Abstract
The Statement has been well known to Cromwell scholars since its publication in the Camden Society volume edited by John Bruce and David Masson in 1875. It is a devastating indictment of Cromwell’s career in the early stages of the civil war. It accuses him of seeking to make the Isle of Ely a stronghold for those who shared his religious prejudices and of organising the army of the Eastern Association as an enclave for religious radicals. Both projects were designed to provide foci for resistance against the Presbyterian religious settlement demanded by the Scots and which was supported, if less aggressively so, by the dominant group in Parliament. But without any ascription of authorship, the Statement has been neglected in discussions by Cromwell’s biographers. In this article I argue that the writer was Lieutenant-Colonel William Dodson, and that his local experience and military service made him a knowledgeable commentator, if not an unprejudiced one, on Cromwell’s activities in the two years following the outbreak of the civil war.
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