Don’t Blame Oliver

How did Oliver Cromwell become king in all but name? Defeating all the royalist armies helped but John Thurloe helped more. He won Cromwell’s most important battle for him, the battle for England’s heart and mind, by taking advantage of the birth of the popular newspaper, the first time media turned social. You would know that if Restoration Britain hadn’t tried to write John Thurloe out of history.

Truth will out if you read Thurloe’s rollicking, London-eyed account of how he cleared the path for a commoner to replace a Stuart tyrant. It’s a counterblast to Clarendon’s famous History of the Rebellion.

It captures the essence of a civil war, where what happens in the parlour, the bedchamber, the church, the taproom and the brothel is just as important as the battlefield action. Supported by a bizarre and rivalrous cast of high and low born men and women, Thurloe ensured Cromwell’s name was bawled louder than anyone else’s in the houses, the workplaces and the streets.

It proved to be the key to the throne (and a lesson for every dictator ever since).