tunes, it is as though it gleamed reproachfully down upon the terrible act which laid the foundation of the mightier fortunes of his great-grandson Oliver. On May-day, 1540, a brilliant tournament at Westminster opens its lists before us, in which Richard Cromwell and others had proclaimed themselves to France, Flanders, and Scotland, the defenders of the honour and rights of their English king. Henry VIII. looks on, and when sir Richard Cromwell has struck down challenger after challenger with undaunted arm, forth from his deep broad chest rolls out the royal laugh of Henry 66 Formerly thou wast my Dick, but hereafter thou shalt be my diamond." Then from the finger of majesty drops a diamond ring, which sir Richard picks up and again presents to Henry, who laughingly places it on his finger, and bids him ever after bear such an one in the fore gamb of the demy-lion in his crest: - and such a ring did Oliver Cromwell wear there when he left his farm at Ely to bear more formidable arms at the challenge of a king! The sudden and violent fall of Essex had no disastrous effect on his kinsman's fortunes, which shone brightly to the last. Enriched to an almost unprecedented extent by the plunder of the religious houses, he left to his son, Henry Cromwell, the inheritance of a most noble fortune. Nor was this Henry less fortu 100 marks annually, with a house to live in, to them and to their heirs for ever, granted out of the monastery of the friars of St. Francis, in Stamford, which was dissolved October 8, 1538, and his majesty was the better enabled to do this, as sir Will. Weston, the last prior, who had an annuity out of the monastery, died two days after the justs. Fortunate king, and fortunate knights, to have a prior die so opportunely! But to break a heart is not a bad recipe for death at any time. *See Noble's Protectoral House, vol. i. p. 11., and Fuller's Church History. In his will (which is dated as early as June 1545), it appears, he styled himself by the alias Williams-a custom observed by all the Cromwells, up to and even past the time of Oliver. An extract of this will, in which sir Richard describes himself as of "the privy chamber of the king," is given by Mr. Noble." He directs that his body shall be buried in the place where he should die; and devises his estates in the counties of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Lincoln, and Bedford, to his eldest son Henry, with the sum of 500l. to purchase him necessary furniture, when he shall come of age: his estates in Glamorganshire he devises to his son Francis (his only other son), and bequeaths 3001, to each of his nieces, Joan and Ann, daughters nate than his father. Elizabeth esteemed him highly, knighted him in 1563, and in the following year honoured him by a visit at his family seat of Hinchinbrook, on her return from the university of Cambridge. His memory still lived in the neighbourhood of his estates some century since, for he had associated it with generous actions in the hearts of the poor of the district, and, to the poor, long memories for benefits belong. They called him in his lifetime the Golden Knight, for he never entered any of the towns or villages around him without bestowing some money on the needy and distressed; and that honourable title survived him.* He lived to a good old age, and left behind him six sons and five daughters; of whom the second daughter, Elizabeth, gave birth to the patriot Hampden; and of whom the second son, Robert, the meanest in fortune, was destined to exert an influence on the destinies of the world unapproached by the most illustrious of his ancestors, or the most powerful of their patron-princes, for he was the father of Oliver Cromwell. Mr. Robert Cromwell, but for this memorable circumstance, would have lived and died unknown in Hun of his brother, Walter Cromwell; and directs, that if Tho. Wingfield, then in ward to him, should chuse to marry either of them, he shall have his wardship remitted to him, otherwise that the same should be sold; he also leaves three of his best great horses to the king, and one other great horse to lord Cromwell, after the king has chosen : legacies are also left to sir John Williams, knt.; and sir Edw. North, knt., chancellor of the court of augmentation; and to several other persons who seem to have been servants. Gab. Donne, clerk; Andr. Judde, Will, Coke, Phil. Lenthall, and Rich. Servington, were appointed executors. This will was proved Nov. 28, 1546. - Sir Richard," Mr. Noble adds, "must have left a prodigious fortune to his family, by what he possessed by descent, grants and purchases of church lands, and from the sums he must have acquired by filling very lucrative employments, with the liberal donations of his sovereign king Henry VIII. This is evident from his possessions in Huntingdonshire, the annual amount of which, at an easy rent, were worth at least 30007., per ann. : these estates only, in Fuller's time, were, he says, valued by some at 20,000l., and by others at 30,000l. annually, and upwards; and from what these estates now let for, in and near Ramsey and Huntingdon (which are only a part of them), I should presume that sir Richard's estates in that county only would now bring in as large a revenue as any peer at this time enjoys; and yet it is evident that he had considerable property in several other counties." See Noble's Memoirs of the Cromwell Family, vol. i. p. 22. tingdon, since his tastes were humble as his fortunes.* He was sent, indeed, to one of Elizabeth's parliaments by the electors of that borough, but he appears to have experienced only enough of that sort of public life to conceive disgust to it, since all the duties he afterwards discharged were confined to his native town, in which he served as one of the bailiffs †, sat as justice of the peace, and, when his family had outgrown his income, betook himself to the occupation of a brewer. He had married in early life Elizabeth, the daughter of William Steward of the city of Ely, an undoubted descendant of the royal family of the Stuarts. This lady had already been the wife of "Will. Lynne, gent., son and heir apparent of John Lynne of Bassingborne, esq.," § *These fortunes are thus described by Noble :-"Rob. Cromwell, esq., second son of sir Henry Cromwell, knt., had by the will of his father, an estate in and near the town of Huntingdon; consisting chiefly, if not wholly, of possessions belonging formerly to the monastery of St. Mary for Augustine friars, amounting, with the great tythes of Hartford, to about 300%. per ann,' His name as bailiff is to be found at this day, in the nave of a church in Huntingdon. Dr. Russel's friend, before referred to, says: -"In the nave of St. Mary's Church, Huntingdon, the following notice is to be seen on one of the pillars: 'Cromwell. The church was not built till 1620, and Robert Cromwell, the protector's father, who must be the person here meant, died in 1617. The inscription was probably made by some curious person, after the name of Cromwell had gathered all its fame,' and drawn public attention and enquiry to the ancestors of the protector." That he took great interest in the concerns of his native county, and was consulted respecting its improvements by its leading proprietors, is however indisputable, from a passage in sir William Dugdale's History of the Fens, where his signature is found attached to a certificate addressed to the privy council, in 1605, stating that the draining of the fens in Northampton, Lincoln, Huntingdon, and Cambridge (a work which his son afterwards resolutely opposed), was practicable, and might be accomplished "without peril to any haven or county." In recommending this great improvement, he was joined by sixteen of the principal persons in the four counties most immediately interested, and among them by his brother sir Oliver. + See Appendix A. The following inscription rests on a tombstone in the Cathedral of Ely:"Hic inhumatus jacet optimæ spei adolescens Gulielmus Lynne, generosus, filius & hæres apparens Johannis Lynne de Bassingborne in Co. Cantab. Arm. qui quidem Gulielmus immaturâ morte peremptus in ipsius Ætate flore 27 agens Annum, 27 die Julij A.D. 1589, non sine summo omnium dolore, ex hâc Vitâ placide migravit; uniquam relinquens filiam Catherinam scilicet, quam etiam 17 die Martij sequentis præpropera mors eadem Naturæ lege natam sustulit, simulque jam cum Patre æterno fruitur gaudio-Posuit amoris ergò moestissima illius Conjux Elizabetha filia Gulielmi Steward de Ely Armigeri." when, in the second year of her widowhood, with a jointure of only 60l. a year *, she married Mr. Robert Cromwell. Thus allied to a self-ennobled family on the one hand, and on the other to royalty itself, Mr. Robert Cromwell and his wife were nevertheless brewers of Huntingdon. It is strange, indeed, that this should ever have been disputed, since not the remotest shade of doubt, and as little of discredit, can possibly be thrown upon the fact. The records of the purchase of the brewery, and of its management, are in existence still; and from the unimpeachable testimony of many witnesses, that of Roger Coke + may be selected, whose father, being asked whether he knew the protector, answered, "Yes, and his father, too, when he kept his brewhouse in Huntingdon." A contemporary writer tells us something more:"Both Mr. Cromwell and his wife were persons of great worth, and no way inclined to disaffection, either in their civil or religious principles, but remarkable for living upon a small fortune with decency, and maintaining a large family by their frugal circumspection." In subjoining the statement of sir William Dugdale, we may, perhaps, discover the ridiculous pretence with which the scrupulous asserters of Mr. Robert Cromwell's "pure gentility" satisfy their tender consciences, and lay the burthen of the brewery on his wife. "Robert Cromwell," says Dugdale §," though he was, by the countenance of his elder brother, Sir Oliver, made a justice of the peace in Huntingdonshire, had but a slender estate; much of his support being a brewhouse in Huntingdon, chiefly managed by his wife." The royalist chronicler, Heath ||, is still more explicit on the latter The smallness of this jointure (for the family fortune that remained to the Stewards rested solely with her brother, sir Thomas, of whom mention will be made hereafter) was a favourite subject of lampoon with the cavaliers, up to the period of his death. "It is hoped," I find in one of their scurrilous papers, "that now our enormous taxes will be eased, as the protector's highness, by the death of his mother, is freed from her dowry, which amounted to the prodigious sum of 607. annually." Noble, vol. i. p. 84. + See Detection, vol. ii. p. 57. See Short View of the Recent Troubles, p. 459. In his Flagellum, p. 15. point. "The brewhouse," he says, was kept in his father's time, and managed by his mother and his father's servants, without any concernment of his father therein, the accounts being always given to the mistress; who, after her husband's death, did continue in the same employment and calling of a brewer, and thought it no disparagement to sustain the estate and port of a younger brother, as Mr. Robert Cromwell was, by those lawful means; however, not so reputable as other gains and trades are accounted." True-not so reputable as Mr. Heath would have accounted the trade and gain of a servile follower of courts, of a mean flatterer of kings, of a base tool of incapable favourites or ministers. Had Mr. Cromwell been all this, and lent out his wife in furtherance of the calling, loud should have been the praises of the apostles of the Restoration! Scarcely less contemptible do they seem to us, however, who foolishly imagine they exalt the claims of Robert Cromwell's son in making out his father an idle "gentleman," and his mother a laborious drudge. That the wife assisted the husband in his pursuits is yet indisputable as it was natural, for the fashion of fine ladyism in a tradesman's wife had not then " come up" in the world; while of her own more homely fashion, she proved the superior advantage, when her husband's death had left her the sole protectress of a young and numerous family. An interesting person, indeed, was this mother of Oliver Cromwell - a woman with the glorious faculty of self-help when other assistance failed her. Ready for the demands of fortune in its extremest adverse time of spirit and energy equal to her mildness and patience — who, with the labour of her own hands, gave dowries to five daughters sufficient to marry them into families as honourable, but more wealthy than their own-whose single pride was honesty, and whose passion love-who preserved in the gorgeous palace at Whitehall the simple tastes that distinguished her in the old brewery at Huntingdon - whose only care, amidst all her splendours, was for the safety of her |