SOURCE: "Cromwell Alone: Marvell as Cromwell's Poet," in The Modest Ambition of Andrew Marvell: A Study of Marvell and His Relation to Lovelace, Fairfax, Cromwell, and Milton, University of Delaware Press, 1995, pp. 92-107.

In the following excerpt, Griffin discusses Marvell's support of Cromwell.

The point at which Marvell chose to write "The First Anniversary" is interesting. The title indicates that it is a celebration of the end of Cromwell's first year as protector, yet other moments would seem more worthy of celebration: Cromwell's triumph in Scotland or at Worcester, for instance. Or if Marvell had been deeply involved in millenarianism, he might have chosen the moment of the first meeting of the Barebone's Parliament. He did not. "The First Anniversary," advertised in Mercurius Politicus of January 1654/55, defends Cromwell's actions as Lord Protector and unrelentingly accuses the English of being recalcitrant stoneheads. Cromwell's domestic decisions and his newly devised...