Cromwell was Framed - Tom Reilly

The publication of ""Cromwell: An Honourable Enemy"" fifteen years ago sparked off a storm of controversy with many historians publically deriding the divisive and groundbreaking study. Dissatisfied with the counter-explanations of these seventeenth-century experts concerning Cromwells complicity in war crimes in Ireland, amateur historian Tom Reilly now throws down the gauntlet to his critics and issues a challenge to professional historians everywhere. In this entirely fresh work Reilly tackles his academic detractors head-on with original and radical insights. Breaking the mould of the genre, for the first time ever, the author publishes the actual contemporary documents (usually the privileged preserve of historians) so the authentic primary source documents can be interpreted at first hand by the general reader, without prejudice. 

Paperback : 276 pages

Tom Reilly’s first book on Cromwell and Ireland, Cromwell : An Honourable Enemy, caused such a storm of controversy that he decided to write this book fifteen years later in order to answer and challenge all of his critics. He systematically examines their arguments but also, recognising that history is a matter of interpretation and opinion as much as fact-finding, includes copies of the original source documents (mainly newspapers/newsbooks of the day) so that readers can decide for themselves.
Reilly’s thesis is that Cromwell was not the monster of accepted Irish opinion and that the truth needs to be rescued from the accretions of almost four centuries of myth and propaganda. He lets Cromwell have the last words, “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you might be mistaken”. Review by Dave P.