John Milton, Andrew Marvell and Oliver Cromwell - Dr David Smith

John Milton, Andrew Marvell and Oliver Cromwell - Dr David Smith

Oliver Cromwell’s remarkable career coincided with the lives of two of England’s greatest poets: John Milton and Andrew Marvell. This talk will compare and contrast how these two poets perceived Cromwell during the revolutionary events of the 1640s and 1640s. We will trace how Milton’s initial admiration for Cromwell gradually gave way to disillusionment and resentment, and conversely how Marvell’s early suspicions of Cromwell were steadily replaced by respect and even admiration. Throughout, we will look at extracts from the works of both writers.

Dr David L. Smith has been a Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, since 1988, and a College Associate Professor since 2024. He became a Director of Studies in History in 1992, and a Postgraduate Tutor in 2004. At Selwyn he has also served as Admissions Tutor (1992-2003), and as Praelector (1996-2006). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1992, and he has been an Affiliated Lecturer in the Cambridge History Faculty since 1995.

His books include Constitutional Royalism and the Search for Settlement, c. 1640-1649 (1994), A History of the Modern British Isles, 1603-1707: The Double Crown (1998), The Stuart Parliaments, 1603-1689 (1999), and (with Patrick Little) Parliaments and Politics during the Cromwellian Protectorate (2007). He has also co-edited two series of A-level textbooks for Cambridge University Press.

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