Principal GRANT ROBERTSON : Principal of Birmingham University : ' Short Lives of Great Men—II, Oliver Cromwell '
Relayed from Birmingham
THE creator of the first English regular army, and subsequent Lord Protector, is the subject of Principal Grant Robertson 's second talk this afternoon. Most people are Cavalier in sympathy, for most people are romantic and like to back a losing cause ; and most people dislike warts. So that both Cromwell's cause and his personal appearance have been against him, from the point of view of achieving popular sympathy. But history is less a matter of romance than of hard fact. And the facts show Cromwell to have been one of the great personalities of history. Whether or not he was a pleasant character, this country squire, who at forty made himself the first general of his time, changed the course of English history, and made England respected and feared abroad as she had never been even under Elizabeth.