Blair Worden - A Book of Friendship

RACHEL HAMMERSLEY

A S A DPHIL STUDENT at the University of Sussex in the late 1990s, I felt exceptionally lucky in having two supervisors at a time when one was the norm. Both Richard Whatmore and Blair Worden were exemplary models for the role. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows him that Blair was an exacting supervisor, always asking insightful questions and pushing me to clarify my thoughts and my prose. He prepared me very well for academia. I can confidently say that I have never been asked a question when giving a seminar or conference paper that was more challenging than those he posed in supervisions. Blair was also a model supervisor in the opportunities he opened up for me. These included an invitation to speak at a conference in Paris in 1999, which secured me a publication before I had completed my DPhil. Moreover, some of the people I met at that conference have remained intellectual allies and friends ever since. On a more personal level, it was also Blair who persuaded me to attend a conference at Keele University that same year at which I met my future husband, John Gurney. It was primarily, though, Blair’s approach to historical research – and his eloquent literary style – that had the greatest impact on me. His willingness to take literature seriously as an historical source, his attention to the minutiae of constitutional details, and his interest in the transmission and reception of ideas, shaped the kind of history that I pursue. Among his many works, Roundhead Reputations is undoubtedly one of my favourites. Not only does it explore the rich legacy of the civil wars, but it does so in a way that is equally engaging for academics and the wider public. One of the strengths of that book is the detailed study of Oliver Cromwell’s contested legacy in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. These chapters explore the gradual transformation of the dominant view of Cromwell from villain to hero, the revival of interest in – and even empathy for – his religious position under the Victorians, and the protracted controversy surrounding the statue of him at Westminster which was eventually erected in 1899. Blair notes that most opposition writers in the eighteenth century were hostile to Cromwell, though he does acknowledge that – though uncomfortable about his use of a ‘standing army’ – Thomas Hollis admired Cromwell’s ‘exertions for the country’s greatness’. 1 The premise of this paper is that, as usual, Blair has touched on something interesting here, and that there is more to say about Cromwell’s reception among these figures.

1 Blair Worden, Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity (London, 2001), p. 223.

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