‘Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imaginary necessities, are the greatest cozenage men can put upon the Providence of God and make pretences to break known rules by.’ – Oliver Cromwell

You might not see Cromwell as a key Renaissance figure, but could it be that the newfound freedom of thought and challenges to religious orthodoxy that came part and parcel of the Renaissance and Reformation in some way acted as a crucible to the English Civil War and after the radical social reform that came part of the Interregnum?

Outwardly, it might seem that the devout Puritanism, strict moral conduct and rejection of worldly pleasures of the Puritan period stand at immediate odds with the period of intellectual and cultural rebirth that we have come to associate with the Renaissance, but at their core Cromwellian ideas were perhaps the ultimate extension of an ideological schism which had been taking hold of European thought and politics since the Renaissance began. The Protectorate perhaps was just a further league outward in the Lutheran shift against orthodoxy and the power of the Holy Roman Church.

But if Cromwellian rule was all part of the evolutionary curve in protestant thinking that had marked the Reformation, the Interregnum certainly marked if not as the ultimate departure point from the high cosmopolitanism and artistic expression of the Renaissance, perhaps instead the gestation period in which the antagonistic elements of the epoch, in both religious and political terms could later be moderated and reconciled.

In the seven-year interim period though, the joy and freedom were gone, theatres were shut, music was silenced, and individualism became subdued for the greater good of God. Not only that, the patronage system, which had been instrumental in the flourishment of the arts during the Tudor period began to crumble amidst the new curbs on power.

If  the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II saw the re-emergence of a recognisable world which reflected the cosmopolitanism and freedoms of Renaissance days, then there were profound differences.  Cromwell had not been a blip, he had been a warning against the period’s excesses, and the danger of further political instability and unrest had seen a newfound consolidation of power under the monarchy, but one in which parliament’s role was both reaffirmed and recognised.  Cultural life mirrored this shift, traditional values were restored through the medium of art, where stylistic control took precedence over individual expression and a new emphasis on restraint marked the order of the day. The destabilising effects of prolonged political uncertainty and upheaval once more became the ultimate driver of a profound artistic shift against established Renaissance ideals.