Oliver's Army

Sunday April 25th, 1999, is Oliver Cromwell's 400th birthday. There will be a flurry of activity around the country to commemorate the event. Public lectures at the University of Oxford and at the Jewish Museum in London (to mark his readmission of the Jews to England in 1655), the opening of an exhibition in Cambridge University Library, a festival in Bedford, and an ecumenical religious service in a large theatre in his home town of Huntingdon, attached to Hinchingbrooke House in which Cromwell's grandfather often entertained James I. Over the course of the year, there will be some thirty exhibitions and special events around the country, many one-day conferences, and a handful of specially written plays will be touring. A CD-Rom is about to be launched, aimed at children between nine and fourteen. 1999 is clearly a year for commemorating Cromwell. Why?