He was held responsible for a massacre 5 miles from where I was born. I did a school project on it and stood in a stone tower room where local women and children had gone for refuge but were discovered and slaughtered. Even closer to home was a spot where as Cromwell's army passed a man stood looking at them. His behaviour was viewed as impudent and he was summarily hanged.
As a small kid he was the devil incarnate to me.
Since then my view has become a lot less black and white but it's hard to shake off childhood associations entirely.
His statue is still in front of the House of Commons though, I think. I found that sort of strange, like having a statue of Hitler in front of the Reichstag or other government buildings.
The story I was told growing up that he was hated so much when he died, they dug up his body and desecrated it.
