THE CLOSEST I HAVE EVER COME TO meeting a Cromwellian solider was not at some Civil War reenactment by the Sealed Knot, but at a Church of England’s “Vision and Strategy Day”. To be sure, the person in question was sporting some nondescript Boden country casuals rather than the customary Roundhead leather cuirass and lobsterpot helmet, but her puritanical outpourings would easily have won her a place in the New Model Army. Had she travelled in time to the mid-seventeenth century, nothing would have held her back from hewing down altar rails with a halberd, or taking potshots at stained glass with an arquebus.
“What’s the point of all these expensive old church buildings?” she complained. “They’re nothing special. They don’t mean anything. They’ve got nothing to do with worship. And…
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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, December/January 2025