CROMWELL, Thomas, Earl of Essex, was the son of a blacksmith at Putney, and born in 1498. Without a liberal education, but endowed with strong natural genius, he considered travelling as the proper means of improving his understanding; and to this early token of his sound judgment he stood indebted for the high rank and distinguished honours which he afterwards enjoyed. He became by degrees the confidential favourite and prime minister of Henry VIII.; and from the moment he acquired any authority in the cabinet, he employed it in promoting the reformation. To his zeal in this cause, however, he at length became a victim; for, in order the more firmly to secure the Protestant cause, he contrived to marry the king to Ann of Cleves, whose friends were all Lutherans. But unfortunately Henry took a disgust at this lady, which brought on Cromwell’s ruin; the king, with his usual cruelty and caprice, taking this opportunity to sacrifice his minister to the Roman Catholic party, to whom he seemed desirous of reconciling himself as soon as he had Catharine Howard in view. Cromwell was, upon the whole, a great politician and a good man; but, like most statesmen, was guilty of great errors. In his zeal for the new religion, he had introduced the unjustifiable mode of attainder in cases of treason and heresy; and his enemies, who were numerous (consisting of the ancient nobility and gentry, who were enraged to see the highest honours bestowed on a man of mean extraction, and the Roman Catholics, who detested and had preferred many complaints against him), availed themselves of his own law. He was attainted of treason and heresy, convicted unheard, and beheaded in 1540. He was the chief instrument of the suppression of the abbeys and monasteries, and of the destruction of images and relics; to him also we are indebted for the institution of parish-registers of births, marriages, and burials.

Cromwell, Oliver, styled Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, one of the most extraordinary personages mentioned in history, was the son of Mr Robert Cromwell of Hinchinbrooke, in the county of Huntingdon. His ancestors were of very honourable extraction, but nowise related to Thomas Cromwell earl of Essex, the prime minister and favourite of Henry VIII. He was born in the parish of St John Huntingdon, where his father mostly lived, on the 25th or 26th of April 1599, and educated at the free school of that town. Little is known concerning him in his younger years, or indeed respecting his behaviour in private life. It is, however, related by authors of unsuspected veracity, that when at school he gave many signs of a very turbulent and restless disposition. He is also said from his early years to have been subject to a hypochondriacal disorder, and to many illusions of the imagination. Indeed he had a very remarkable one while at school. It happened in the day-time, when he was lying in a melancholy mood upon his back in bed. A spectre, as he thought, approached him, and told him that he should be the greatest man in the kingdom. His father being informed of this, was very angry, and desired his master to correct him severely. This, however, produced no effect. Oliver persisted in the truth of his story, and would sometimes mention it, though his uncle told him it was too “traitorous” to be repeated. From this school Oliver was removed to Sidfiey College in Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1616. His progress in his studies is uncertain; but he spent much time in playing at foot-ball, cricket, and other robust exercises, at which he was very expert. His father dying after he had been about two years at college, Cromwell returned home; but the irregularity of his life gave such offence to his mother, that, by the advice of some friends, she sent him to London, and placed him in Lincoln’s Inn. This expedient by [7:7:477]no means answered the purpose; her son gave himself up to gaming, wine, and women, so that he quickly dissipated all that was left him by his father. This profusion, however, could be but of very short continuance; for he was married, before he was twenty-one years of age, to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bouchier, of Essex. Soon after his marriage he returned to the country, where he led a very grave and sober life. This sudden reformation has been ascribed to his falling in with the Puritans ;but it is certain that Cromwell continued then, and for some time afterwards, a zealous member of the church of England, and formed a close friendship with several eminent divines. He continued at Huntingdon, where he settled after his marriage, till an estate of between L.400 and L.500 per annum devolved on him by the death of his uncle Sir Thomas Stuart. This induced him to remove to the Isle of Ely, where the estate lay, and here he embraced the puritanical doctrines. He was elected a member of the third parliament of Charles I. which met on the 10th of January 1628, and he was a member of the committee on religion, where he distinguished himself by his zeal against popery. After the dissolution of that parliament, he returned again into the country, where he continued to express much concern for religion, to keep company with silenced ministers, and to invite them often to lectures and sermons at his house. In this way he brought his affairs again into a very indifferent state; so that, by way of repairing the breaches he had made in his fortune, he took a farm at St Ives, which he kept for five years. But this scheme succeeded so ill that he was obliged to give it up; and at last, chagrined with his disappointments, and made uneasy by the treatment which his party at that time received, he formed a design of going over to New England. In this, however, he was disappointed; the king issued out a proclamation against all such emigrations; Cromwell, Hampden, and others, were obliged to continue in England against their will; and with them remained the evil genius of the house of Stuart.

It was in 1638 that Cromwell had first an opportunity of getting himself publicly noticed. The Earl of Bedford, and some other persons of high rank, who had estates in ;he fen country, were very desirous of having it better drained; and though one project of this sort had failed, they set on foot another, got it countenanced by royal au-hority, and settled a part of the profits upon the crown. This, though really intended for a public benefit, was opposed as injurious to private property; and at the head of he opposers was Mr Oliver Cromwell, who had consider-ιble influence in those parts. The vigour he showed on his occasion recommended him to his friend and relation Mr Hampden, who afterwards characterized him in par-iament as a person capable of contriving and conducting ŗreat designs. But for all this he was not very successful n his opposition; and as his private affairs were still defining, he was in very necessitous circumstances at the ιpproach of the long parliament. In this critical situation ιe got himself elected member of parliament in the folowing manner. At the puritanical meetings, which he Constantly frequented, Oliver had most eminently distinguished himself by his “gifts” of praying, preaching, and expounding. At one of these meetings he met with Rich-ιrd Tims, a tradesman of Cambridge. This man was so mich captivated with Oliver, that he took it into his head I ;o attempt getting him chosen as burgess for the approach- 1 ng parliament. Being himself one of the common council, l’ims imagined that his design might be brought about; and with this view he went to Mr Wildbore, a relation if Cromwell’s, to whom he communicated his intention. Wildbore agreed as to the fitness of the person, but told um the design was impracticable, because Oliver was not a freeman. Tims next addressed one Evett on the same subject, who also made the same objection. He recollected, however, that the mayor had a freedom to bestow, and a scheme was immediately laid for securing this freedom to Cromwell. On application to the mayor, however, he told them that the freedom was already disposed of to another; but this objection being obviated by promising that person a freedom from the town, the mayor, informed that Cromwell was a man of great fortune, signified his intention of bestowing the freedom upon him. Our hero, apprised of the good offices of his friends, made his appearance in the court dressed in scarlet richly laced with gold, and having, provided plenty of claret and sweetmeats, they were so freely circulated among the corporation, that the mayor’s freeman was unanimously declared to be a very civil worthy gentleman. When the election came on, the mayor discovered his mistake, but it was now too late; the party among the burgesses was strong enough to choose him, and accordingly did so at the election next year.

When Cromwell first came into parliament, he affected great plainness, and even carelessness, in his dress. His attention to farming had entirely rusticated him, so that, in fact, he made a very uncouth appearance. “Who,” says Dr South, “that had beheld such a bankrupt, beggarly fellow, as Cromwell, first entering the parliament house, with a thread-bare torn coat and greasy hat, and perhaps neither of them paid for, could have suspected that, in the space of so few years, he should, by the murder of one king, and the banishment of another, ascend the throne, be invested with the royal robes, and want nothing of the state of a king but the changing his hat into a crown ?” Cromwell was very active in promoting the famous Remonstrance, which in reality laid the foundation of the civil war. He declared afterwards to Lord Falkland, that if the remonstrance had not been carried, he designed to have converted the small remains of his estate into ready money the next day, and to have left the kingdom by the first opportunity. His firmness on this occasion so effectually recommended him’to Hampden, Pym, and the other leaders of the popular party, that they took him into all their councils; and here he acquired that clear insight into things, and that knowledge of men, of which he afterwards made such prodigious use. His exploits during the civil war, and the usurpation, are related under the article Britain.

With regard to the ability and character of Cromwell, Mr Hume expresses himself as follows: “It seems to me that the circumstance of Cromwell’s life in which his abilities are principally discovered, is his rising from a private station, in opposition to so many rivals, so much advanced before him, to a high command and authority in the army. His great courage, his signal military talents, his eminent dexterity and address, were all requisite for this important acquisition. Yet will not this promotion appear the effect of supernatural abilities, when we consider that Fairfax himself, a private gentleman, who had not the advantage of a seat in parliament, had through the same steps attained even to a superior rank, and, if endued with common capacity and penetration, had been able to retain it. To incite such an army to rebellion against the parliament, required no uncommon art or industry; to have kept them in obedience had been the more difficult enterprise. When the breach is once formed between the ʹ military and civil powers, a supreme and absolute authority from that moment is devolved on the general; and if he is afterwards pleased to employ artifice or policy, it may be regarded on most occasions as great condescension, if not as superfluous caution. That Cromwell was ever able really to blind or overreach either [7:7:478]the king or the republicans, does not appear; as they possessed no means of resisting the force under his command, they were glad to temporize with him, and, by seeming to be deceived, to wait for an opportunity of freeing themselves from his dominion. If he seduced the military fanatics, it is to be considered that their interest and his evidently concurred; that their ignorance and low education exposed them to the grossest imposition; and that he himself was at bottom as frantic an enthusiast as the worst of them, and, in order to obtain their confidence, needed but to display those vulgar and ridiculous habits which he had early acquired, and on which he set so high a value. An army is so forcible, and at the same time so coarse a weapon, that any hand which wields it may, without much dexterity, perform any operation, and attain any ascendant in human society.

“The domestic administration of Cromwell, though it discovers great ability, was conducted without any plan either of liberty or arbitrary power; perhaps his difficult situation admitted of neither. His foreign enterprises, though full of intrepidity, were pernicious to national interest, and seem more the result of impetuous fury or narrow prejudices than of cool foresight and deliberation. An eminent personage, however, he was in many respects, and even a superior genius, but unequal and irregular in his operations; and, though not defective in any talent except that of elocution, the abilities which in him were most admirable, and which contributed most to his marvellous success, were the magnanimous resolution of his enterprises, and his peculiar dexterity in discovering the characters and practising on the weaknesses of mankind.

“If we survey the moral character of Cromwell with that indulgence which is due to the blindness and infirmities of the human species, we shall not be inclined to load his memory with such violent reproaches as those which his enemies usually throw upon it. Amidst the passions and prejudices of that time, that he should prefer the parliamentary to the royal cause, will not appear extraordinary; since even at present many men of sense and knowledge are disposed to think that the question, with regard to the justice of the quarrel, may be regarded as doubtful and ambiguous. The murder of the king, the most atrocious of all his actions, was to him covered under a mighty cloud of republican and fanatical illusions; and it is not impossible but he might believe it, as many others did, the most meritorious action which he could perform. His subsequent usurpation was the effect of necessity, as well as of ambition; nor is it easy to see how the various factions could at that time have been restrained without a mixture of military and arbitrary authority. The private deportment of Cromwell as a son, a husband, a father, a friend, is exposed to no considerable censure, if it does not rather merit praise. And, upon the whole, his character does not appear more extraordinary and unusual, by the mixture of so much absurdity with so much penetration, than by his tempering such violent ambition and such enraged fanaticism with so much regard to justice and humanity.”

It may be proper to subjoin the following remarks on the same subject, by a writer as superior to Hume in point of mere accuracy, as he is inferior to that historian in philosophical depth and acuteness, and in all that constitutes the grace, elegance, and excellence of style :—

“When, busy in his career of ambition, he had sought his present lofty pre-eminence, he had been blind to the dangers that must necessarily attend his elevation. The enthusiasm that, in his better days—for it is to be hoped that he was corrupted by success, and not inherently vicious—had kindled the ardour of his own spirit, and diffused itself around him, making him brave every danger, was now stifled; because he found himself in a state of envied greatness, cut off from sympathy with his former comrades, tormented with jealousy of those he had trusted, detested by those who had started with him for the attainment of an honourable purpose, beset with dangers which threatened not only to degrade him from his unworthy situation, but to humble him and his family to destruction, and load his very memory with infamy, and bereft of expedients to conduct the machine of government much longer, while his hypocrisy stood unveiled, and he could neither advance nor retreat with safety. He had reason also to apprehend assassination, a species of danger to which the human nerves are least commensurate. The hazards of the field, where there is a call upon one’s honour, every courageous mind can meet; but never to repose one’s head without dread of the poignard, must appal the stoutest heart; and Cromwell’s, with all its fortitude and bravery, was so far from being superior to it, that he is alleged to have worn concealed armour some time before his death, and for a short period also never to have slept for two nights successively in the same chamber. Domestic afflictions hastened his dissolution. Amid all the active bustle of life, the fortunes of the field, and the dreams of ambition, Cromwell’s affections centred in the bosom of his family; and from affliction there fortune could not secure him. His mother, whom he loved with the tenderest filial piety, died subsequently to his usurpation; and his favourite daughter, Mrs Claypole, was taken from him this summer, while the manner of her death is said to have added infinitely to his distress; his inexorable refusal of the life of Dr Huet having, it is alleged, broken her spirit. He never could overcome his grief at such a loss; and a complication of disorders, with care and distress of mind, terminated in his death on the 3d of September 1658, the day of the year which, as the anniversary of Dunbar and W orcester, he had ever accounted fortunate. As to his prayers, the conduct of his chaplains, and the manner of his death, they are little to be relied on. There is some truth, however, in the following passages by Ludlow, that he ‘ manifested so little remorse for having betrayed the public cause, and sacrificed it to his own ambition, that some of his last words rather became a mediator than a sinner, as he recommended to God the condition of the nation which he had so infamously cheated, and expressed great care of the people whom he had so manifestly despised.’ ’ '^[1. Brodie’s History of the British Empire, &c. vol. iv. p. 420-422. ]

That Cromwell continued a complete and bigoted enthusiast to the very last, appears from his behaviour in his last sickness. His disease, which at first was a kind of slow fever, brought on by the cares and anxiety of his mind, soon degenerated into a tertian ague. For about a week the disorder continued without any dangerous symptoms, insomuch that he occasionally walked abroad; but one day after dinner his five physicians coming to wait upon him, one of them having felt his pulse, said that it intermitted. At this Cromwell was surprised, turned pale, fell into a cold sweat, and when he was almost fainting, ordered himself to be carried to bed, where, by the assistance of cordials, he was brought a little to himself, and made his w ill with respect to his private affairs. The next morning, when one of his physicians came to visit him, Cromwell asked him why he looked so sad; upon which the professor of the healing art answered that so it became every one who had the weighty charge of his life and health upon him. “Ye physicians,” said Cromwell, “think [7:7:479]I shall die. I tell you I shall not die this bout; I am sure of it. Do not think,” said he to the physician, looking more attentively at him, “do not think that I am mad; I speak the words of truth upon surer grounds than your Hippocrates or Galen can furnish you with. God Almighty himself hath given that answer, not to my prayers alone, but also to the prayers of those who entertain a stricter commerce and greater interest with him. Go on cheerfully, banishing all sadness from your looks; and deal with me as you would deal with a serving man. Ye may have a skill in the nature of things, yet nature can do more than all physicians put together; and God is far more above nature.” As the physician was retiring from the chamber, he accidentally met with another, to whom he expressed his fear that the Protector was becoming delirious. But the other informed him that the chaplains, being dispersed the preceding night into different parts of the house, had prayed for the Protector’s recovery, and unanimously received for answer that he should recover. Nay, to such a degree of fanatical extravagance did they at last arrive, that a public fast being kept at Hampton Court, they did not so much pray to God for the Protector’s health, as return thanks for the undoubted pledges they had of his recovery. On this account, though the physicians perceived his distemper increasing every hour, they took no notice of his danger, till it became necessary for him to appoint a successor whilst he had yet any breath remaining. But being then in a lethargic fit, he answered away from the purpose; upon which he was again asked whether he did uot name his eldest son Richard; and to this question he answered in the affirmative. Being then asked where the will which he had formerly made concerning the heirs of the kingdom was deposited, he sent to look for it in his closet and other places, but in vain; for somebody had either stolen it, or he had himself burnt it. Soon afterwards he expired, on the 3d of September 1658, aged somewhat more than fifty-nine years and four months. This day of September he had always reckoned as the most fortunate for him in the whole year.

It has been imagined by some that Oliver Cromwell was poisoned; but there seems to be no foundation whatever for such a suspicion. His body was opened by Dr Bates, who found the brain somewhat overcharged with blood, and the lungs a little inflamed; but what he reckoned to have been the principal cause of his disorder, was a total degeneracy of the substance of the spleen into a matter resembling the lees of oil. This, he thought, also accounted for the hypochondriacal dispositions to which Cromwell had from his infancy been subject. Though the bowels were taken out, and the body, filled with spices, wrapped in a fourfold cerecloth, put first into a coflin of lead, and then into one of wood, yet the corruption was so great that the humour wrought itself through the whole; and there was a necessity of interring the body before the solemnity of the funeral. A very pompous funeral was ordered at the public expense, and performed, from Somerset House, with a splendour not only equal, but superior, to that bestowed upon crowned heads. Some have related that his body was deposited in the field of Naseby; others, that it was wrapped in lead, and sunk in the deepest part of the Thames, to prevent any insult which might afterwards be offered to it. But it seems beyond a doubt that his corpse was interred at Westminster; for we are informed, that on the order to disinter it after the Resto-i ration, it was found in a vault in the middle aisle of Henry VII∙ ’ s chapel. In the inside of the coffin, and on the breast of the corpse, was laid a copperplate finely gilt, inclosed in a thin case of lead. On one side of this plate were engraven the arms of England impaled with those of Oliver, and on the reverse the following legend: Oli- verius Protector Reipublicae Angliae, Scotice, et Hiberniae, natus 25 Aprilis 1599, inauguratus 16 Decembris 1653, mortuus 3 Septembris ann. 1658, hic situs est.

Cromwell was of a robust frame of body, and of a manly though not agreeable , aspect. His nose being remarkably red and shining, was often made the subject of ridicule. He left only two sons, Richard and Henry, and three daughters, one married to General Fleetwood, another to Lord Fauconberg, and a third to Lord Rich. His mother lived till after he was Protector; and, contrary to her orders, he buried her with great pomp in Westminster Abbey. She could never be persuaded that either his power or his person was in safety. At every noise she heard she would exclaim that her son was murdered; and was never satisfied that he was alive if she did not receive frequent visits from him. She was a respectable woman, who by her frugality and industry had raised and educated a numerous family upon a small fortune. She had even been obliged to set up a brewery at Huntingdon, which she managed to good advantage. Hence Cromwell, in the invectives of that age, is often stigmatized with the name of brewer. Ludlow, byway of insult, mentions the great accession which he would receive to his royal revenues upon his mother’s death, who possessed a jointure of L.60 a year upon his estate. She was of a good family of the name of Stuart; and is by some supposed to have been remotely allied to the royal family.

Cromwell, Richard, eldest son of Oliver Cromwell, was by his father appointed successor to the protectorship, but he was very soon deposed by the army. They discharged his debts, took all the household stuff, plate, and other articles, gave him a protection for six months; and so he retired. He was by no means qualified to support the station gained by the great and aspiring talents of his father. He was of a moderate temper, and untainted with that fanatical spirit which his father had so successfully cultivated. On the Restoration he went abroad, but returned in 1680 under the assumed name of Clarke, and settled in Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, where he lived privately, and died in 1712, aged eighty-six.