Cromwell's Panegyrick is a printed English

broadside ballad A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between th ...

composed in 1647. Copies of it are in collections including the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

, Society of Antiquaries,

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, and the National Library of Scotland. Online facsimiles of the

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

are available online for public consumption. Though the ballad's title claims to be a panegyric (a poem praising

Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three Ki ...

for his military and political accomplishments), it quickly becomes a mock-panegyric, taking the theme of praise and turning it on its head. In this way, the ballad becomes more of a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

as opposed to a true panegyric. For instance, though it describes in part Cromwell's role in the

Second English Civil War The Second English Civil War took place between February to August 1648 in Kingdom of England, England and Wales. It forms part of the series of conflicts known collectively as the 1639-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which include the 1641� ...

, which broke out officially in 1648, it also mentions how large and bulbous Cromwell's nose was: "Well may his Nose, that is dominicall, / Take pepper int." The ballad undercuts all of Cromwell's accomplishments in the military, and goes so far as to claim – as many did of Cromwell in the 1640s and 50sJohn Morrill, (1990). "The Making of Oliver Cromwell", in Morrill, ed., ''Oliver Cromwell and the English Revolution'' (Longman), , p. 263-264 – that he was an individual motivated purely by a desire for power and kingship, thus painting him in a Machiavellian light.

Synopsis

As stated above, this ballad is a mock-panegyric and takes themes of praise and turns them into insults. While the ballad's first line teases a glorification of Cromwell, "Shall Presbyterian bells ring Cromwels praise", we can see that the ballad ends with Cromwell not only dead, but buried with no headstone, which in early modern England indicated that the person in question either lacked the funds to afford a headstone or was of such ill-repute that he was deemed unworthy of such a

posthumous Posthumous may refer to: * Posthumous award - an award, prize or medal granted after the recipient's death * Posthumous publication – material published after the author's death * ''Posthumous'' (album), by Warne Marsh, 1987 * ''Posthumous'' ...

marker: "And on his Grave since there must be no Stone, / Shall stand this Epitaph; That he has none."

Form

The ballad consists of two long stanzas of rhyming

couplets A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

, and is in primarily

iambic pentameter Iambic pentameter () is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama. The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in that line; rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables called " feet". "Iam ...

References

External links

Text transcription of the English broadside ballad ''Cromwells Panegyrick''
at the English Broadside Ballad Archive of

UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

. 17th-century songs 17th-century English monarchs Ballads 17th-century military history Satirical songs

Synopsis

Form

References

Further reading

External links