Richard Cromwell

“ From the pedigree in Clutterbuck’s ‘Hertfordshire’ (ii. 95–8) it will be seen that he was lineally descended from the Protector, being the great-grandson of Henry Cromwell [q. v.] , lord-deputy of Ireland and M.P. for Cambridge, fourth son of the Protector. For many years he practised as a solicitor in Essex Street, Strand, and was also clerk to St. Thomas’s Hospital. By the wills of his cousins, Elizabeth, Anne, and Letitia, daughters of Richard Cromwell, he became possessed of the manor of Theobalds and estate of Cheshunt Park, Hertfordshire. ”

“ CROMWELL, RICHARD (1626–1712) , lord protector of England, eldest surviving son of Oliver Cromwell and of Elizabeth Bourchier, was born on the 4th of October 1626. He served in the parliamentary army, and in 1647 was admitted a member of Lincoln’s Inn. In 1649 he married Dorothy, daughter of Richard Mayor, or Major, of Hursley in Hampshire. He represented Hampshire in the parliament of 1654, and Cambridge University in that of 1656, and in November 1655 was appointed one of the council of trade. ”

“ Though one of Cromwell’s intimate friends, he took little part in public affairs until 1653, when he was appointed a member of the council of state. His career as a seaman began in 1656, when he was made a general-at-sea, his colleague being Robert Blake. Having taken some part in the operations against Dunkirk in 1657, he was chosen a member of Cromwell’s House of Lords, and in 1659 he was sent by Richard Cromwell with a fleet to arrange a peace between Sweden and Denmark. ”

“ Richard, also sprung of the Fens, might have been his kinsman in many ways, have got the name of Williams in many ways, and even been born on the Hill behind Cardiff, independently of Glothian. Enough: Richard Cromwell, on a background of heraldic darkness, rises clearly visible to us; a man vehemently galloping to and fro, in that sixteenth century ”

“ He lived to be an old, old man, and died at eighty-six amid his rose-gardens at Cheshunt, near London, unhonored and disregarded by the England his father had liberated, but which the son was too weak to uphold as a free commonwealth.
We must not be too bard on "lazy Dick." He had not a spark of greatness in him, and should not be blamed for failing to maintain his father's glory. It is a hard thing for a small son to live up to the fame of a great father. And yet the world does not take lack of ability into account. Richard Cromwell to-day has no place in the world's esteem. ”

“ Upon Richard's appearance the Puritans wrap themselves in their cloaks, and pull down the brims of their hats.
Richard Cromwell. We needs must open. By my soul!
Saw over one so tightly barred a lair? ”

“ Richard Cromwell, and Doctor John Owen, and Mr. Milton, and Doctor Verity were grouped around her Highness the Protector's handsome wife. And she was taking their homage as naturally as she had been used to take attention in her simple home in Ely, being more troubled about the proper serving of dinner than about her own dignity. She sat at the Protector's right hand, and Jane Swaffham sat at his left.
"The great men must scatter themselves, Jane," he said; "my daughter Dorothy Cromwell wants to be near Mr. ”

“ The words paint Cromwell's temper accurately enough; he is far more of the practical soldier than of the reformer; though his genius already breaks in upon his aristocratic and conservative sympathies, and catches glimpses of the social revolution to which the war was drifting. ”

“ Almost as terrible an act of bloodshed closed the year. The abbots of Glastonbury, Reading, and Colchester, men who had sate as mitred abbots among the lords, were charged with a denial of the king's supremacy and hanged as traitors. But Cromwell relied for success on more than terror. His single will forced on a scheme of foreign policy whose aim was to bind England to the cause of the Reformation while it bound Henry helplessly to his minister. ”

“ Above all, the class which became specially infected with the spirit of religious freedom was the class to whose zeal and vigour the Parliament was forced to look for success in the struggle. Cromwell had wisely sought for good fighting men among the "godly" farmers of the Associated Counties. But where he found such men he found dissidents, men who were resolved to seek God after their own fashion, and who were as hostile to the despotism of the National Church as to the despotism of the king. ”

“ The news of Cromwell's death, in September 1658, which reached them whilst in that city, caused them to go to London, with the hope of Sir Richard's getting released from his bail; and under the pretence of becoming tutor to the son of the Earl of Pembroke, whilst on his travels, he was permitted to leave England. On his arrival at Paris, he wrote to Lord Clarendon, acquainting him with his escape, and desiring him to inform his Majesty of the circumstance. ”

“ After refusing the highest favours from Henry as the price of his approval of the divorce, Reginald Pole had taken refuge at Rome, where he had bitterly attacked the king in a book on "The Unity of the Church." "There may be found ways enough in Italy," Cromwell wrote to him in significant words, "to rid a treacherous subject. When Justice can take no place by process of law at home, sometimes she may be enforced to take new means abroad." But he had left hostages in Henry's hands. "Pity that the folly of one witless fool," Cromwell wrote ominously, "should be the ruin of so great a family. ”

“ What he really did was to give life and energy to new forces which were bound from their very nature to battle with the Monarchy for even more than the old English freedom. When Cromwell seized on the Church he held himself to be seizing for the Crown the mastery which the Church had wielded till now over the consciences and reverence of men. ”

“ But it was on the leaders of the rising that Cromwell's hand fell heaviest. He seized his opportunity for dealing at the northern nobles a fatal blow. "Cromwell," one of the chief among them broke fiercely out as he stood at the Council board, "it is thou that art the very special and chief cause of all this rebellion and wickedness, and dost daily travail to bring us to our ends and strike off our heads. I trust that ere thou die, though thou wouldst procure all the noblest heads within the realm to be stricken off, yet there shall one head remain that shall strike off thy head." ”

“ From the first it disclaimed any purpose of opposing the Government. One of its earliest acts provided securities for Cromwell's person, which was threatened by constant plots of assassination. It supported him in his war policy, and voted supplies of unprecedented extent for the maintenance of the struggle. It was this attitude of loyalty which gave force to its steady refusal to sanction the system of tyranny which had practically placed England under martial law. In his opening address Cromwell boldly took his stand in support of the military despotism wielded by the major-generals. ”

“ The death of Cromwell had, of course, agitated the whole world of exiled Royalism, raising sunk hopes, and stimulating Charles himself, the Queen-Mother, Hyde, Ormond, Colepepper, and the other refugees over the Continent, to doubled activity of intrigue and correspondence. And, though that immediate excitement had passed, and had even been succeeded by a kind of wondering disappointment among the exiles at the perfect calm attending Richard's accession, it was evident that the chances of Charles were immensely greater under Richard than they had been while Oliver lived. ”

“ But he was freed by the victory of Dunbar. "I believe that the king will set up on his own score now," Cromwell wrote after his victory, as he advanced to occupy Edinburgh while the royal forces fell back upon Stirling and Perth. With the overthrow of Leslie in fact the power of Argyle and the narrow Presbyterians whom he led came to an end. Hamilton, the brother and successor of the Duke who had been captured at Preston, brought back the Royalists to the camp, and Charles insisted on taking part in the Council and on being crowned at Scone. ”

“ The bequests to Cromwell’s daughters ‘Anne and Grace’ and to his ‘litill Doughter Grace’ are our only proof that he had other children than Gregory; and the fact that both these items were crossed out after the year 1529 possibly indicates that the daughters died when young. We also learn that Cromwell’s nephew Richard, the son of Katherine Cromwell and Morgan Williams, had followed in his uncle’s footsteps, and was ‘seruaunt with my lorde Marques Dorssett’ at the time that the will was first composed ”

“ Cromwell is dead, after having signed a treaty with France, in which his name is placed above yours. He died on the 3rd of September, 1658, a fresh anniversary of the battles of Dunbar and Worcester."
"His son has succeeded him."
"But certain men have a family, sire, and no heir. The inheritance of Oliver was too heavy for Richard. Richard was neither a republican nor a royalist; Richard allowed his guards to eat his dinner, and his generals to govern the republic; Richard abdicated the protectorate on the 22nd of April, 1659, more than a year ago, sire. ”

“ Help! murder! help!
[To the Cavaliers.
I have no other hope than in myself.
[He shouts again.
Help, soldiers! help!
Murray. Help, soldiers! help! The soldiers are with us.
Richard.⁠Ah well! then I alone defy you all!
[He puts his hand to his side to draw his sword.
How now! my hand th' avenging blade doth lack!
Father, why didst thou take away my sword?
Cromwell [aside.] ⁠Poor Richard!
Ormond [to Richard.] ⁠ Sir, I truly grieve for you.
Take my advice:—withdraw; leave the King's men
To do their will.
Richard. To do their will. To do your will? O Heaven! ”

“ That he goes by another name, but do not disguise himself, nor deny himself to any man that challenges him’ (Diary, 19 Oct. 1664) . In 1666, during the Dutch war, the English government contemplated the issue of a proclamation recalling certain English subjects resident in France, and Mrs. Cromwell endeavoured to obtain a promise from Lord Clarendon that Cromwell’s name should be left out of the proclamation, on the ground that his debts would ruin him if he were obliged to return to England. ”

“ His refinement of manner did not admit of coarseness, with whatever wit it might be gilded, and the royal martyr is but known, in respect of humour, for ‘King Charles’s Golden Rules,’ of which, of course, he was not the author.
If ever there was a man in whom we should not expect to find the jesting spirit, that man is Oliver Cromwell. At the wedding festival, however, of his daughter Frances with Mr. Rich, Oliver entered joyously into all the jesting; so joyously that, in a moment of excitement, the Protector whipt off his son Richard’s wig and pretended to throw it into the fire. ”

“ The new Protector was a weak and worthless man; but the bulk of the nation were content to be ruled by one who was at any rate no soldier, no Puritan, and no innovator. Richard was known to be lax and worldly in his conduct, and he was believed to be conservative and even Royalist in heart. The tide of reaction was felt even in his council. Their first act was to throw [Pg 375] aside one of the greatest of Cromwell's reforms and to fall back in the summons which they issued for a new Parliament on the old system of election. ”

“ I have little money of my own (left) to help my soldiers." But they were "a lovely company," he tells his friends with soldierly pride. No blasphemy, drinking, disorder, or impiety were suffered in their ranks. "Not a man swears but he pays his twelve pence." Nor was his choice of "men of religion" the only innovation Cromwell introduced into his new regiment. The social traditions which restricted command to men of birth were disregarded. "It may be," he wrote, in answer to complaints from the Committee of the Association, "it provokes your spirit to see such plain men made captains of horse. ”

“ First he was high sheriff of Dorsetshire, governor of Weymouth, and raised some forces for the king's service. Next he joined the Parliament, took the Covenant, and was made colonel of a regiment of horse. Afterwards ho was a very busy person in setting up Cromwell to be lord protector; and then again was quite as active in deposing Richard, and restoring the Rump. ”

“ It is only through the stray depositions of royal spies that we catch a glimpse of the wrath and hate which lay seething under this silence of the people. For the silence was a silence of terror. Before Cromwell's rise and after his fall from power the reign of Henry the Eighth witnessed no more than the common tyranny and bloodshed of the time. But the years of Cromwell's administration form the one period in our history which deserves the name that men have given to the rule of Robespierre. It was the English Terror. It was by terror that Cromwell mastered the king. ”

“ Never had England shown a truer nobleness than when it refused to be tempted from the path of freedom even by the genius of Cromwell, never a truer wisdom than when it refused to be lured from its tradition of practical politics by the dazzling seductions of the Puritan ideal. ”

“ He finds two entries in the Court Rolls concerning Thomas Smyth, and assumes that they refer to Thomas Cromwell. These entries occur in the records of Feb. 26, 1504, and of May 20 in the same year. The first states that ‘Richard Williams came to the court and surrendered into the hands of the lord two whole virgates of land in ‹Roe›hampton, one called Purycroft and the other called Williams, to the use of Thomas Smyth, his heirs and assigns’ ”