1654 Oliver Cromwell the Protector of England Ireland and Scotland

Oliver Cromwell (1599 - 1658) was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. After undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, he became an independent puritan. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the "Roundheads" or Parliamentarians. Nicknamed "Old Ironsides", he was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to become one of the principal commanders of the New Model Army, playing an important role in the defeat of the royalist forces. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles I's death warrant in 1649, and, as a member of the Rump Parliament (1649–53), he dominated the short-lived Commonwealth of England.