Oliver Cromwell and the Devil in Worcester

On the eve of the Battle of Worcester in 1651, Oliver Cromwell was reputed to have sold his soul to the Devil. This article examines the construction of this legend and places it in the larger context of English Protestant thought about the “ancient enemy”. It argues that the story originally arose from the circumstances of Cromwell’s death on 3 September 1658, but later came to focus on events before the battle seven years earlier. The legend illustrates the persistence of ideas about a physical Devil, despite the emphasis on Satan as an invisible tempter in much English devotional literature. This portrayal emerged from the polemics of the 1640s and 1650s, and had something in common with the demonisation of the royalist commander Prince Rupert. But it drew mainly on earlier stories that circulated widely in the period. The most important of these was the legend of Johann Faust, which provided many of the core themes in the tale of Cromwell’s supposed diabolism.