On Friday, May 8th, 1657, Oliver Cromwell walked the length of the Banqueting House in Whitehall to tell a committee of Parliament whether he would be King. The Commons had voted 123 to 62 to write that title into a new constitution, and for 5 weeks they had waited for his answer. About 100 army officers had come to Whitehall to say he should refuse it, and only 2 wanted him to accept.

He had 2 choices. Take the crown, or send it back. He told the committee he could not take the government with the title of King, so within 3 weeks the Commons struck out the word and wrote in Lord Protector. He died in September of 1658, and his son lasted less than 9 months. The January after Charles Stuart came home, Parliament had Cromwell’s body dug up and hanged at Tyburn. His head spent more than 20 years on a pole over Westminster Hall.

What if he’d taken the crown?

This week we hit CTRL+Z on the morning in the Banqueting House, and follow the ripple to today: the Speaker of the Commons setting a crown on Cromwell’s head, Richard the Fourth riding out to face his own regiments with the pay chests on carts behind him, a Dutch governor handing New Amsterdam to an English admiral who lets the town keep its name, and 13 American colonies declaring their independence from a king called Oliver. In 2026 Oliver the Fifth reigns under a written constitution from 1657, Dunkirk is an English town on the coast of France, and Cromwell has lain undisturbed in Westminster Abbey for 367 years, because one Friday in May he told a committee of Parliament he would take the crown.