CROMWELL’S BUFFOON The Life and Career of the Regicide, Thomas Pride

Colonel Thomas Pride was central to one of the English Civil War’s key events: the arrest and exclusion of 140 Members of Parliament at Westminster in December 1648. Those that remained in the House of Commons – the Rump – voted to bring King Charles I to trial, resulting in the first and only public execution of a British Monarch. But while this monumental episode of early modern history – “Pride’s Purge” – is renowned, the life of the army officer behind it remains shrouded in obscurity. Cromwell’s Buffoon is a detailed and engaging account of the life of soldier and regicide, Colonel Thomas Pride, a Somerset farmer’s son who fought his way through the Civil Wars to become one of the English Commonwealth’s most forceful personalities. The first full-length biography of its subject, it is a fascinating story of a man who, until now, had all but vanished from history.