Guest Post by David Atwell: Royal House of Cromwell

Earlier I had a post on the historical event of Oliver Cromwell being offered the English Crown. David Atwell has another take on the POD from Today in Alternate History.

13th April, 1657 - Oliver Cromwell accepts the Crown

On this day Oliver Cromwell was proclaimed the King of England despite his earlier doctrinal objection to the office "I would not seek to set up that which Providence hath destroyed and laid in the dust, and I would not build Jericho again".

Oliver I (1657-1658) was the founder of the current Royal House of Britain & that of the Royal House of America, until that nation became a Republic in 1964 due to a constitutional crisis. 

Although Oliver had a short reign as King, he had been all that but in name since the end of the First English Civil War in 1649, when the then current King Charles I (Stuart) was executed. From there, with the full support of the Parliamentary New Model Army, he defeated Stuart Loyalist uprisings in both Ireland & Scotland. 

From there, Oliver lead the English to victory over the Dutch in 1654 which ensured that the Royal Navy would dominate the seas until the Twentieth Century. In the process of victory, Oliver rejected an offer of the Crown but accepted the position of Protector in 1653. Later in 1657, he was once again offered the Crown, & after much debate from colleagues & friends, decided that a "Puritan gentleman, of humble origins, may indeed make a very good & Godly English King for the good graces of all Englishmen".

Throughout the period of Protectorship & Kingship, other than the various conflicts which Britain found herself in, Oliver established probably the more important legacy Britain, & later America, would come to cherish: a nationwide education system. The Puritans placed great importance on education in both religious & secular matters. Thus by the time of Oliver's death, every village, town & city in Britain had some kind of school of one type or another ensuring that, by the turn of the century, about 80% of the population were literate.

Oliver's claim to the throne, unlike the Stuart's, was in reality based upon the power of the military. Although this was never stated anywhere, the Cromwell Dynasty would have never survived its first year, let alone a long history on the Throne of Britain, without Oliver's control of the New Model Army. In order to gather a legitimate claim to the Throne, however, several writers at the time, & needless to say many ever since, argued that the Cromwells were actually descended from the ancient Welsh Powys Royal Household, which thus fulfilled an old prophesy whereby a descendant of this ancient Royal House would one day become king of Britain & establish a long line of successors. The Cromwells have ever since accepted this claim & used it to justify their Dynasty. Needless to say, the Cromwell Royal Household has always enjoyed overwhelming Welsh support.

Atwell's timeline continues up to the 1820s.