On Not Negotiating with Terrorists

Source from Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers

Early modern sieges were as much a matter of writing to/talking with the enemy as fighting them. Certainly a case can be made for Oliver Cromwell viewing at least a portion of the Irish as terrorists: "barbarous wretches, who have imbrued their hands with so much innocent blood." Yet, his letters include many to his besieged Irish enemies negotiating terms of surrender (Ross, etc.). In any case, this selection from the Edinburgh Evening Courant, 7 Jan. 1746, shows a studied refusal to negotiate/exchange hostages with rebels/terrorists, all the while, in fact setting up the terms for negotiating.


earlymodernengland by Newton Key.

Rebels and Rulers, Collect Them All!

 From a series of 1923 Cigarette Cards entitled Celebrities and their Autographs.  Oliver Cromwell (d. 1658) and James, Duke of Monmouth (d. 1685). I think the autographs might look more convincing than the portraits.

Thomas Cromwell Portrayed: Not

Patrick Collinson, Short Oxford History of The British Isles: The Sixteenth Century (Oxford, 2002), xiv, gives a good reading of a portrait of Thomas Cromwell (see left). Unfortunately, I find the identical portrait accompanying the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article of George Neville, third Baron Bergavenny (c.1469-1535). Which is correct?  Inquiring minds want to know? Is the Oxford History or the Oxford DNB correct?






Dr. Philip Carter, Publication Editor, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, was kind enough to respond to my query:

•  "it appears that the image we use is correctly identified as Holbein's pencil sketch of Neville, despite the addition of 'Lord Cromwell' in the bottom left of the image.  Roy Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court (183), p. 21 identifies the portrait as Neville and notes that the reference to 'Lord Cromwell' and 'Holbein' was added later; J.Rowlands Holbein: Portraits of Hans Holbein the Younger, complete edition (1985) also identifies the portrait as of Neville."

bible title page, 1540

Tatiana C. String, “Henry VIII's Illuminated 'Great Bible',” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 59 (1996): 315-324, notes that Holbein's woodcut for the Coverdale Bible (1535) was superseded by that (artist unknown but probably Lucas Horenbout--which I think the world does not need to know) for the Great Bible (1540). Cool article: the 1541 ed. has a big circle on the right where Thomas Cromwell's arms are removed! (And, indeed, there is a colored version of same.) So the claim that the frontispiece to Henry VIII’s Great Bible was a Hans Holbein woodcut is probably erroneous. Thomas Cromwell ordered it purchased by every parish church in September 1538.