The Greatest Englishman EVER!

I will field an answer not meant to lighten the mood a bit.

If I had to make a list:

Thomas Paine
Because he was instrumental in creating the nation that I live in and love.

William Shakespeare
Alfred the Great
Tim Berners-Lee who did what Al Gore claims to have done and created the WWW.
Charles Babbage

And #1 would have to be Sir Winston Churchill

~Heff

If you want to say he was a great General, understood leadership and how to fight in his time and place, maybe close to better than anyone then living, I am with you. As I am if you make the point he was genuinely outraged that the King thought he could levy money from the people and they just needed to suck it it up, take it and maybe really they should thank him for it. I agree with you if you say "Ya know, his view of Parliment's (representative government) proper role in governance was pretty sophisticated for time and place - really he was much more "right" than "wrong" on this issue to our eyes today."

But you have to weigh all that and say that he was, in effect, as much a fundamentalist as Bin Laden or any ayatollah, and saw his world through a prism closer to theirs than ours. His reasoning was poisoned by this and led to Religious (rather than ethnic or "genetic") cleansing. These were crimes then as they are now. People in his time understood this use of force was excessive. Eventually the lure of power corrupted him and political and personal enemies (rather than simply religious or national enemies) were removed, reminisceint of the authoritarian states today. I think all this weighs much heavier than his good points.

BTW IMHO the greatest englishman was Newton or Darwin.

John Lennon or Mick jagger

Originally posted by Yissachar1

Well

Throughout your neautrality in ww2 you allowed your land and waters to be used against the allies..

Maybe nazism suits the irish with catholksm?


Or the irish nazis???

You are lurching off-topic but I will address the subject.

Our neutrality was an expression of Irish sovereignty .... we had just cast off the yoke of British colonialism.

Upwards of 50,000 Irishmen joined the British army , merchant Navy etc.

And yes a small minority Irish nationalist thought that Britain getting a bloodied nose would hasten a United Ireland.

you allowed your land and waters to be used against the allies..

B.S. There was extensive Irish-British collaboration during the war .

In this regard Viscount Cranborne acknowledged at the war's end that the Irish Government had '...been willing to accord us any facilities which would not be regarded as overtly prejudicing their attitude to neutrality', collaborating with the British war cabinet.

link





So I thought this thread was about Oliver Cromwell ......?

I don't know if I will get told that this is off topic, but I think the lyrics of the song are very on topic and say more about what I think of this thread then I could do with words



Edit to add
My mothers side of the family are of Irish descent and my fathers can trace their English ancestry back a very long way indeed so maybe thats why I like the song so much

Well. as an Englishman of Irish decent (my mother's family came over in 1842 to Notts from Ireland), i consider Cromwell one of the most important figures of British history, the man who gave birth to Britiain's democracy.

But as my number one..i lean towards Charles Dicken's.

Why??

Dicken's novel's brought home the horror's and the realidad of the live's of England's poor to the rich and comfortable of Britain.
All this in an age where Britain was in colonial expasion, taking "light" to the darker continent's, when in fact the streets of the inner cities of England where darker and probably more impoverished.

A great social reformer who tried to further educate the wealthy and educated of England into opening their eyes and to see the reality that lay at their feet every time they stepped outside,

Victorian England was a hell on earth of slave labor, workhouse's and death by starvation in the gutter.
Something to which the middle and upper classes refused to see and just ignored, after all how could people like this exist in the greatest country on earth, England, the victorian superpower.

The novels of Charles Dicken's were not only a damn good read. They where a portal, through which Dicken's hoped to reform Britains social neglience, in an era when London was the centre of the world yet in its back streets, we stuffed 5 year old's up chimneys to clean them..

William Tyndale
William Shakespeare
Isaac Newton

three favorites always on the noggin

It's highly rumored that Cromwell's real father was a second generation Scot who lived in Ireland, and only liked English ladies.

Desirous to do to English ladies what England did to Scotland and Ireland.

i'm from an Irish family. Ryan, Tipperary. flood Tipperary. and shiels from Galway bay.

oliver cromwell and his lackeys sieged the castle my family held. when he was unable to wait the siege out, he set fire to the tower my ancestors had refuge in.

for nearly 400 years, that story, and the venom from it has been passed down.

draw your own conclusions ...

Jamie Oliver

He makes lots of great food and people that follow his recipes don't get fat.

He came to america to help schools with their food prep and to prevent fat kids

and death.

The greatest Englishman ever.... Guy Fawkes, the only English bloke to ever enter Parliament with honorable intentions.

I would have to go with John Ball

tho Thomas Paine might be in my list if he hadn't buggered off overseas..

reply to post by RUFFREADY


Jamie oliver,is that a joke? if so

Originally posted by okamitengu
i'm from an Irish family. Ryan, Tipperary. flood Tipperary. and shiels from Galway bay.

Ermm.

We might well be related somehow

My mothers side were Ryans from Tipperary

Didnt Cromwell ban Christmas? sounds like a miserable old Puritan to me.

Cromwell was a Puritan. He was a highly religious man who believed that everybody should lead their lives according to what was written in the Bible. The word "Puritan" means that followers had a pure soul and lived a good life. Cromwell believed that everybody else in England should follow his example.

Sounds a bit too much like a theocrat to be a great Englishman. Surely Winston Churchill, without whom we would probably conducting this message in German. We as a nation were very close to appeasing Hitler and it took the courage of Churchill and a few others to take the decision not to appease Hitler.

Oliver Cromwell...never heard of him, and iv lived in England since the beginning of secondary school. Hhahah Oliver what a weak arrrse name.

Now William Wallace was the man, he would smash the granny out of that pecker neck!!

Originally posted by 1IN7MILLION
Oliver Cromwell...never heard of him, and iv lived in England since the beginning of secondary school. Hhahah Oliver what a weak arrrse name.

Now William Wallace was the man, he would smash the granny out of that pecker neck!!

Cromwell executed the king of England, turned us into a republic, restored integrity to British democracy that became the template for Western democaritic nations.

Built schools and opened government to the commoners

Oh yes

And conquered your wallaces scotland and ruled them too

I would also add William Wilberforce to my list too.

He got slavery abolished and the navy to crush the trade in humans.

Originally posted by Yissachar1

Originally posted by 1IN7MILLION
Oliver Cromwell...never heard of him, and iv lived in England since the beginning of secondary school. Hhahah Oliver what a weak arrrse name.

Now William Wallace was the man, he would smash the granny out of that pecker neck!!

Cromwell executed the king of England, turned us into a republic, restored integrity to British democracy that became the template for Western democaritic nations.

Built schools and opened government to the commoners

Oh yes

And conquered your wallaces scotland and ruled them too

OHHHH get off his dick. Sounds like a murderer from what you have said, when did you start condoning murder. That's your hero. At least my murdering hero did if for FREEDOM. Not to take peoples land.

I officially claim the moral high ground in this debate.

Originally posted by 1IN7MILLION

Originally posted by Yissachar1

Originally posted by 1IN7MILLION
Oliver Cromwell...never heard of him, and iv lived in England since the beginning of secondary school. Hhahah Oliver what a weak arrrse name.

Now William Wallace was the man, he would smash the granny out of that pecker neck!!

Cromwell executed the king of England, turned us into a republic, restored integrity to British democracy that became the template for Western democaritic nations.

Built schools and opened government to the commoners

Oh yes

And conquered your wallaces scotland and ruled them too

OHHHH get off his dick

. Sounds like a murderer from what you have said, when did you start condoning murder. That's your hero. At least my murdering hero did if for FREEDOM. Not to take peoples land.

I officially claim the moral high ground in this debate.

No you don't

Cromwell was a soldier just like me. Am i a murderer then, alongside those of us who gave our best years in service of our country and delivered your security to say what you feel???.. Without us you wouldnt even be able to make a good impression of a poodle as you are now..

Should i be proud of my countrymen who not only crushed my countries enemies and delivered honest, accountable government that became the envy of the world?

Hell yeah

Men of honour are as rare as fine gold now and i will not be ashamed by supporting and remembering the greatest Englisman who kept every word he made and followed through..