Anonymous asked: I do love the King of Bling song, but the lines you just reblogged make me sad, because, well-- contemporary accounts prove Olly WAS pretty jolly. I mean he was an altogether very cheery guy, all things considered.

You know, that’s a pretty good point. There’s this popular image of him as a really strict Puritan- and he was- but he wasn’t totally against everything fun and one of the things that makes some people admire him is the fact that overall, he was pretty normal.

I tend to take the view that he might have been reasonably easy to get along with and a pretty decent chap (he was certainly a very honest man), but that his political activity could be controversial to say the least. Ireland, for example. He’s not that different from Charles I in that sense, despite all their other differences.

…I actually have a lot of feelings about Oliver Cromwell (not those feelings. HISTORY FEELINGS) and this period of European history in general. Mostly I reblogged that gif set because this Tumblr is followed by a lot of Horrible Histories fans- when you run a blog about Charles II you sort of have to get into the spirit of things and have a few silly posts :)

…This answer is a lot longer than I intended it to be. One last fact to finish off with: Oliver Cromwell and I are from the same part of England. Fun times.