Cromwell, Protector of the Vaudois (1877) is a painting by the British artist Ford Madox Brown which depicts Oliver Cromwell in conversation with John Milton dictating a letter to Andrew Marvell protesting at the Piedmontese Easter massacre (1655), an attack on the Vaudois (Waldenses), a persecuted Protestant sect in Piedmont, northern Italy.

During his lifetime the persecutors reined back their attacks, but after his death the Vaudois were repeatedly persecuted.

[3]Brown's painting differs from earlier versions of the scene because of its highly dynamic composition designed to stress the relationship between Cromwell as a man of action and Milton as a powerful intellectual force, with Marvell energetically poised to execute their combined wills.

[4] His contained energy is emphasised by the precariously balanced desk, supported on a curved base with small stabilising feet.

Milton's gesture is similarly transitory, finger raised, while the cropped, half-obscured figure of Marvell holds his pen ready waiting.