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Letters: Oliver Cromwell and the challenge of dealing with complex history

SIR – Oliver Cromwell’s statue outside Parliament should not be removed, as proposed by John Barstow and Michael Varvill (Letters, December 21).

Cromwell's statue outside Parliament - Alamy© Alamy

For better or worse, he is an important part of our history. The itch to demolish memorials to our past, whether to appease the fashion of the day or conciliate those with some historic grievance, should be resisted. Ironically, it is just the kind of action that Cromwell and his fellow Puritan iconoclasts might have proposed.

The Civil War was a decisive factor in the evolution of our constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, to the profound benefit of this country and much of the world. Cromwell’s statue must be kept, not only to mark his greatness, but also as a warning against the folly of republicans along with today’s intemperate prigs and zealots who are so keen to order our lives for us.

Patrick Walsh

Newbury, Berkshire

SIR – I disagree profoundly with John Barstow and Michael Varvill: we need Cromwell outside the House of Commons to remind us of what the alternative might develop into.

Those in Parliament may not be perfect (some might think by a long way) but they are better than a dictatorship.

Jonathan Baldwin

Nantwich, Cheshire

SIR – Cromwell’s statue is offensive to the Irish and many others. Both of my grandmothers (one Scots, one Welsh) would quietly spit when they walked past it, and it deserves to be toppled.

Charles Taylor

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

SIR – John Barstow and Michael Varvill have written a wonderful letter about a terrible human. Not only did Cromwell go to Ireland to encourage his soldiery in deeds of physical savagery, but he also carried out these acts himself against the Irish civilian population.

Bryan Oates

London SW18

SIR – What happened in Ireland nearly 400 years ago will not be changed by the removal of Cromwell’s statue. Most Irish people are probably not aware of it (although this Irish person is).

Cromwell probably killed as many Englishmen as Irishmen. The statue represents an important step from absolute monarchy to parliamentary government. Any decision about its future should be made by the British.

Olga Parsons

Banbury, Oxfordshire

SIR – Should we not also consider the removal of Richard the Lionheart’s statue for his part in the Third Crusade (in which he ordered the beheading of over 2,000 Muslim prisoners of war in 1191) and, from the Embankment, that of Boadicea for her revolt against Roman rule in AD61-62, during which 80,000 people lost their lives and Colchester, London and St Albans were sacked and burned?

And as for the statue of Churchill …

Mark Hicks- Hereford: