CROMWELL AND HIS FAMILY
“Mr. Lely,” said Cromwell to the painter, “I desire you would use all
your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all;
but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything,
otherwise I never will pay a farthing for it.” Doubtless the Protector
would have given a similar charge to his biographers, but their task is
more difficult; much contemporary evidence is merely worthless gossip,
much is vitiated by party spirit, and on many points the authorities are
silent.
John Maidston, the steward of Cromwell’s household, supplies us with
what he terms “a character of his person:”
“His body was well compact and strong, his stature under six foot (I
believe about two inches), his head so shaped as you might see it a
storehouse and a shop both of a vast treasury of natural parts. His
temper exceeding fiery, as I have known, but the flame of it kept
down for the most part, or soon allayed with those moral endowments
he had. He was naturally compassionate towards objects in distress,
even to an effeminate measure; though God had made him a heart,
wherein was left little room for fear but what was due to himself,
of which there was a large proportion, yet did he exceed in
tenderness towards sufferers. A larger soul I think hath seldom
dwelt in house of clay than his was. I believe if his story were
impartially transmitted, and the unprejudiced world well possessed
with it, she would add him to her nine worthies.”
The numerous portraits of Cromwell help to complete Maidston’s
description. Like most Puritan gentlemen he wore his hair long; the
thick light brown locks which began to grow grey before he became
Protector covered his collar and almost reached his shoulders. His eyes,
according to Cooper’s and Walker’s portraits, were blue or grey, and his
eyebrows strongly marked. His nose was long, thick, and slightly arched,
with full nostrils—the beak of a vulture, said royalist pamphleteers,
and even political friends jested about its size. “If you prove false,”
said the downright Haslerig to Cromwell, “I will never trust a fellow
with a big nose again.” The mouth was large, firm, and full-lipped.
Strength, not grace, marked both face and figure. But the rough-hewn
features have an air of kindness and sagacity mingled with the
resolution and energy which are their most marked characteristics. In
some portraits there is an air of melancholy.
The dignity of the Protector’s outward bearing was admitted even by
opponents:
[Illustration:
(_From a miniature by Cooper, in the Baptist College at Bristol._)
]
“When he appeared first in Parliament,” writes Clarendon, “he seemed
to have a person in no degree gracious, no ornament of discourse,
none of those talents which use to reconcile the affections of the
standers by; yet as he grew into place and authority his parts
seemed to be renewed, as if he had concealed faculties till he had
occasion to use them; and when he was to act the part of a great
man, he did it without any indecency through the want of custom.”
To another Royalist, Sir Philip Warwick, he appeared “of a great and
majestic deportment and comely presence,” and he made a similar
impression on foreign observers.
When the Protector gave audience to ambassadors or received official
deputations an elaborate ceremonial of a quasi-regal character was
strictly observed. Sir Oliver Fleming, who had been one of the
continental agents of Charles I., and was skilled in all the niceties of
diplomatic etiquette, acted as Cromwell’s master of the ceremonies. But
the Protector transacted much important business in less formal
interviews with the representatives of foreign states. He was easily
accessible to his subjects in general, and petitioners found no great
difficulty in putting their grievances before him. Opponents of his
policy were allowed opportunity to set forth their objections, and he
argued with them freely in reply. Even religious enthusiasts contrived
to deliver their messages from the Lord or, like Fox, to explain what
their religious views really were. About three times a month the
Protector took part in the proceedings of the Council of State, but most
of his political or administrative work was transacted with small
committees or with Secretary Thurloe alone. With these trusted
councillors he freely unbent.
“He would sometimes be very cheerful with us,” says Whitelocke, “and
laying aside his greatness he would be exceeding familiar with us,
and by way of diversion would make verses with us, and everyone must
try his fancy. He commonly called for tobacco, pipes, and a candle,
and would now and then take tobacco himself; then he would fall
again to his serious and great business.”
Whitelocke also gives some account of the Protector’s recreations.
Cromwell retained throughout his life the tastes of a country gentleman.
At Hampton Court he often amused himself with bowls, but his favourite
sports were hunting and hawking. As he rode from Worcester to London
after his victory in 1651, he diverted himself, on the way, with
hawking, and he sometimes practised the same sport on Hounslow Heath
after he was Protector. When he entertained the Swedish Ambassador at
Hampton Court in 1654, after dinner was over the Protector, the
ambassador, and the rest of the company “coursed and killed a fat buck”
in the park. Cromwell was a bold jumper, and it was noticed that the
ambassador “would not adventure to leap ditches after the Protector, but
was more wary.”
Good horses of every kind were always Cromwell’s delight. English
diplomatic agents in the Levant were employed to procure Arabs and Barbs
for his riding or for breeding purposes. “Six gallant Flanders mares,
reddish grey,” had drawn the General’s coach when he set out for the
reconquest of Ireland, and six white horses drew the Protector’s coach
when it conveyed the Spanish Ambassador to his place of embarkation. Of
these white horses it was said that they were a finer team than any king
of England had ever possessed. Another team of six horses—presented by
the Count of Oldenburg in 1654—ran away in Hyde Park when the Protector
himself was driving them. Cromwell, who was flung off the box upon the
pole, got entangled in the harness, and was dragged for some distance by
one foot, but he escaped in the end with nothing more than a few
bruises. Andrew Marvell and George Wither both published poems
celebrating the Protector’s deliverance, and the incident furnished
several royalist wits with a theme for satires and epigrams.
Another recreation which found great favour with Cromwell was music.
When he gave a banquet to foreign ambassadors or members of the House of
Commons, “rare music, both of instruments and voices,” was always an
important part of the entertainment. The same thing took place in hours
of relaxation or domestic festivities, for the Protector, according to a
contemporary biographer, was “a great lover of music, and entertained
the most skilful in that science in his pay and family.” In the great
hall at Hampton Court he had two organs, and his organist, John
Hingston, was a pupil of Orlando Gibbons. James Quin, a student of
Christ Church, Oxford, who had been deprived of his place by the Puritan
visitors of that university, obtained his restoration to it through the
Protector’s love of music. Quin was not a very skilful singer, but he
had a bass voice “very strong and exceeding trolling.” Some of his
friends brought him into the company of the Protector, “who loved a good
voice, and instrumental music well.” Cromwell “heard him sing with very
great delight, liquored him with sack, and in conclusion said, ‘Mr.
Quin, you have done well; what shall I do for you?’ To which Quin made
answer, with great compliments, that his Highness would be pleased to
restore him to his student’s place, which he did accordingly.”
A few other notices of the Protector’s personal habits may be gleaned
from contemporary sources. In his diet his tastes were very simple;
according to a contemporary pamphleteer, it was “spare and not curious”;
no “French quelquechoses” were to be found on his table, but plain,
substantial dishes. His ordinary drink, according to the same authority,
consisted of “a very small ale” known by the name of “Morning Dew.” He
also drank freely a light wine which his physicians had recommended to
him as good for his health.
In dress Cromwell’s tastes were marked by the same simplicity. When he
expelled the Long Parliament in 1653, he was wearing “plain black
clothes with grey worsted stockings.” At his installation in the
following December he had on “a plain black suit and cloak,” though a
few weeks later when he was entertained by the Lord Mayor he wore “a
musk colour suit and coat richly embroidered with gold.” When Protector,
his dress was naturally more sumptuous than it had been before, and Sir
Philip Warwick, who had so contemptuously criticised the cut of his
clothes in 1640, attributed the improvement in his appearance to a
better tailor as well as to converse with better company. But even then
a young Royalist fresh from the French Court described the Protector as
“plain in his apparell,” and “rather affecting a negligence than a
genteel garb.”
The Protector’s household was naturally organised on a more magnificent
scale than that which had sufficed him as General. The sum allowed for
its maintenance was sixty thousand pounds during the first Protectorate,
and a hundred thousand pounds during the second. But many other expenses
were defrayed from this fund, and Cromwell spent a large amount in
charity; according to one biographer as much as forty thousand pounds a
year. Speaking of the Protector’s second installation, and the increased
state which was its consequence, Sir Philip Warwick says: “Now he models
his household so that it might have some resemblance to a Court, and his
liveries, lackies, and yeomen of the guard are known whom they belong to
by their habit.” The forty or fifty gentlemen employed in the internal
service of Whitehall and Hampton Court, or in attendance upon the
Protector’s person, wore coats of grey cloth with black velvet collars,
and black velvet or silver lace trimming. And besides these “yeomen of
the guard” he had the life-guard of horse which has been mentioned
before. All this show and state offended many rigid Puritans, to whom
even the semblance of a Court was hateful. Others held that it was
“necessary for the honour of the English nation” that its head should be
surrounded by a certain amount of pomp, and this opinion was generally
accepted.
Both newspapers and private letters make frequent mention of the
Protector’s family. When Cromwell took up his residence at Whitehall in
April, 1654, his aged mother removed with him. But she took no pleasure
in her son’s grandeur, and it was said that she “very much mistrusted
the issue of affairs, and would be often afraid when she heard a musket
that her son was shot, being exceedingly dissatisfied unless she might
see him once a day at least.” She died in November, 1654, in her
ninety-fourth year, and a little before her death, gave her blessing to
her son, in words which show how fully she sympathised with the aims of
his life. “The Lord cause His face to shine upon you, and comfort you in
all your adversities, and enable you to do great things for the glory of
the most High God, and to be a relief unto His people. My dear son, I
leave my heart with thee: good night.”
Of the Protector’s wife, “her Highness the Protectress” as she was
officially styled, little mention is ever made. There is no doubt some
foundation for the account of her methodical and economical management
of the Protector’s household, which is contained in a contemporary
pamphlet, but the main object of the pamphleteer was to sneer at her
“sordid frugality” and unfitness for the station in which fortune had
placed her. Mrs. Hutchinson, while owning that Cromwell “had much
natural greatness and well became the place he had usurped,” describes
his wife and children “as setting up for principality,” which suited
them no better than fine clothes do an ape. The Protector’s daughters
according to her were “insolent fools,” with one exception. The
exception was Bridget, the eldest, who after the death of her first
husband, Ireton, became the wife of Lieutenant-General Fleetwood. She
alone “was humbled and not exalted with these things.”
Elizabeth Claypole, the Protector’s second and favourite daughter, was
in her father’s opinion in danger “of being cozened with worldly
vanities and worldly company,” while some of the sharp sayings
attributed to her account for Mrs. Hutchinson’s severe judgment. On the
other hand we have the evidence of James Harrington, the author of
_Oceana_, that “she acted the part of a princess very naturally,
obliging all persons with her civility, and frequently interceding for
the unhappy.” Harrington owed to her the restoration of the confiscated
manuscript of _Oceana_, and she often interceded with her father on
behalf of imprisoned Royalists. Perhaps it was owing to this that, when
the bodies of the Protector and Admiral Blake and many other great
Parliamentarians were exhumed from their graves in Westminster Abbey,
hers was left undisturbed, and lies there still.
Mary, the third daughter, who was born in 1637, married Thomas Belasyse,
Lord Fauconberg, in November, 1657, while Frances, the youngest, became
in the same month the wife of Robert Rich, grandson of the Earl of
Warwick.
Both weddings were celebrated by festivities which scandalised some
Puritans. The wedding feast of Frances was kept at Whitehall, “when,”
says a news-letter, “they had forty-eight violins and much mirth with
frolics, besides mixt dancing, (a thing heretofore accounted profane)
till five of the clock yesterday morning.” That of Mary Cromwell was at
Hampton Court, and songs for the occasion were composed by Andrew
Marvell, in which the bride was introduced as Cynthia, Fauconberg as
Endymion, and the Protector himself as Jove.
Both these two ladies lived to see the Revolution, Mary dying in 1712,
and Frances in 1721. Lady Fauconberg was childless, and Mrs. Claypole’s
children died unmarried. But after the death of Robert Rich, Frances
Cromwell married Sir John Russell of Chippenham, and from her or her
sister Bridget many existing families can trace their descent.
[Illustration:
RICHARD CROMWELL.
(_From a drawing by W. Bond._)
]
The Protector’s sons fare little better at Mrs. Hutchinson’s hands than
his daughters. According to her, Henry Cromwell and his brother-in-law
Claypole were “two debauched, ungodly cavaliers,” while Richard though
“gentle and virtuous” was yet a “peasant in his nature” and “became not
greatness.” Richard’s education had not fitted him for greatness.
Cromwell, until his second Protectorate at least, never contemplated
being succeeded in power by one of his sons. He objected on principle to
hereditary governments, and declared, in 1655, that if Parliament had
offered to make the Government hereditary in his family he would have
rejected it. Rulers should be chosen for their love to God, to truth,
and to justice, not for their birth. “For as it is in the
_Ecclesiastes_, who knoweth whether he may beget a fool or a wise man?”
Cromwell therefore made at first no attempt to advance either of his
sons. For six or seven years after his marriage, Richard lived on his
property in Hampshire, devoting himself to hunting and other amusements.
His father’s complaints show that he was idle, ran into debt, neglected
the management of his estate, and made “pleasure the business of his
life.” In November, 1655, however, the Protector appointed him one of
the Council of Trade, in order, no doubt, to give him some training in
public business. In 1657, after the Protector’s second installation, a
further change took place. Richard was suddenly brought to the front; he
succeeded his father as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, was made
a member of the Protector’s council, and was given the command of a
regiment of horse. When he travelled about the country, he was received
by the local authorities as if he were the destined heir of his father’s
authority. It was a poor training for a future ruler, and, after he
became Protector, Richard was heard to complain that “he had thought to
have lived as a country gentleman, and that his father had not employed
him in such a way as to prepare him for such employment; which he
thought he did designedly.” Yet though Richard showed no political
ability during his brief reign, he was far from being the country clown
which royalist satires represented him. In his public appearances he
displayed a dignity of bearing which surprised even his friends, and an
oratorical power which they had never suspected. After the Restoration,
the debts which he had contracted as Protector, and the jealous
suspicion with which the Government of Charles II. always regarded him,
obliged him to live many years in exile. “I have been alone thirty
years,” he wrote to his daughter in 1690, “banished and under silence,
and my strength and safety is to be retired, quiet, and silent.” After
his return to England, which took place about 1680, he thought it safer
to adopt a feigned name, and lived in complete retirement. He died in
1712, leaving three daughters, and his eldest son, who died in 1705,
left no issue.
Henry Cromwell, though a man of much greater natural capacity than his
brother, was also for a time kept back by his father. From 1650 to about
1653, he was colonel of a regiment of horse in Ireland, and was reputed
to be a good officer. In August, 1654, the Protector’s council nominated
him to command the forces in Ireland, but the Protector was reluctant to
allow his son to take the post, and kept him a year longer in England.
“The Lord knows,” wrote Cromwell to Fleetwood, “my desire was for him
and his brother to have lived private lives in the country; and Harry
knows this well, and how difficultly I was persuaded to give him his
commission.” As Commander-in-chief and a member of the Irish council
Henry proved his ability, and in November, 1657, he succeeded his
brother-in-law, Fleetwood, as Lord Deputy of Ireland.
His task, like his father’s task in England, was to establish civil
government in place of military rule, and to unite all Protestant sects
in support of the Protectorate. He had many difficulties to contend
with, both political and financial; the Anabaptists and a faction
amongst the officers gave continual trouble. The land settlement was but
half completed, prosperity was slow to return, and order hard to
re-establish. Yet he was more successful than could have been expected,
and with the majority of the Protestant colony in Ireland he gained
great popularity. Rigid Puritans held that his way of living and his
ostentation in dress savoured too much of the world, but in other
respects his conduct was blameless. His chief defect was an infirmity of
temper. He was very sensitive to criticism and very impatient of
opposition; insomuch that his father warned him against making it a
business to be too hard for his opponents.
It is sometimes said that if the Protector had made Henry his successor
instead of Richard, the Protectorate might have lasted. But the choice
of Cromwell was dictated by the circumstances in which he was placed.
Among his councillors and generals there was no man whom the rest would
willingly have accepted as their ruler, and of his sons Richard was far
more acceptable to the chief supporters of the Protectorate than his
abler and more masterful brother would have been. The military cabal
which overthrew Richard would have proved too strong for Henry, to whom,
moreover, some of its leaders were personally hostile.
A month after the fall of his brother, Henry Cromwell resigned the
government of Ireland, and rejecting all the overtures of the Royalists,
acquiesced in the re-establishment of the Republic. He declared that he
had formerly had an honourable opinion of the Republic, but was
satisfied also of the lawfulness of the “late government under a single
person.”
“And whereas my father (whom I hope you yet look upon as no
inconsiderable instrument of these nations’ freedom and happiness),
and since him my brother, were constituted chief in those
administrations, and the returning to another form hath been looked
upon as an indignity to these my nearest relations, I cannot but
acknowledge my own weakness to the sudden digesting thereof, and my
own unfitness to serve you.... And as I cannot promote anything
which infers the diminution of my late father’s honour and merit, so
I thank the Lord, for that He hath kept me safe in the great
temptation, wherewith I have been assaulted to withdraw my affection
from that cause wherein he lived and died.”
At the Restoration, Henry, thanks to his friends amongst the Royalists,
and to the moderation with which he had used his power, was not
molested, though he lost a portion of his estates by the change. He
lived in retirement on his property in Cambridgeshire, dying there in
1674. Henry’s great-grandson, Oliver Cromwell of Cheshunt, who died in
1821, was the last descendant of the Protector in the male line.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
HENRY CROMWELL.
(_From a drawing by W. Bond._)
]
[Illustration]