who were the different groups of people in britain at the time of cromwell?

Question

why people had such different views of cromweell at the time

Answer 1

the different people were catholics and protestants.
you may actually be refering to cavaliers and roundheads who faught against each other in the civil war.

Answer 2

In Britain yes, there was the Welsh, The English, Scottish, Irish, then there was the Manxmen, The Channel Islanders and the Islanders as well. If you want to split it down further most people of the Shires and Counties of the Countries involved also call themselves (many still do) by there county association and act and talk differnetly to others, knowing also the language barrier that exists between broad native tongues I am sure they sounded foreign to many.
Then there was the outsiders who lived in the country but originated from abroad, a lot of Dutch, Flemish, Waloonians, Britons (North French), Rhinish folk, Scandinavians, etc.
Then you could have split it even further in to the differing religons and sects, like the Anglicans, Catholics, Jews, Quakers, etc and after that the type of person they where in civil and employment stature (what we now call class). Polotics as such hardly came into the civil question at that time as most people could not vote.

Answer 3

If you mean which two sides opposed each other, the answer is above.

But do you mean how diverse a society "Britain" was, the reply would be that "Britain" did not exist. Although Wales had been incorporated by England during the late 15th century, Scotland was still independent (But shared a monarch). Ireland was only partly invaded and colonised.

Kernow (now known as Cornwall) remained virtually independent (its own laws, language and administration).

England was linguistically and geographically divided, as were Scotland and Wales.

In fact, "Britain" did not exist.......

Answer 4

At Elizabeth I’s death, England was a nation coming into its own among the powers of Europe. The Stuart dynasty ruled over a people intent on defining their own identity. James I, while never popular, survived his rule unscathed by Parliament; his son would not be so lucky. When Charles I was forced to call the Short Parliament in 1640, few, if any, could have imagined the bitter civil war that would soon engulf England. In the end, the English Civil war significantly affected both culture in England and the treatment of prisoners of war throughout the western world.

The English Civil War began slowly, tensions building for over two years before the outbreak of widespread armed conflict. As Charles I feuded at London with Parliament over constitutional supremacy, matters escalated quickly. It was not until 22 August 1642, however, the Charles officially declared war on Parliament. Propagandists went to work on each side, and there was widespread disagreement over who was to blame for the crisis. One thing was certain, however: the "vast majority of the English people" viewed the now imminent struggle with a mixture of dread and disgust (Durston 16). Many avoided taking action until the last possible moment, when demands were made by both sides for the loyalty of the English citizens. As the situation tensed, the England was forced to rethink her sense of self, and her subjects began question the basis of their English identity.

The search for a distinctly English identity was aided in large part by distinguishing the English from the Welsh and this Irish. Wales had never enjoyed favor with the English, yet by the end of the civil war, the Welsh would achieve an accord with England still unknown to the Irish. Before 1630s, Wales was viewed as a "territory in which the light of the Gospel had yet to shine" (Roberts 36). The relationship between the English and the Welsh, although less precarious than that of either Ireland or Scotland, was far from cordial. The Welsh, in fact, were seen as "ghastly brutes" by the parliamentary forces at the Battle of Naseby (Roberts 38). The first conciliatory steps were made in 1644, when the English Parliament sent two Puritan Preachers to minister to the Welsh. Relations between Wales and Parliament improved rapidly as the Welsh embraced Puritanism, and the Puritan church made great gains in Wales during the interregnum. Because of their newfound favor with the English, popular disavowal of Welsh culture waned by the mid-1640s. The Irish were not so lucky.

During the early 17th century, the Irish had been looked on with no more (and probably less) disfavor than the Welsh. Whereas the Welsh were depicted as "thoroughly nasty and mean," the Irish were generally thought to be the victims of unfortunate circumstance, as "such ignorant papists that you would rather think them atheists or infidels" (Roberts 38; Noonan 156). Ireland was presented as a virtual Eden, and the failure of English policy in this Eden was blamed less on the barbarism of the Irish and more on the inefficient administration of England. The Irish rebellion of 1641, however, had a significant impact on popular sentiment. After the rebellion, as the Irish flooded into England, John Temple’s The Irish rebellion painted a picture of Irish that would remain dominant in English thought through the mid-19th century. The Irish were distinguished ethnically from the English, and were given neither the aid of parochial welfare nor the dignities allotted to English prisoners of war. This view of the Irish cemented the English sense of superiority within the British Isles that slandered the Irish for over two centuries.

Answer 5

Religiously : Anglicans, non-conformists and catholics.

Politically : parliamentarians ("Roundhead") and monarchists ("Cavaliers").

Cromwell was a puritan non-conformist who was the leader of the parliamentarians, and who fought bloody wars against monarchists and catholic Irish.