The Fifth Crusade

I've been doing a lot of walking around London the past few days, along the Thames, around the Tower, down Fleet Street and the Strand, St. Paul's, the wonderful downtown parks. There are statutes to all sorts of folks. In Trafalgar Square Lord Nelson stands way up high on a column, too high for me to really see. Prime ministers, kings, queens, writers, you name it.

I was somewhat taken aback seeing the statue of Oliver Cromwell in front of Westminster Palace. Richard Lionhart is there too, not surprisingly, but Cromwell was somewhat ironic. I'm sure he was standing there atop the same plinth when I was in London last, almost forty years ago, but I don't remember him. Then again, I don't think I had the sense of irony as a 21-year-old as I do now at sixty.

First, a little off-the-cuff history, certainly not the kind I'd write for an "identify the following" type of history quiz, but it will do.

I say I understand why Richard Lionhart (Coeur d'lane, or the Lion hearted, as sometimes written) is there on his horse, because the English somehow see him as a noble person, forgetting everything he ever did. Maybe because his brother John is so reviled. Richard didn't even speak English and as king was hardly ever in England, engaging in constant fighting to either protect or enlarge his lands in France. He's best known for being off on the Third Crusade killing and plundering right up almost to the gates of Jerusalem, when he meets with Saladin, the great Muslim leader, and they negotiate a treaty, both acknowledging that neither can win but many will die, whereupon Richard eventually returns to France.

Charles I became king of England 75 years or so after Henry VIII died, and the Catholic/protestant struggle was still going on in full force. The Mayflower took the first batch of Puritans to Massachusetts shortly before Charles became king. Charles was famously obstinate and argued the Divine Right of Kings to a Parliament that was not at all receptive. The ensuing English Civil War resulted in Parliament, joined by the Puritans, defeating Charles and the Royalists, and poor Charles got beheaded for good measure.

Oliver Cromwell was a member of Parliament and one of its main military leaders opposing Charles. After defeating the royalists, Charles was tried and executed, Cromwell insisting on a trial before execution, and Cromwell was named leader, soon morphing into Lord Protector, or dictator, what we might call today a unitary executive. Cromwell ruled about ten years, died, and the Commonwealth fell apart and Charles' son was crowned king, Charles II, followed by James II, and then in 1688 Parliament asked William and Mary to come across the channel and take over, what historians call the Glorious Revolution, which effectively ended religious wars in England, if not hostility. It was this recent history of religious strife which illuminated our Founders' firm beliefs in religious freedom. Our Founders may have had a firm belief in God, but the nation was not founded as a Christian nation. They speak a lot of God but very little of Jesus. Jefferson, that child of the Enlightenment, even went so far as to combine the four gospels into what he felt was one chronological sequence, and deleting all the miracles and resurrection because he didn't believe they likely happened.

With this rambling introduction, maybe you can see why I was surprised to see these statues in the yard. Cromwell stands with a sword in one hand and a Bible in the other, looking like some sort of English Jesuit minus the robes. I imagine the Irish wish they'd had a bunch of Jesuits when Cromwell invaded and massacred a bunch of them, rounding up the survivors and sending them to County Clare or as slaves to the West Indies. I think it was Cromwell who said this part of Ireland was so destitute it had no water to drown them or no trees to hang them. Thus was his charitable outlook towards Catholics. One would think he would be looking heavenward, but in actuality he's looking down at the ground, no doubt averting the gaze of Charles I, whose head (how fitting) is staring at him from across the street where it's above the back door of St. Margaret, the smaller church right next to Westminster Abbey.

Across the street in Parliament Square is Abraham Lincoln. Our first and only great Republican president (with the possible exception of Theodore Roosevelt -- regardless of what you think of TR, it's certainly been a long dry spell) is standing looking over the scene, apparently speaking. I imagine he is looking over at the three Christian militarists and reiterating parts of his second inaugural address, surely one of the greatest of all American speeches. The conclusion is one of Lincoln's most famous: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right...."

Maybe that's the problem -- Richard, Charles, Cromwell all had no doubt they were right and believed God was on their side. Referring to the North and South during the war, Lincoln observed, in that same address, that they both prayed to the same God and both read the same Bible.

And now, coming full circle, we have our own militarist hate-mongering preachers (Rod Parsley, John Hagee, etc., et al.) encouraging what would be a fourth crusade (or fifth, if one counts the pitiable Children's Crusade). After a thousand years, we're back to saving the Holy Land from the infidels!

Strange thoughts intrude when one wanders alone aimlessly around a 2500 year old town.