After the battle of Marston, Cromwell, returning from the pursuit of a
party of the royalists, purposed to stop at Ripley; and, having an
officer in his troop, a relation of Sir William Ingilby's, that
gentleman was sent to announce his arrival. The officer was informed, by
the porter at the gate, that Sir William was absent, but that he might
send any message he pleased to his lady. Having sent in his name, and
obtained an audience, he was answered by the lady, that no such person
should be admitted there; adding, she had force sufficient to defend
herself and that house against all rebels. The officer, on his part,
represented the extreme folly of making any resistance, and that the
safest way would be to admit the general peaceably. After much
persuasion, the lady took the advice of her kinsman, and received
Cromwell at the gate of the lodge, with a pair of pistols stuck in her
apron-strings, and having told him she expected that neither he nor his
soldiers would behave improperly, led the way to the hall, where,
sitting each on a sofa, these two extraordinary personages, equally
jealous of each other's intentions, passed the whole night. At his
departure in the morning the lady observed, "It was well he had behaved
in so peaceable a manner; for that, had it been otherwise, he would not
have left that house with his life."