Scottish Daily Mail

Cromwell, lord of the pranks

- Compiled by Charles Legge

QUESTION Did Oliver Cromwell indulge in schoolboy pranks, such as flicking ink at his opponents in Parliament?

OLIVER CROMWELL (1599–1658), the pre‑eminent figure of the Eng‑ lish Civil Wars, was lord Protector of the Commonweal­th of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1653 to 1658.

He was a man of great ability and energy but also a man of passion, and there are numerous examples of him behaving in an exuberant and sometimes unusual manner at times of great stress.

Sir Philip Warwick, in his Memoirs, tells how Cromwell’s physician, dr Simcott, ‘had been called up to him at midnight, and such unseasona‑ble hours very many times, upon a strong phansy, which made him believe he was then dying’.

There are accounts of Cromwell laughing and crying maniacally before major battles.

John Aubrey, in his Miscellani­es, relates: ‘one that I knew, that was at the Battle of dunbar, told me that oliver was carried on with a divine impulse; he did laugh so excessivel­y as if he had been drunk . . .’

In 1648, during a parliament­ary debate on the future constituti­on, Cromwell broke up the discussion by seizing a cushion and ‘hurling it at [Edmund] ludlow’s head, him‑ self springing away down the stairs away from ludlow’s vengeance’.

And we have Colonel Ewer’s remarkable account of the signing of the King’s death warrant, where he describes how Cromwell and Henry Marten: ‘Inked each other’s faces after signing, as the warrant lay in the Painted Chamber, like grotesque schoolboys.’

These incidents give a fascinatin­g insight into Cromwell’s character. It has led some authors to conclude that he suffered from hypomania, a condition ‘like a manic‑depressive psychosis in miniature’ [but with none of the appalling severity of that illness].

The suggestion is an intriguing one. It provides an explanatio­n for Cromwell’s mood swings that is reconcilab­le with his extraordin­ary effectiven­ess.

K. M. Soames, Oxford.

QUESTION What is the largest coin in the world in general circulatio­n?

FURTHER to the earlier answer, the largest coin of all time must be Swedish ‘plate money’.

A lack of silver in Sweden at the beginning of the 17th century saw the minting of giant copper coins.

More than 25,000 plate money coins, with the denominati­on of ten daler, were minted in 1644. These rectangula­r slabs were 13 in by 24 in and weighed a whopping 43½ lb.

tim Smith, London Se1.

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