dutch. And without a fleet, the island would indeed have remained a backwater on the edge of Europe. And you can't say that Charles didn't understand this, but
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besides his personal funds, all the country's money was held by Parliament. And with them, Charles—following general European trends toward the development of absolutism—had a massive falling out. One thing saved him: Britain is famous not only for its parliaments but also for its
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pettifogging lawyers. Charles employed them. How? Let's figure it out. It’s not that the country of England took no part in building a navy at the time, but it was good old-fashioned feudalism . Coastal towns were expected to provide maritime defense for the
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coastline. Naturally, this didn’t work out very well at all. It was the 15th century, after all. Besides, for a merchant from Bristol, creating a local navy was, let’s say, not exactly a top priority. By the time of Charles I,
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it was a terrible anachronism, but it still existed. Furthermore, England had a good, old, and truly ancient medieval tradition known as "shield money" or scutage. What is that? Well, you see, the main and only duty of a noble don
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is military service. So, back in the day, English kings offered an alternative. Having an alternative is always a good thing, right? If some Sir John didn't want to go to war, he could pay a sum of money and stay home with a
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clear conscience. With this money, the king would then hire other knights, archers, or whoever else he needed for a specific task. In time, the kings liked this so much that they told Sir John directly: "We don't need you, stay
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put, just don't forget to pay." This started to annoy the Sir Johns, and they turned out to be no less clever than those Plantagenets and Lancasters.
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Have you ever noticed why there are so many esquires in Britain? That is precisely why: an esquire is a squire, a young lad serving a knight who is supposed to eventually become one himself. And so, the Sir Johns en masse
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refused to level up, choosing to remain squires. And when the mean tax collectors came, they would say with a clear conscience: "Are you collecting shield money from knights?" From knights. Well, what kind of knight am I ? I'm just a mere lad, an esquire, a
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squire. And it makes no difference that I'm in my sixties. According to the documents, I'm a child, so get lost.
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But I digress. Charles I’s lawyers decided to combine these two ancient traditions. Charles monetized the old obligation to provide ships, which the Bristol merchants were frankly blowing off. And since this was still a good old feudal duty, just converted into a
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different form, Charles managed without parliamentary approval. But there was a problem. Ship money from the coastal counties was serious money, but it still wasn't enough. And Charles made a logical next move. Well, if we are supposedly Britain, with
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parliamentarism and equality, having ship money paid only by coastal residents is unfair. We must introduce the tax in the inland counties as well.
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But while the former tolerated it, albeit through gritted teeth, the country was absolutely stunned by this legislative initiative. And that’s how it all started spinning out of control. And it is right here that our hero, Oliver Cromwell, finally appears.
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And, alas, I will not tell you about him as a military reformer, a brilliant creator of a new model army. Yes, for the mid-17th century, it is an outstanding military machine. And, alas , I will not tell you about him as a
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general who turned the tide of the English Civil War. All this is, of course, interesting and deserves attention, but the video is already, to put it mildly, not at the beginning, and we haven't really gotten started yet. Therefore, I would like to tell
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you first and foremost not about Cromwell's biography, but about his significance as a solver of problems that England has faced, roughly speaking, always, and which I briefly described above and suddenly. This is also how it works always and everywhere
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. With a change of power, it is not the problems facing the state that change, but only the methods of solving them.
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Why look any further? When we were joyfully dancing while tearing down the bloody Soviet system in the eighties, we were firmly convinced. that now everything, everything will be different. It turned out that all the vectors of development, interests, and
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problems remained the same. Only now we have to solve them in worse conditions and with fewer resources, alas. But let's return to England in the mid-17th century. What did we have there?
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Problems on the island, namely the eternally restless Ireland and Scotland . Specifically eternal for five hundred years now. And yes, in the West, Ireland, where things are even worse than usual. A Catholic rebellion has been raging since 1641. Irish
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Confederates and the remnants of the English Royalists are uniting and recognizing the fugitive Charles II, son of the executed Charles I, as king.
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That in itself is not good, but that is only half the trouble. European monarchs were quite shocked by the execution of the king and were very strongly set against England. This is also not surprising. They behaved in exactly the same way in the 18th
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century, when Louis of France suffered, and in the 20th, when Nicholas II was dismissed for inefficiency. So, a hypothetical French or Spanish bayonet in Ireland at that time was a very real possibility. And how to prevent it?
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There is practically no fleet. Remember Mary of Guise? And in the North— Scotland, those very same Scottish Presbyterians who just yesterday were fighting against Charles I themselves and even sold him cheaply to the English Parliament. And suddenly they
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came to their senses. The Scots said: " Stop, we wanted to limit the king, not execute him. Charles was our legitimate Scottish king from our legitimate Stuart dynasty." And they also proclaimed Charles II their monarch.
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The English Republic found itself caught in a vice between two kingdoms ready for war, with the possible support of continental powers. And this is where Oliver Robertovich shows how age-old geopolitical problems are solved if you lack a conscience and
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compassion. But you do have a new model army. In August 1649, Cromwell lands in Dublin at the head of a twelve-thousand-strong corps. The Irish were used to a slow-moving guerrilla war of a semi-feudal type, but they were met by a modern, ideologically
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charged Protestant machine, whose soldiers sang psalms before battle, received their pay without delay, and did not plunder the local population at will. Cromwell hanged men for looting without a second thought. The first cautionary lesson. The Siege of Drogheda. This was September 1649.
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Cromwell. Cromwell brought up heavy siege artillery from the fleet and pulverized the medieval walls into rubble, after which he demanded a surrender. Governor Arthur Aston, incidentally an English Catholic royalist, refused. Oliver, without much thought, stormed the ruined walls and
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gave orders to spare no one who held a weapon. By the laws of war in the 17th century, this was, in principle, typical. If a fortress rejected an ultimatum and was taken by storm, no mercy was expected for the garrison.
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But at Drogheda, they slaughtered not only the garrison, but also Catholic priests and monks. The civilians took the full brunt of it. Legend has it that Arthur Aston was beaten to death with his own wooden leg. A month later,
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the same fate befell Wexford. There, according to modern estimates, 3/4 of the population perished. To be fair, Cromwell was a true monster. It is foolish to deny it. And you know, at such moments I truly thank God that I
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am only a blogger and can merely describe such decisions. I do not have to make them. It’s terrifying to speak of. And Cromwell himself wrote directly to Parliament that this was a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarians, and that it would prevent
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further bloodshed in the future. And, alas, it worked exactly as the general had calculated. Most other Irish garrisons after Drogheda surrendered at the mere sight of the English vanguard.
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But it wasn't just brutality that made Cromwell Cromwell; it was his brains. He understood perfectly well that the foundation of any resistance, and indeed any endeavor, is economics. And in 1652, the Act for the Settlement of Ireland followed. The land of
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rebellious Irish landowners was confiscated. Local Catholic nobles were evicted to the rocky, barren province of Connacht in the west of the island.
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History attributes to Oliver the phrase : "To Hell or to Connacht," while the fertile lands were given to English merchants and creditors from the London City to settle the debts that had funded the war. And what remained was
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distributed to the soldiers and officers of the New Model Army in place of unpaid wages. Ireland was brought to its knees and settled with armed English Protestant colonists. All of this is truly terrible, but the question of Catholic rebellion was
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settled for the next 100 years. Having finished with Ireland, Cromwell rushed north in the summer of 1650. The Scots had gathered a large army under the command of the highly experienced David Leslie, a veteran of Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years 'War. Leslie chose
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a clever tactic. He scorched the earth, holed up in impregnable positions near Edinburgh, and waited for the English to run out of food, while autumn dampness and dysentery mowed down their ranks. The calculation almost paid off.
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By September, Cromwell's army was melting before his eyes as they retreated to the sea near the town of Dunbar. Leslie pinned 11,000 half-sick Englishmen against the cliffs with his 22,000 elite Highlanders and Lowlanders . Cromwell had nowhere to retreat, and
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attacking the more numerous enemy’s positions on the heights was impossible . And that would seem to be it. But Cromwell was, without a doubt, the commander of his army. While Leslie had , so to speak, a public council, which
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insisted on the battle. The Scots held a more than two-to-one advantage. Everyone was tired of the war. They forced Leslie to descend to the plain for the battle. But fighting in the field with, essentially, a militia against perfectly trained, disciplined
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infantry, where officers knew exactly what to do, along with equally skilled and seasoned cuirassiers, was a really bad idea. And what’s more, naturally, Cromwell's infantry and cavalry were absolute fanatics. Oliver Cromwell, seeing the Scots descending from the hills through his spyglass, laughed and
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shouted: "The Lord hath delivered them into our hands." His premonition did not deceive him. At dawn, the New Model Army launched a sudden, concentrated strike with its right wing into the Scots' flank. Leslie may have understood everything, but his heavy,
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patchwork army was unable to react in time. The result was a total rout. Casualty figures vary, but between 500 and 3,000 Scots were killed and 6,000 to 10,000 taken prisoner. One cannot say exactly what the British losses were either. Cromwell himself claimed
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about thirty killed, but he lied within reason. The English really did crush the Scots with their very first charge, and then just chased down the remnants.
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And exactly a year later, to the day, on September 3, 1651, at the Battle of Worcester, Cromwell easily and definitively crushed the Scottish army.
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Even though Charles II, who had been summoned by the Scots, was supposedly there. After the battle, the future monarch himself fled to France, hiding in the branches of an oak tree and disguising himself as a laborer. Next, Cromwell created a unified state. In
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1652-1654, Scotland and Ireland were officially incorporated into a unified English Commonwealth. And for the first time in history, a single parliament was created for all three countries. As a result, the most respected men of both Ireland and Scotland were now
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forced to be permanently based in London. Many respected men stayed back home as well, but as you might imagine, they were slightly less respected.
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Furthermore, in Scotland, Cromwell built a network of stone citadels in Inverness, Perth, Leith, and elsewhere.
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And he kept permanent garrisons there. This allowed him to continue his hard-line policies. Well, how hard-line ? He completely banned the feudal courts of the clan chiefs. He hanged people for robbery and cattle rustling regardless of their noble lineage. So
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the Scottish warriors had a really tough time of it. As a result, his way of acting toward the Scots could often be described as nothing short of brutish. But in three years, this unremarkable man settled what the Plantagenets, Lancastrians, Yorks,
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Tudors, and Stuarts couldn't solve in 500 years. And the two thorns in England's side, Scotland and Ireland, became a concrete-solid rear, where things would often smolder after that, but never flare up. And an enemy landing on the islands, à la Mary of
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Guise, became a boogeyman for the English: scary, but unrealistic. It was now possible to move on to solving other issues, but for that, money was needed. And this is where Cromwell showed himself to be a beast again. And
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it worked again. Remember Charles I, who tried to maintain the state on 600,000 pounds a year? While he still had to buy diamonds for Buckingham and cambric pantaloons for his mistresses out of that sum. Well, and everyone who
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wanted to was stealing. And when they tried to scrape together another 200,000 in ship money, the king had his head chopped off. Cromwell bent the financial system into a ram's horn, just as he did with Scotland and Ireland before—everything became
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truly severe. Under him, the treasury received a monthly assessment—a direct land tax collected from every county by army commissioners at musket point. It brought in between 600,000 and a million a year. And the collection rate was one hundred percent
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. No one dared to object to the regular army. Next, excise taxes. Excise—a tax on everyday consumer goods. Beer, meat, salt, fabrics, which the English copied from the Dutch; it brought in about 340,000 pounds—thousands of pounds a year. Customs duties grew
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thanks to the increase in trade and the Navigation Act, which we will discuss a little later. That is another plus 300,000 to 400,000 pounds sterling per year. And then there was confiscation and the decimation tax. Decimation tax: mass sales of crown, church, and
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defeated royalist lands, and later a ten-percent emergency tax on monarchist property. All of this totaled 2 to 2.5 million pounds per year. Charles sighs sadly. And, of course, corruption and the buying of diamonds for oneself and cambric pantaloons for mistresses, if
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not entirely dropped from the state budget, were certainly cut way down. Oliver was even more intolerant of all this than he was of the Irish. The expenditure items were simple and uncomplicated. A million for the army, 1.2 million for the navy, and 200,000
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for the maintenance of the state apparatus. Moreover, about 40,000 of that went to the foreign and domestic intelligence service. We will definitely talk about that, but a little later. But for now, for now, do you feel that 1.2? 200,000 for the navy
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. While the late Charles I sighs sadly again. With such a foundation, one could already begin to look sternly at both the Spanish and the Dutch. And once again, Cromwell succeeded in everything. Why? Because he acted simply, but effectively. He correctly
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defined the task, put a suitable person in charge of executing it—not by a system of checks and balances, not whoever was the best flatterer, but the most suitable person. Yes, quite like the Stalinist commissars and the idea that "cadres decide everything." And he
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gave that person enough resources. Seems simple, but that is always how it works. It makes absolutely no difference if it's the British lion or the red star. And it doesn't work any other way. Take, for example, John Thurloe, head of the very same domestic
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and foreign intelligence agency that Cromwell created, pouring a crazy 40,000 pounds into it. So what did Oliver get in return? Thurloe made every shilling count. Espionage in Europe certainly existed before him, but to put it mildly, it was pure
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amateurism. An ambassador would pay a lackey of an enemy duke. The guy would steal a letter from the pocket of the duke's trousers. The lackey would get caught and hanged. That was the extent of intelligence and counterintelligence . Thurloe approached the matter not as
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a cloak-and-dagger romantic, but as an exemplary bureaucrat. He was appointed Secretary of State and simultaneously Postmaster General of England. And for this combination of roles, Thurloe deserves a monument. Objectively, he realized: why chase spies through taverns and palaces if you can simply
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take control of all the mail? And Thurloe created a so-called Secret Office, modeled after the famous "black chambers." Every letter—diplomatic, merchant, private, domestic, or international—passed through a sorting point. And there sat a whole team of specialized, well-paid experts.
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There were masters of delicate letter opening. They would melt the wax with steam and thin wires so as not to damage the coat of arms. They didn't forget about artist-engravers. They would instantly create an exact copy of the seal in lead or special mastic if
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the wax crumbled anyway. Later, the scribes would get to work, making a duplicate of the document accurately and as quickly as possible. And most importantly, a staff of cryptographers led by the mathematician John Wallis.
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The very same one who invented the infinity symbol. Wallis cracked the most complex ciphers like walnuts. The letter would be neatly resealed and sent on to the recipient. They wouldn't have a clue. But Cromwell would have a full copy of the Spanish ambassador's
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correspondence on his breakfast table, along with royalist uprising plans and dossiers on the unfortunate conspirators—of whom, as we know, there were plenty. Thurloe's office simply devoured them from the inside.
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For example, the main underground royalist organization was the so-called "Sealed Knot," a secret royalist council that coordinated uprising preparations from Paris. Well, Thurloe didn't just know about their every move . One of the key leaders of this organization was Sir Richard Willis,
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whom Thurloe simply bought off with a large sum of money and a guarantee of safety. It reached the point of mockery . Charles II, in exile, writes orders, collects money across Europe, and sends emissaries to England, only for them to
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be taken by the arms by Puritan musketeers right at the gangplank. Quite a shame. In 1655, the royalists attempted to launch Penruddock's uprising. Thurloe knew the exact date, the lists of participants, and the arms depots two weeks before the first shot
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was fired. The revolt was crushed in the bud within a couple of days, but that's good old England. Europe took a hit, too. Thurloe’s residents were stationed in Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, Rome, Vienna, and even Constantinople.
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Merchants and priests, merchant ship captains, and secretaries of foreign ministries. Thurloe had hundreds of informants on his payroll. And it was Thurloe’s intelligence that secured the triumphs of Cromwell’s foreign policy, which we will discuss a little later. In the war that broke out with
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Holland, he intercepted reports from the Dutch fleet and the States General faster than they were read in The Hague . And Admiral Robert Blake knew in advance which route the Dutch merchant spice caravans would take. And, of course, Spanish silver. In 1656–1657
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British agents in Madrid and Cadiz obtained the exact schedules and coordinates of the Spanish treasure fleet sailing from the New World. The result: The English fleet intercepted and burned the Spanish galleons at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, leaving the
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Spanish crown bankrupt. Well, we will talk about that, and about Thurloe himself, a little later, as I already said. But for now, Cromwell raised money and began to build a fleet. A proper fleet, not just gilded showpieces. He built it not in the
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royal fashion, but in a military one. How exactly? In 1649, Parliament and Cromwell disbanded the old, corrupt royal admiralty to hell and gone. In its place, they created an Admiralty Committee, the Navy Committee. It was headed by Sir Henry Vane the Younger,
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an exemplary Puritan official, workaholic, meticulous administrator, and a man of crystal-clear honesty. And they placed a Navy Commission at the shipyards, where practical men, builders, and merchants played a key role, like Peter Pett—he was from a whole dynasty of famous shipbuilders—
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and Captain Richard Deane. Vane and Pett moved military shipbuilding onto a new track. Purchases of oak, Baltic mast pine, resin, and canvas were made directly in large batches and for cash, without intermediaries or kickbacks.
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Shipyards in Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, and Portsmouth were expanded, dry docks were deepened, and they switched to two-shift operations. Also, the quality of cast iron at the Sussex foundries was improved, so cast iron cannons became more reliable, yet cheaper to build than the good old
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bronze ones. Now, what were they building? Cromwell and Vane understood the main thing. Building one-off hundred-gun monsters like*Sovereign of the Seas*is idiocy. They are sluggish, cost a fortune, and are afraid of the shallow waters off the Dutch coast.
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They needed something like a T-34. Inexpensive, mass-produced, but fully capable of fulfilling its assigned tasks. And the entire fleet was divided into six clear ranks. The backbone of the shipbuilding program consisted of the workhorses of the war: large
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frigates and ships of the line of the third and fourth ranks. These carried from 38 to 54 guns. This was a revolution. The English adopted the experience of the Dunkirk privateers and created a new type of ocean-going warship: long, with a lower freeboard
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and without those silly multi-story towers at the stern and bow. The ships turned out to be maneuverable and packed tightly with powerful, long-barreled guns. As an example, one of the flagships of the program is the famous fifty-gun frigate*Speaker*,
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launched in 1650. year, which became the prototype for dozens of ships for half a century to come. Frigate, later renamed Royal Charles, and the Resolution. The cost of building such a ship, specifically the hull and rigging , was 5,000 to 7,000 pounds sterling.
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And with cannons, ammunition, and other equipment, about 10,000 to 12,000. That is, for the price of one royal Sovereign, Cromwell received five or six powerful combat units. Next were the small patrol frigates and pinnaces of the fifth and sixth rates, with 20
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to 30 guns. High-speed hunters of privateers and Barbary pirates cost 2,000 to 3,000 pounds apiece, and they built them by the dozens. The results were not long in coming. Assess the scale of Cromwell's program. Under Charles I in 1642, the combat-ready
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royal fleet numbered about 35 to 40 pennants of all types, including very small ones, and that was the total number of ships, not those ready to put to sea at that moment. I mentioned this a little earlier. Well, during the
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period of the Republic and Protectorate , that is from 1649 to 1660, the English built 108 new warships in their shipyards. Plus, on top of that, over 120 ships were captured in battle from the Dutch, French, and Royalists,
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repaired, and included in the Republican fleet. In 1654, the Republican Navy of England numbered over 160 excellent, regular-line warships, staffed by more than 20,000 sailors and officers. This was no longer a bunch of Queen Elizabeth's pirates or Charles's ceremonial
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anchored galleons. Now it remained to find someone to entrust this new, and it must be said, very formidable instrument to. And here Cromwell, just as with Thurloe and many others, hit the bullseye, so to speak. Although from the outside, it looks more like
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idiocy. The commander-in-chief of the fleet, which was to show the Dutch and Spanish who was the boss, was a cavalry colonel. Yes, compared to this, even the legendary submarine in the steppes of Ukraine looks like a model of logic.
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Meet Robert Blake. Until the age of 50, this venerable gentleman had only gone to sea as a passenger on a ferry. He graduated from Oxford, traded in Spanish wines, and in the Civil War, went to fight in the land-based
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Republican army. There, he became famous for the fanatical defense of two cities: Bristol and Taunton. In Taunton , he was besieged by superior Royalist forces. The food ran out, the city turned into ruins, and to the proposal to surrender, Blake replied that he
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still had three pairs of boots left. And until he ate the last sole, he would not give the city to the enemy.
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And he didn't. Well, and in 1649, Cromwell looked at this stubborn, crystal-honest Puritan and said: "So, you know how to command infantry and cavalry, you hold a defense to the death, you don't steal, you will command our entire fleet." And Blake
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was given an absolutely strange rank. General at Sea. From the perspective of the old sea dogs, it looked like a spit in the face. Imagine old captains, salted by Atlantic storms, being commanded by an infantry colonel who, at first, instead of nautical commands
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like "hard to starboard" or "hard to port," probably habitually shouted: " Left face, quick march!" But they only laughed at Blake until their first time out at sea, because his lack of musty naval prejudices turned out to be his
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greatest asset. He approached the war —the war on the water—not as a romance of sails, but as a dull army operation. Blake’s first act was to purge the fleet of drunks and the sons of nobility, and he established an iron
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rule. If a captain in battle thinks about saving his own skin, plundering a foreign merchant ship, or personal glory instead of following a general combat order, he goes before a tribunal and then to the yardarm, regardless of merit. Next. The land officer Blake
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knew perfectly well that a hungry soldier is no soldier at all. Under him , the navy introduced proper medical support directly within the squadrons for the first time. Field hospitals in ports, fresh bread when possible, and decent salted meat. Well, relatively
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decent, of course. What, have you ever seen a Puritan naval ration? I talk about that in detail right here. But compared to what existed before, General Blake did everything brilliantly. And Blake’s most important achievement, which transformed the history of the sailing
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fleet for two centuries to come, was issuing his famous "Fighting Instructions" in March 1653. Fighting instructions. Before him, a naval battle was largely a more-or-less orderly dogfight. Mob against mob, man against man, and general chaos. Blake transferred strict land tactics to the
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sea. Ships were formed into a line of battle, sailing along the enemy’s formation and mowing it down with consecutive broadsides of artillery.
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This remained quite effective not only in the 17th, but also in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Quite a wine merchant, that one. And I’m afraid to even think about what kind of magic Cromwell used to see such potential in
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him. This is not the only instance of Oliver "Robertovich" using land-based admirals. As an example, one could mention George Monck, for instance. And so, having received another stack of secrets from Thurloe and admired Blake on the bridge of his flagship, Cromwell
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pulls a paper from his pocket called the Navigation Act. Wait. It’s been a while since I quoted Wikipedia. Here is a quote from the immortal Wiki. The Navigation Act. A law passed at Cromwell’s initiative on October 19, 1651—it ceased to be in effect in
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1849—that granted English ships the exclusive right to import goods from non-European countries into England and to perform coastal shipping. In 1660, the Act was extended to exports from England to the colonies. It was finally repealed in 1854. Year. The Navigation
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Act established that goods from Asia, Africa, and America could only be imported into Great Britain on ships owned by British subjects, and their crews had to consist of at least 3/4 British subjects. From Europe, goods could be imported on British ships, or
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on ships of the country where the goods were produced, or in ports where they were first loaded onto a ship. The import of salted fish to England and its colonies was permitted only if it was caught on British vessels. Finally,
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coastal shipping was reserved exclusively for English vessels. End of quote. It might seem like some incomprehensible nonsense, but for 1651 , it was as smart as it was daring.
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There was a remarkable state in Europe at that time, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, or the Dutch Republic, or Holland—whichever you prefer. It was a long-standing ally of England, ever since the Elizabethan era . It’s quite simple here. They were
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friends against Spain. And so, in the 16th and especially the 17th centuries, the Dutch began regularly beating the most powerful fleet of the era: the Spanish one. They became masters of the sea, and maritime dominance isn't just for ego stroking. A powerful navy is a
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state's most expensive toy. Only one thing can sustain it: powerful maritime trade. Everything else is the navy.
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Well, I mean, a truly strong navy will simply bankrupt you. The navy and maritime trade are always together, like Procter&Gamble. Super-profits from the latter provide the fleet with money , while the navy, in turn, protects its own trade and gives the competition a
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little chop. And so, having beaten the Spanish, the Dutch in the 17th century became the absolute masters and middlemen of world trade. As I already said, by the middle of the century, it was five times larger than the English
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one. And so Cromwell, perfectly understanding that Britain is an island and that the foundation of its invincibility is the fleet, builds dozens of excellent ships. But gathering a million pounds at musket point and dumping them into ships is
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certainly good, but that doesn't work long-term. In any case, not for a normal state. This means you need to concentrate maritime trade in your own hands. And to do that, you need to dump the previous master. Everything is
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simple and clear. As a result, we see the Navigation Act itself. Goods to England, and a little later they added provisions for the colonies. For now, as we recall, colonies can import goods either on English ships or on ships
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from the country of origin. There was simply no room left for middlemen. And who are the middlemen? That’s right.
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There were also provisions banning coastal trade and the import of fish. Again, it seems like some incomprehensible nonsense. And again, it’s all explained quite simply.
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Herring. The shrewd Dutch would pay the English kings three kopeks. Oh, phew, three shillings, of course. And they caught herring right off the coast of England. And then, without much fuss, sold it right back to the English.
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Isn't that just charming? And they were catching them quite seriously. There are reports of a herring fleet of 3,000 vessels. That’s not just for fun.
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It’s not just heading out with the boys for a weekend of fishing. Cromwell said to this: "Enough." The Dutch calculated their losses, and being accustomed to counting only profits, they were taken aback. Naturally, the English felt they had to defeat them.
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And to do this, the Lord Protector diligently built a fleet. With puritanical bluntness, he didn't cite European values, but stated quite sincerely: "We want a piece of the Dutch trade for ourselves." Well, it's easier said than done to defeat the
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Dutch at sea in the mid-17th century. Firstly, they had mountains of money thanks to that same herring and trade.
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Secondly, they had better ship crews. During wartime, a navy inevitably grows , and there are two ways to staff it.
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Either catch drunks in taverns or turn to the merchant fleet. And the Dutch merchant fleet was, well, you get the idea. Meaning their reserve was almost endless. And objectively, at that time, the Netherlands had a wealth of outstanding naval commanders: Van Galen
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, De With, Tromp, and, of course, the brilliant de Ruyter. So, the cavalry colonel Blake and the land general Monck faced some real difficulties. Yet the Britons had a strong response of their own. You see, the United Provinces were certainly more advanced
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than the semi-feudal England of Charles I, but the Dutch were about an era behind Cromwell's England. The Netherlands were exactly that—United Provinces—which meant a heap of governments and five whole admiralties, and "too many cooks spoil the broth." You understand. Besides, there are
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coastal provinces that invest every penny in the fleet, and then there are the inland ones, to whom it's very hard to explain why they should spend guilders, earned by backbreaking labor on cheese and tulips, to build little boats. As we remember, that was
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precisely the reason Charles I began his journey to the scaffold. And naturally, the Dutch were traders. Most of their ships were designed not just for combat, but for hauling herring.
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But the requirements for a warship and a merchant vessel are largely opposite. And the typical Dutch fluyt, which was magnificent, no joke, allowed for carrying 10,000 tons of sugar from America to Europe in one run, feared no storms, and had two dozen cannons on
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board, which made any pirate attack a rather hopeless endeavor. However, in a battle line, this excellent ship looked pale against the latest British fifty-gunner. Moreover, Dutch warships were, on average, smaller and weaker than English ones. Furthermore, there is, of course, discipline. If an
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English captain left the battle line, Blake, with Cromwell's blessing, would send him to a court-martial and then to the gallows. But if a Dutch shipowner, who went to war on his own ship, suddenly changed his mind during the
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fight and left the line, what could you do to him? He was just a private contractor from a neighboring province.
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And then, that very maritime trade. The economic base of the British fleet was on the island of the tax-collectors.
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Yes, hammered out with the help of musketeers. I will emphasize this again . From a human standpoint, besides being a conqueror, he was a brute. But it is what it is. The Dutch got most of their money from maritime trade. That
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is, a convoy would arrive from India, they would sell the cargo, and use that money to equip a fleet for the next campaign. But if Blake gutted the convoy, England got a nice bonus, while Holland had nothing left to fight with.
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And that was actually just half the trouble. Because of this, Dutch admirals lost the initiative and, instead of sinking the Brits, ended up like sheepdogs for a flock of merchant ships. Their main task was not to defeat the English, but to successfully
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deliver the convoy to Amsterdam through the English Channel. Meanwhile, Blake sat in Dover and watched the sea with curiosity, which added significant problems for the Republic of the United Provinces. And with those starting conditions, the First Anglo-Dutch War
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began. It started in May 1652, without even an official declaration, with a trivial incident off Dover. Admiral Maarten Tromp forgot to salute the English flag, as required by the Navigation Act, and Robert Blake fired a warning broadside. And then
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everything spiraled out of control. This was the first total war in history between two fleets of a new type. Over two years, there were six major naval battles, in each of which 70 to 120 ships from each side clashed. Powder
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was burned by the hundreds of tons. Just try to imagine Charles I's fleet from two decades earlier. Would it have been able to pull that off? The video is already running long, so I'll cover the events in broad strokes. So, at
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first, the English got beaten. The Battle of Dungeness. November 1652. Tromp caught a part of Blake's squadron , defeated it, and, according to legend , tied a broom to his mast. As if to say he had swept the English out of the
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Channel. Well, the English appreciated the humor, drew their conclusions, reshuffled their officer corps, and it was after this that they implemented the battle instructions I mentioned earlier and the iron line of battle.
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Then came the three-day Battle of Portland. In February 1653, Tromp was leading a convoy of 150 merchant ships through the Channel. Blake stood like a wall. For three days, the Dutch warships fought off the pressing English, shielding the merchants like a
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living wall. Tromp performed a tactical miracle and saved most of the convoy, but lost about a dozen warships and up to fifty merchant ships. Most importantly, the English realized that in a one-on-one artillery duel, the Dutch could not withstand their fire.
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Then there was the Battle of the Gabbard. This was June 1653. The first triumph of the English line. Monck's ships formed a line and methodically bombarded the Dutch fleet from a long distance for two days. The Dutch ran
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out of cannonballs, and panic set in. Individual captains began to desert on their own. The result: the Dutch lost 17 ships, the English zero. Holland was placed under a tight naval blockade.
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Then followed the finale. The Battle of Scheveningen, August 1653. This was a desperate attempt by the Netherlands to break the blockade of its own coast.
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Over 200 pennants clashed in the grand slaughter. At the very beginning of the battle, a stray English bullet struck down the Dutch national hero, Admiral Tromp. Having lost their flagship, the Dutch faltered. In this battle alone, they lost up to thirty ships, either
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sunk or captured. And just like that, Dutch hegemony at sea came to an end.
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Ten years prior, no one could have even imagined such a thing. Trade in the Republic of the United Provinces was completely paralyzed within two years of war. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange closed. Warehouses were bursting with goods that no one was buying. Shipyards
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stood idle. During the war, the English seized, by various estimates, between a thousand and 1,400 Dutch merchant vessels. Cromwell recouped a significant portion of his military expenses from this loot. And under the Treaty of Westminster in April 1654,
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the Dutch fully and unconditionally recognized that same Navigation Act of 1651. They pledged to salute any English warship in British waters and pay huge compensation for the losses of the English in general and the English East India Company in particular. And
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that is how a new authority emerged at sea. But that was only the beginning.
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Remember, I spoke of the still very capable Spanish fleet and the Barbary pirates. So Robert Blake tightened his belt and ordered a forced march. The English fleet set out to do them some " good" as well. In the autumn of 1654,
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an English squadron under Blake’s flag entered the Mediterranean Sea on a permanent basis for the first time in many decades. Prior to this, the English were considered harmless prey there. Recall the Barbary pirates, who 30 years earlier had felt like the
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masters of the English coast. The British had come to collect their debts . Blake approached the shores of North Africa. The first thing he did was pay a visit to Algiers. The local Dey looked at the English ships bristling
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with cannons. He understood everything instantly, became as meek as a lamb, freed the captured English slaves, and swore never to lay a finger on British ships again. But Tunis acted arrogantly and proved not to be quite so sharp.
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They hid their nine corsair ships in the fortified bay of Porto Farina under the cover of powerful coastal castles and forts, after which they audaciously sent a message to Blake to that effect.
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Here are our fortresses and our ships. Try and take them, if you’re brave enough. You see, according to the military doctrine of the time, attacking stone coastal forts with wooden sailing ships was considered pure suicide. Fortress cannons fire
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red-hot shot. The fortress itself is protected by stone walls and cannot sink. But cavalry Colonel Blake could not have known such "wisdom." Therefore , in April 1655, he steered his squadron right under the barrels of the coastal batteries, to a distance of
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literally a pistol shot. The sea breeze carried the smoke from the salvos toward the shore, which somewhat blinded the Tunisian artillerymen. And so, in a couple of hours, the English smashed the coastal fortifications to rubble, rowed up in longboats, set fire
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to, and burned all nine corsair ships, losing only 25 men killed in the process. This came as a shock to the entire Mediterranean. The Pope, in terror, ordered the fortifications of Rome to be prepared, seriously expecting that these English Puritan
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heretics would sail over to storm the Vatican. It reminds you of something, doesn't it? An impregnable island sending invincible squadrons anywhere it pleases. What else is left? Endless colonies. It's more complicated here, but not exactly a dead end. Look,
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alongside his Mediterranean raids, Cromwell sets his sights on holy Spanish colonial dominance in the New World. This project was titled the " Western Design." The goal was formulated cynically and specifically: to kick the Spanish out of the Caribbean and cut the financial artery
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through which silver from American mines flowed to Madrid. To do this, they planned to seize Haiti. However, things went wrong. The landing force under Admiral Penn and General Venables shamefully failed to storm the wealthy Santo Domingo on that very island of
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Haiti. And so as not to return to the enraged Cromwell empty-handed—for failure could easily land you in the Tower or worse—in May 1655, the English landed on a nearby, almost undefended island. This island was called Jamaica. At the time, it seemed
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like a pathetic consolation prize, but Cromwell instantly grasped Jamaica's geostrategic potential. As a naval base , it was just as good as Haiti. And the English turned Jamaica into a naval thorn right in the soft underbelly of the Spanish colonies. Port Royal became
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a nest of pirates and privateers who plundered Spanish galleons, now with a license from the English government.
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And England itself established a foothold in the Caribbean forever. The Spanish, to put it mildly, were stunned by these developments and declared war on England. But it was already too late to wage war against Cromwell’s England. For two years in a row,
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Blake's squadrons held the Spanish coast in a death grip. The Spanish economy, accustomed to American silver, was simply suffocating. And so, in the spring of 1657, John Thurloe’s intelligence intercepted a report. The Silver Fleet from America had broken
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across the ocean and taken refuge in the harbor of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Sixteen loaded galleons sat in the roadstead under the protection of a powerful castle and seven coastal forts. The Spanish were certain they were impossible to capture
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. And so, on April 20, 1657, Blake committed his greatest and final masterpiece. He charged full sail into the bay of Santa Cruz, straight through the hurricane fire of the Spanish batteries. The English positioned themselves between the Spanish ships
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and the shore defenses, using the hulls of the galleons as shields against the fort's cannons. Following this, after several hours of intense artillery battle, all sixteen Spanish ships were burned and sent to the bottom. Then, as if by a miracle, the wind shifted to a
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favorable direction, allowing Blake's squadron to exit the burning bay into the open ocean without losing a single warship. Spain's Silver Fleet ceased to exist. The Spanish Crown declared default once again and couldn't pay its armies in Flanders, leading to an
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English and French victory on land at the Battle of the Dunes, where Cromwell’s infantry crushed the Spanish tercios and captured the fortress of Dunkirk for England.
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Admiral Blake himself, worn down by illness and old wounds, died aboard his flagship. On the journey home.
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Literally a few hours before his ship dropped anchor in Plymouth harbor, the country was burying him in Westminster Abbey as a national hero, and who could say it wasn't deserved. Besides that, under Cromwell, a few more key footholds for future colonization were
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captured, so things were easier from then on. Bases appeared in the right places, and most importantly, an invincible fleet. And then Lord Protector Cromwell passed away.
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Everything listed above took him 7 years. And here, after a short but interesting game of thrones, Charles II is established on the English throne.
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The very same one whose father these people killed and from whom he himself, like Tarzan, hid under the hollow of an oak tree. Naturally, the revenge should be terrible. Well, judge for yourself.
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The aforementioned Thurloe, the chief spy and hound of the regime. The first noose for him. And he was indeed arrested, but then released, with a request to act as a private, highly authoritative expert on matters of European politics. There is evidence
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that Charles II sought much closer cooperation, but the convinced republican Thurloe preferred to keep away from the monarchy. Who else is there, Monck? Well, on one hand, he doesn't count, since although he was a hound of the regime, it was he who
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returned the crown to Charles. On the other, while Cromwell was looking for him under the hollow, Monck simply carried out a massacre of Charles's supporters in Scotland, so there was plenty to avenge. Charles II granted the former Cromwellian general the
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title of Lord Albemarle, the Order of the Garter, and a giant lifetime pension of 7,000 pounds a year. And the position of Captain General of all the kingdom's armed forces to boot. Need more Cromwellian ministers to be punished? Please, who was our main
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propagandist for Cromwell, an intelligence scout for Thurloe, and ambassador of the revolutionary English Republic in Holland? He, Sir George Downing, a fanatical Puritan, a graduate of the first Harvard class. In his youth, he preached in America, and in England, he became Cromwell's right
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hand for the economic strangulation of the Netherlands. It was he who edited the Navigation Act, and then squeezed debts out of the Dutch after they lost the war. And he also organized surveillance of the Royalists and the King in exile. It would seem he was the
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prime candidate for quartering. Well, what does Downing do when Cromwell dies ? This was a very smart gentleman who instantly switched sides in mid-air.
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And he personally hunts down three fugitive regicides in Holland. These are the judges who signed the death warrant for Charles I. He personally arrests them, uh, packs them onto a ship, and sends them to London straight to the executioner's ax. And what about
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Downing himself, who had done much more for—or rather, against—the Royalists than these three judges? Well , Charles II appreciated such a flexible spine, remembered his rare financial genius, made him a baronet, and placed him in the position of
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Secretary to the Treasury. It was Downing who brought Cromwellian tax discipline into the restored monarchy.
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He reformed the budget so that government revenues became strictly earmarked. Well, for example, money collected for the navy could no longer be spent on the king's whims. He then launched a system of state credit through treasury bills, which would
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later give rise to the Bank of England. For these services, the king gifted him a piece of land in the center of London near Whitehall. And Downing, without thinking twice, covered it with mansions. Today, the British Prime Minister sits in house number 10 on the
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street he built. Yes, 10 Downing Street , the residence of the British Prime Minister, is named after Cromwell's chief fiscal officer and one of his main spies. We can also find, for example, Sir Edward Montagu, a close relative and key associate of Cromwell.
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At 18, he already commanded an infantry regiment in the Parliamentary army, and at 30, Cromwell appointed him a General-at-Sea alongside Robert Blake.
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It was Montagu who used Cromwell's frigates to chase the Spanish and blockade Dunkirk from the sea. And when the republic collapsed, Montagu realized the situation. He took the entire republican fleet, sailed to Holland, picked up the fugitive Charles
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II on his flagship, and brought him home to England with a royal salute. Right on board the ship, a funny silent scene took place. Charles II looked at the carved figure of Cromwell on the ship's bow, renamed the ship the Royal
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Charles, and granted Montagu the title of Earl of Sandwich. Well, one of his descendants invented that very sandwich , and for good measure, Montagu became Vice-Admiral of England. The Earl of Sandwich continued doing what he had learned from Blake. He commanded the
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English fleet, crushed the Dutch at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665, and died a hero aboard his burning flagship at the Battle of Solebay in 1672, covering the retreat of the allied squadron. But those are the people; what about the
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system that Cromwell created? Well, with the system, something happened that was so cynical and instructive that they now try to speak of it only in passing and with a slight blush in British school textbooks. After all, Charles II officially declared the
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years of Cromwell's rule a great rebellion and proclaimed himself king from the moment of his father's execution, that is, from 1649. [Year.] As a result, all the laws of the republic legally ceased to exist and were declared void. Dozens of regicides
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were executed. The corpse of Oliver himself was dug up and hung on the gallows at Tyburn. And his head was impaled on a pole above Westminster Palace. The people rejoiced, fountains were filled with wine, and royalists drank to the monarch's health—in
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short, a 100 out of 100 picture of the monarchy's triumph. And now let's look under the hood to see what Charles II actually broke of the hated dictatorship's mechanisms. Spoiler: practically nothing. He neatly erased Cromwell's name from them, painted a
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royal crown on them, and ran them at full capacity. Judge for yourself. Well , firstly, the fiscal revolution.
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Remember the semi-medieval rule that the king must live on his own means, because of which poor Charles I literally lost his head over ship money ? Charles II did not return to that medieval romanticism by a single millimeter. In that same year, 1660,
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the royal parliament passed a law that quietly brought about a capitalist revolution in England. The Act for the Abolition of the Court of Wards and Feathers, the so-called Tenures Abolition Act of 1660. Who is it? Look, the nobility were forever freed from
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ancient knightly obligations, and from those very same "shield money" payments . Land finally became the private property of the squires. And in return, drumroll please. The King permanently secured for the Crown the permanent excise taxes on beer, cider, and
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spirits invented by Cromwell, plus increased customs duties. The King was legislatively granted a massive regular budget of 1,200,000 pounds sterling a year, which was twice what his father had. He also kept the state budget of the modern type, born of the Puritan
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dictatorship, which became the foundation of the monarchy. Next, the second thing. The Navigation Act. The very same Navigation Act of 1651, over which the Republic clashed with Holland , formally lost its force as a law of the rebels. What did Charles II do? In
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the very first year of his reign, he reissued it under the name of the Navigation Act of 1660, only making it even more draconian. Let's read. The list of colonial goods—sugar, tobacco , indigo, cotton—which the colonies were required to ship exclusively to
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England, was significantly expanded. Requirements for crews were tightened. Now, no less than 75%of the crew had to be British. And in 1663, Charles added to it the Act for the Encouragement of Trade, the Staple Act. Prohibiting the colonies from purchasing European goods
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unless they were unloaded in English ports and duties were paid in London. The entire imperial mercantilist system , which turned the world's oceans into a British purse, remained Cromwellian from the first point to the last. As a result, two more Anglo-Dutch wars and
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the decline of the Netherlands. That was just plain ugly. Not only was his father friends with the Dutch, but Charles himself had hidden in Holland during Cromwell’s time. And, in fact, they took him from the Netherlands, dusted him off, brought him to England,
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and placed the crown on his head. And this is the "thank you" he gave them.
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Next, of course, the Royal Navy. Charles didn't just avoid chopping up the republican fleet for firewood; it became the favorite brainchild of the King himself and his brother James, Duke of York, the future King James II, who was appointed Lord High Admiral.
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And here, personnel choices worked again. The Admiralty was put under the direction of a young official named Samuel Pepys, a distant relative of the Earl of Sandwich, who came, of course, from those same Puritan circles. Pepys took the institutions created by Vane
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and Blake and simply solidified them. Specifically, the 150 ships built under Cromwell were renamed. For example, the Naseby became the Royal Charles. And, of course, they kept the fleet, which they declared "Royal." Furthermore, they maintained the rigid six-rank
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system and the centralized versions in Chatham and Portsmouth. Then, naturally , they kept the line-of-battle tactics, that is, the combat instructions of the staunch republican Blake. Alas, that’s just how it was for us for many years. "Soviet" meant, by
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definition, bad. Let's return to England. Look, moving on. Under Charles , Cromwell’s standards for officer exams were introduced. Now, even an aristocrat had to serve as a lieutenant and pass a navigation practical, not just buy a commission. What else? Look.
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Oh, Scotland, Ireland, my favorites. Things turned out extremely ugly there as well. See, as we recall, the Irish and Scots fought for Charles and against Cromwell. And in word, Charles II restored the autonomy of Scotland and Ireland. But in fact, the
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Cromwellian land redistribution in Ireland remained untouched. Charles confirmed the rights of Protestant colonists to most of the land seized from Catholics. The Irish Catholics, who had sincerely fought for the Stuarts, were left with nothing. In Scotland, Cromwellian citadels
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continued to keep the highlanders in check, though Charles did disband the New Model Army itself. And here, you see, what’s the point? 50,000 regular troops is something insignificant to us . Or at least to Napoleon. Who cares, just two corps. But in the 1650s,
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50,000 regular troops is beyond comprehension. The Thirty Years 'War had just thundered to a close. Everyone is broke and carrying out mass demobilizations. At that moment, France has 40, or at most 50,000 regulars. The Austrian Habsburg power, maybe 25,000.
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The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Lucky if it’s 10-15 thousand. Spain —60,000, but that’s worldwide. So 50,000 is on the level of the strongest armies in Europe. But why such an army?
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Thanks to Cromwell, England......is an impregnable quiet island. So this magnificent army turned out to be simply unnecessary. Well, from the most reliable veteran units, the King formed the first permanent regular army in English monarchy history: the Royal Life Guards and the Coldstream Guards
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under the command of George Monck. What happened next? Well, naturally, European values. John Thurloe’s secret office. Charles II supposedly closed the letter-opening service. Ha, hardly. The postal monopoly was put under the royal government's control.
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Inside the General Post Office building on Lombard Street in London, they officially opened that very "Secret Office," where the same specialists continued to melt wax seals over kettles, copy seals, and pass copies of letters to the monarchy's secretaries
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of state. So much for the value of political rhetoric. The monarchy took significant revenge on the dead Cromwell. Yes, they desecrated his bones and anathematized his name, but the state machine he created—the regular navy, the partially regular army, the tax system, the colonial
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chokehold of the Navigation Act, and the professional bureaucracy—...the new owners carefully greased, fueled up , and drove it further to conquer the world's oceans, which they did successfully. We could end here, but I wanted to provide a quote from Margaret
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Thatcher. For instance, in 1996, the Iron Lady said something like this. Next, a quote: "The long Twilight struggle of the Cold War ended in total victory for the West and the captive nations of the Communist empire. And I
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certainly include the Russian people in that number, as with the collapse of all empires, the collapse of the Soviet empire brought about colossal changes far beyond its borders. Many of them were undeniably for the better. More cooperative relations between the
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superpowers, the US and Russia, the spread of civil society democracy in Eastern Europe, better prospects for resolving regional conflicts, such as in Southern Africa and the Middle East, once Soviet mischief was removed. The discrediting of socialist economic planning after the exposure of its
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catastrophic consequences in Russia and Eastern Europe. End of quote. And now let us recall how they acted themselves and what they advised us. And you know, the English are clever. Who is to blame that we listened? And so, with this, I
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would now really like to end today's story. Old Potsdamoch was with you. If you liked the video, hit the like button. If you think the author did a poor job, give it a dislike. And see you in a week, where we will continue
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the series of sketches on the Enemies of Russia in the 15th Century. It is the turn of the Ottoman Empire's army.
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See you later.
Topics:Oliver CromwellBritish historyAnglo-Scottish relationsBritish IslesTudor dynastyAuld Alliance17th century EnglandBritish monarchyScotland clansEuropean politics
