- First name
- Lord Protector
- Last name
- Cromwell
- Date of Birth
- 1599
- Date of Death
- 1658
- Born in
- Huntingdon
- Died in
- London
Oliver Cromwell rose to a position of military prominence during the First Civil War (1642–6). He played a major role in the creation of the New Model Army. After the start of the Rump Parliament (1649–53), he became chairman of the Council of State (1649) and Lord Protector (1653) of the First and Second Protectorate Parliament (1654–5, 1656–8). He proclaimed the restriction of the freedom of religious sects and the revision of government and the army. See: ODNB; Bennett, 2006.
On 19 October 1651, a Navigation Act bill (recommended on 5 August 1651) had been passed under the Rump Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell in the wake of an unsuccessful diplomatic attempt to negotiate an alliance between England and the Dutch Republic. The Act stipulates that goods could be imported into English territories only by English ships or by ships of the country of origin. The aim of this notorious Act was to hamper the sea trade domination by the United Provinces on the Baltic and the North Sea. See: Farnell, 1964; Pincus, 1996, pp. 40–51