Hudibras was written between 1660 and 1680 and is a satire on the Cromwellians and on the Presbyterian church written by a confirmed Royalist and Anglican. Hudibras, a colonel in the Cromwellian army, is involved in various comic misadventures and is shown to be stupid, greedy and dishonest. The poem is very well written in Chaucerian couplets and was popular for about 150 years, as long as its political attitudes were also popular. The Nineteenth Century saw the re-invention of Cromwell in the popular imagination from usurper and tyrant to heroic upholder of English freedom, and Hudibras was out. I feel it's time for a re-assessment, so here it is.
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