CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM _. , Cornell University Library DA 428.H31 1888 plver Cromwell 3 1924 027 977 200 oljn \^y Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027977200 Ciuelbe (^nglicift ^tatf^men «-' OLIVER CEOMWELL OLIVEE CROMWELL BY FREDERIC HARRISON HonUott MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW TORK . 1888 , All rights reserved CONTENTS CHAPTER I . PAGE BiETH —Parentage —Education 1 CHAPTER II — Marriage Family—Domestic Life . .17 CHAPTER III Preparation for Civil War 38 CHAPTER IV ' The First Civil War—Edgehill—The Eastern Associ- ation—Marston Moor 54 CHAPTER V The New Model—Naseby—End of the First Civil War 79 CHAPTER VI Between the Civil Wars . 100 vi CONTENTS CHAPTER VII PAOE Second Civil War—Trial of the King .... 120 CHAPTER VIII The Campaign in Ireland 130 CHAPTER IX The Campaign in Scotland—Worcester .... 150 CHAPTER X The Unofficial Dictatorship 168 CHAPTER XI The Protectorate 192 CHAPTER XII Home Policy of i^he Protectorate 212 CHAPTER XIII Foreign Policy of the Protectorate . 218 CHAPTER XIV " The Last Days : Sickness and Death . 223 ; CHAPTEE I BIRTH—PARENTAGE—EDUCATION A.D. 1599-1620. ^TAT. 1-21 Oliver Cromwell was born at Huntingdon, on the 25tli of April 1599. It was the dark year in Elizabeth's decline, which saw the fall of Essex and Tyrone's war. In the year preceding, Burleigh and Philip of Spain had both passed away; in the year following was born Charles the First. The sixteenth century, which had opened with such hopes, was closing in strife and gloom the Tudor dynasty was in its wane ; and the brilliant life of the Eenascence had already deepened into the long struggle for conscience and freedom. Oliver was the only surviving son of Eobert Cromwell, the second son of Sir Henry Cromwell and younger brother of Sir Oliver Cromwell, both knights of Hin- chinbrook, near Huntingdon. His mother was Elizabeth, the daughter of William Steward and sister of Sir Thomas Steward, both landowners of Ely. He came of a race well born and of good estate : as did Pym, Eliot, Hampden, Vane, St. John, Hutchinson, and Blake. "I was by birth a gentleman,"—so he told his first Parlia- ment— "living neither in any considerable height, nor & B 2 OLIVER CROMWELL chap. yet in obscurity." ^' Est Oliverius Cromivellus,^^ wrote Milton, ^^genere nohili atque illustri ortusJ' The gene- alogists of later times have discovered for him traces of historic descent, which are more or less inventions, and were wholly unrecognised by the Protector himself. There is no foundation for the supposed connection of the Steward family with the royal house of Stuart. The descent of the Cromwells from ^' Glothian, Lord of Powis, before the Norman Conquest," is doubtless as mythical as the descent of the Stewards from "Banquo, the common ancestor of the Stewards and the Stuarts." Both Cromwells and Stewards were families which had grown to wealth and importance at the dissolution of the monasteries. The Stewards had been planted at Ely, enriched with revenues of the Church, by the great-uncle of the Protector's mother, Robert Steward, D.D., who had the singular fortune to be for twenty years the last Catholic Prior, and then, for twenty years more, the first Protestant Dean, of Ely, The Cromwells of Huntingdon were descendants of Sir Richard Crom- well, otherwise called Williams, a kinsman of Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the Malleus Monachornm, or "Hammer of Monasteries," under Henry VHI. For generations the Cromwells were conspicuous for loyalty, chivalry, and public spirit. Sir Richard Crom- well, the founder of the house, the great-grandfather of the Protector, had been one of the p^eux chevaliers of Henry's Court, and was an ardent supporter of Thomas Cromwell, the Yicar-General. In letters to the Earl he signs himself "your boimden nephew"; he was, in fact, the son of Catherine, Cromwell's sister. Sir Richard's family was Williams of Glamorganshire, ; I BIRTH—PARENTAGE—EDUCATION 3 a name which he was authorised to change for that of his kinsman and patron; and in his will he describes himself as Sir Richard Williams, otherwise called Sir Eichard Cromwell. His descendants continued to use the family name of Williams concurrently with that of Cromwell; it appears in Oliver's marriage settlement, and even in the inscription over the Protector's bed when his e,^gy lay in state. Sir Eichard Cromwell retained the favour of Henry YIH. on the fall of his great kinsman. Honours, grants, offices, civil and military, came to him in profusion ; he married the daughter of Sir Thomas Martyn, Lord Mayor of London and, dying one year before his master, he left vast estates in five counties to his children. Hjs eldest son, Sir Henry Cromwell, the Protector's grandfather, was knighted by Elizabeth in 1563, and in the next year entertained the Queen at Hinchinbrook, a noble house which he built on his principal estate, and in which he incorporated the suppressed Benedictine nunnery. He represented the county of Huntingdon in the Parliament of 1563, was four times High Sheriff, and by his liberality and magnificence acquired the name of the Golden Knight. He married a daughter of Sir Ealph Warren, Lord Mayor of London. Sir Oliver, the eldest son of Sir Henry, uncle and godfather to the Protector, was even more sumptuous and more loyal than his father and grandfather. He too was knighted by Elizabeth, served as High Sheriff for the counties of Huntingdon and Cambridge, and sat in many Parliaments in the reigns of the Queen, of James I., and of Charles L He married first the daughter of Sir H. Bromley, Lord Chancellor, and afterwards the 4 OLIVER CROMWELL chap. widow of Sir Horatio Palavicini, the famous financier. When James of Scotland succeeded to the throne of England, Sir Oliver entertained him during two days at Hinchinbrook on his state progress to London, with a lavish magnificence which delighted the king, and which was said to have surpassed any feast ever ofi'ered to monarch by a subject. He was made Knight of the Bath at the Coronation, and continuing his royal entertainments, he ultimately ruined himself ; and lived in seclusion, a stubborn cavalier to the last, well into the Protectorate of his godson. The many sons of Sir Henry and those of Sir Oliver, all knights or country gentlemen in the eastern counties, served in public offices, in Parliament, or as soldiers; and, during the civil war, for the most part on the side of the king. The daughters of Sir Henry and those of Sir Oliver were married to men of good family and estate : the most illustrious of these being Oliver's aunt Elizabeth, the mother of John Hampden. E-obert Cromwell, the father of Oliver, was a cadet of this knightly house ; and his simple home at Huntingdon was in modest contrast with the splendour of Hinchin- brook. As one of the younger sons of Sir Henry, the Golden Knight, he inherited a small estate, in and near the town of Huntingdon, chiefly possessions which formerly belonged to the Austin Canons. This estate amounted, with the great tithes of Hartford, to about .£300 a year, a tolerable fortune in those times ; rather more than £1000 now. His wife had a jointure of £60 a year, or somewhat more than £200 in our day. He represented the borough in Parliament in 1593 ; was the bailiffs one of town in two successive years ; and I BIRTH—PARENTAGE—EDUCATION 5 was in the commission of the peace for the county. He lived in a stone house, at the northern extremity of the town, having extensive back premises and a fine garden, the Hinchin brook flowing through the court- yard. There Oliver was born. The room was to be seen until 1810; but the house has been twice rebuilt. It fronts the old Eoman road, still called Ermine Street ; and is now a solid manor-house with a fine old garden : some traces of the external walls and of the original oflfices remain. It is in the possession of Captain Isaac Bernard, and is known as Cromwell House : the footpath alongside its garden, leading to the water-meadows, is named CromwelVs TFalk Eobert Cromwell is described as a gentleman of good sense and competent learning; of a great spirit, but without any ambition; regular in his habits, reserved, and somewhat proud. He served in the local duties of his town and at quarter sessions, managed his estate, was on various commissions for draining the fens; a steadfast and worthy man, bringing up in honour a family of ten children, of whom Oliver was the only son that survived. From the civil troubles to the present day contro- versy has raged round the question if he or his family carried on the trade of a brewer. Tradition, lampoons, and biographies persistently assert that he did ; nor is there any real evidence to the contrary. The house at Huntingdon was occupied as a brewery before it belonged to Robert Cromwell ; lampoons published during Charles I.^s lifetime certainly call Oliver a brewer; but his earliest, and most hostile, biographer asserts that not he but his father was the brewer. We 6 OLIVER CROMWELL chap. are most circumstantially told that the brewing business was carefully managed by Mrs. Eobert Cromwell, and continued by her on her husband's death. There is no decisive evidence; and the matter has no importance.