Lecture Date: March 29, 2016
A Chancellor’s Village Lecture
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) is one of the most controversial figures in British history -- voted in a 2002 BBC poll as one of the ten greatest Britons of all time. His fame rests mainly on his leadership of the “Roundhead” faction that was instrumental in defeating the Royalist forces, deposing Charles I, and creating a short-lived Commonwealth of England; Cromwell, in fact, was one of the signers of the King’s death warrant in 1649. Thereafter he became Lord Protector of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. He died from natural causes in 1658 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. However, after the restoration of the royalty to power, his body was exhumed, hung in chains, and beheaded. Professor Jeremy Black will address these controversial facets of Cromwell’s complex life.
Speaker: Jeremy Black
Jeremy Black is a popular and dynamic lecturer who has appeared multiple times in the Great Lives series. Having studied at Cambridge and Oxford, he began his teaching career at the University of Durham in 1980 before moving to Exeter University in 1996, where he is the current holder of the Established Chair in History. In addition to his teaching, Professor Black has held a number of important public roles, including that of editor of Archives, the journal of the British Records Association. His prodigious scholarly output encompasses more than 100 publications, mainly on, but not limited to, British and continental European history, with particular emphasis on international relations and military history. He has held numerous teaching positions outside of England, having lectured extensively in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and Denmark—as well as in the US, where he has taught at the Universities of Maryland, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgetown, and Rutgers, among others.