Saturday 19 July 2008

Oliver's army

I'm sure most of you have better things to do at 2am than read about Oliver Cromwell on Wikipedia, but I don't. In doing so I came across this guy - Praise-God Barebone - surely the best name for an MP ever? His 1643 work, "A Reply to the Frivolous and Impertinent answer of R.B. and E.B. to the Discourse of P.B." sounds like an absolute classic.

It gets better. Anyone guess what he named his son? Hath Christ Not Died for Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned Barebone. In later life Hath Christ Not Died for Thee Thou Wouldst Be Damned did a Zowie (Joe) Bowie and changed his name to Nicholas. Can't really blame him.

My quest for further information led me to this article, but then I read the disclaimer - and was rather disappointed.

2 comments:

Jay said...

Every age has its Cromwells. Oliver was terribly keen on banning things, too, in the name of his religious beliefs which he forced on everyone else. Today we have Liam Donaldson with his shrill calls to ban and restrict. He does so in the name of health although his notion of health is a very narrow-minded one and might be more properly called longevity.

God save us from puritans of whatever sect.

In the 17th century sanity was restored with the Restoration. It will be restored in the 21st.

Glenn Vowles said...

Yes, Cromwell and his ilk did a lot of bad stuff. On the other hand what would be the power of Parliamentary democracy relative to royalty without him and his supporters??