No, George I'm not trolling (which I understand to mean being frivolously and insincerely provocative)

The point I was making about Stalin and Lenin wasn't to equate them with Cromwell. (And I don't imagine yiou were intending to equate Charles I with Hitler, though it almost ereasds at one point as if you are.)

At this point in history, it's easy enough for socialists to recognise that Stalin (and I'd say Lenin) did enormous harm to socialism, by identifying it in people's minds with cruel and incompetant totalitarian government.

I think it would have been pretty easy for radical republicans in the time of the Restoration to make the same kind of judgement about Cromwell.

Yes, he was a brilliant war commander, and without him it is quite likely that a Parliamentary victory would not have been achieved. (And you could say similar things of Lanein and Stalin.) But as a ruler, he discredited the ideals that he had seemed to represent, and the experience of his time in power was a barrier to moves towards democracy. The Commonwealth was a historical cul-de-sac.(And you could say similar things of Lenin and Stalin, and the Soviet system.)

If anything it got worse rather than better for ordinary people after the Restoration, and subseqently with "The Glorious Revolution". It was 1832 before the Reform Act. It was 1829 before Catholic Emancipation.It was 1999 before the House of Lords got its partial comeuppance. The Hereditary Monarchy is is no danger.

So far as Ireland is concerned Cromwell was just another in a line of oppressors, worse than many because more efficient. I think it is a mistake to talk of him as uniquely evil. It was to get worse over the next century and a half.

I can understand that from an English viewpoint it is possible to see the Irish side of it as peripheral, though regrettable. I can't see it that way, because for me Cromwell's role in Ireland is central and Cromwell's role in England is peripheral. But in any case, as I explained, I do not see how his influence on English history has been in any significant way beneficial.

And yes, Harlow is geographically in Essex. Notting Hill is in London.