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Oliver Cromwell was born on April 25, 1599, in Huntingdon, England. He was elected to Short and Long Parliaments of 1640 and became known as a radical Puritan. During the English Civil Wars he served as a general on the parliamentarian side.

He was born to Robert Cromwell and his wife Elizabeth who was the daughter of William Steward. Eventhough he was not one of the direct descendent of Henry VII’s minister Thomas Cromwell who was promoted to the earldom of Essex but executed in 1540. Cromwell’s great-great-grandfather (Morgan Williams) married Thomas’ sister Katherine in 1497. Morgan and Katherine in honour of their famous uncle took his surname and this was repeated by their ancestors. Their eldest son had two sons who both took the surname Cromwell, and Henry Cromwell’s youngest of eleven was Oliver’s father Robert Cromwell.

In 1616 Oliver entered Sidney Sussec College, Cambridge, the following year he left after the death of his father, for the next few years he lived in London and in 1620 he marrried Elizabeth Bourchier.