PURITAN TIMES
AFTER his dispute with the haymakers, Sir Thomas Clarke sold Merdon to
William Brock, a lawyer, from whom it passed to John Arundel, and then to
Sir Nathanael Napier, whose son, Sir Gerald, parted with it again to
Richard Maijor, the son of the mayor of Southampton. This was in 1638,
and for some time the lodge at Hursley was lent to Mr. Kingswell, Mr.
Maijor’s father-in-law, who died there in 1639, after which time Mr.
Maijor took up his abode there. He seems to have been a shrewd, active
man, and a staunch Protestant, for when there was a desire to lease out
Cranbury, he, as Lord of the Manor, stipulated that it should be let only
to a Protestant of the Church of England, not to a Papist. The
neighbourhood of the Welleses at Brambridge probably moved him to make
this condition.
The person who applied for the lease was Dr. John Young, Dean of
Winchester, who purchased the copyhold of Cranbury before 1643, and
retired thither when he was expelled from his deanery and other
preferments in the evil times of the Commonwealth, and there died,
leaving his widow in possession.
Whether the lady was molested by Mr. Maijor we do not know. He was no
favourite with Richard Morley, who rented the forge in Hursley, the farm
of Ratlake and Anvyle, as Ampfield was then spelt, and thought him a
severe lord to his copyholders. Morley was born at Hursley, and was sent
to school at Baddesley in 1582, the year of the great hailstorm of the
nine-inch stones. He kept valuable memoranda, which Mr. Marsh quotes,
and died in 1672, when he is registered as:—
“Ricardus Morley Senex sepultus fuit, August 1672.” (_Senex_ indeed,
for he must have been 97.)
Of Maijor, Morley records, “He was very witty and thrifty, and got more
by oppressing his tenants than did all the lords in 60 years before him.
He was a justice of the peace, and raised a troop in the cause of the
Parliament.” It must have been in the army that Oliver Cromwell made his
acquaintance, and in 1647 began the first proposals of a “Marriage
treaty,” between Richard, Oliver’s eldest surviving son, just twenty-one
and educated for the Law, and the elder daughter of Mr. Maijor (which
Carlyle always spells as Mayor). For the time, however, this passed off;
but, apparently under the direction of Mr. Robertson, a minister of
Southampton, and Mr. Stapylton, also a minister, the treaty was resumed;
and three weeks after the King’s execution, Oliver wrote to Mr. Maijor.
For my very worthy friend, Richard Mayor, Esq.: These.
LONDON, 12_th_ _February_ 1648.
SIR—I received some intimations formerly, and by the last return from
Southampton a Letter from Mr. Robinson, concerning the reviving of
the last year’s motion, touching my Son and your Daughter. Mr.
Robinson was also pleased to send enclosed in his, a Letter from you,
bearing date the 5th of this instant, February, wherein I find your
willingness to entertain any good means for the completing of that
business.
From whence I take encouragement to send my Son to wait upon you; and
by him to let you know, that my desires are, if Providence so
dispose, very full and free to the thing,—if upon an interview, there
prove also a freedom in the young persons thereunto. What liberty
you will give herein, I wholly submit to you. I thought fit, in my
Letter to Mr. Robinson, to mention somewhat of expedition because
indeed I know not how soon I may be called into the field, or other
occasions may remove me from hence; having for the present some
liberty of stay in London. The Lord direct all to His glory.—I rest,
Sir, your very humble servant,
OLIVER CROMWELL.
Probably this was the time when the public-house of Hursley took the name
of “The King’s Head,” which it has kept to the present day. But young
Cromwell was inclined to loyalty, and when at Cambridge used to drink “to
the health of our landlord,” meaning the King! He was one-and-twenty
when, with his father’s friend Mr. Stapylton, he made a visit to Hursley,
and was received by Mr. and Mrs. Maijor with many civilities, also seeing
their two daughters, Dorothy and Anne. In a letter of 28th February,
Cromwell thanks Mr. Maijor for “The reception of my son, in the liberty
given him to wait on your worthy daughter, the report of whose virtues
and godliness has so great a place in my heart that I think fit not to
neglect anything on my part which may consummate a close of the business,
if God please to dispose the young ones’ hearts thereunto, and other
suitable ordering of affairs towards mutual satisfaction appear in the
dispensation of Providence.”
Mr. Stapylton was commissioned to act for General Cromwell in the matter
of settlements, over which there was considerable haggling, though Oliver
writes that “the report of the young lady’s godliness causeth him to deny
himself in the matter of moneys.” More correspondence ensued, as to the
settlement of Hursley upon Dorothy and her heirs male, and the
compensation to her younger sister Anne. Cromwell was anxious to hurry
on the matter so as to have it concluded before his departure to take the
command in Ireland.
The terms were finally settled, and Richard and Dorothy were married at
Hursley on May Day, 1649, before Cromwell’s departure to crush the
ill-arranged risings in Ireland. Her sister Anne shortly after married
John Dunch of Baddesley, with £1000 as her portion. Morley of Baddesley
chronicles the marriage in no friendly tone: “When” (says he) “King
Charles was put to death, and Oliver Cromwell Protector of England, and
Richard Maijor of his privy council, and Noll his eldest son Richard
married to Mr. Maijor’s daughter Doll, then Mr. Maijor did usurp
authority over his tenants at Hursley.” In another place he says that
“he” (_i.e._ Mr. Maijor) “set forth horse and man for the Parliament, and
was a captain and justice of peace. Lord Richard Cromwell was also a
justice of peace, and John Dunch a captain and justice. These all lived
at Lodge together in Oliver’s reign; so we had justice right or wrong by
power; for if we did offend, they had power to send us a thousand miles
off, and that they have told us.”
Richard, having no turn for politics or warfare, preferred to live a
quiet life with his father-in-law, in the lodge. There were two walnut
avenues planted about this time, leading to the lodge from the churchyard
on one side, and on the other towards Baddesley; and the foundations of
the house can still be traced on the lawn to which both lead.
Oliver writes in the summer after the marriage that he is glad the young
people have leisure to make a journey to eat cherries. There is little
doubt but that this must have been to the gardens in Ram-Alley near
Chandler’s Ford, originally Chaloner’s Ford, where numerous trees,
bearing quantities of little black cherries called merries, used to grow,
and where parties used to go as a Sunday diversion, and eat, before the
days of the station and the building.
The elder Mrs. Cromwell paid a visit to Hursley after parting with the
Protector on his voyage to Ireland; but he never seems to have gone
thither in person, though he wrote kindly paternal letters to his son and
daughter. He wishes Richard to study mathematics and cosmography, and
read history, especially Sir Walter Raleigh’s. “It is a Body of history,
and will add much more to your understanding than fragments of story.”
And to Dorothy, he gives advice on her health and religious habits.
John Hardy had been Vicar of Hursley but was expelled, and Mr. Maijor, as
patron of the living, provided persons for the ministry and kept a close
account of their expenses, which is still preserved. Seven different
ministers in the half year after Christmas 1645 were remunerated “for
travell and pains in preaching,” after which time Mr. Richard Webb
settled for a time at Hursley, and Mr. Daniel Lloyd at Otterbourne,
though several more changes took place.
A parish register at Hursley, 1653, recording births (not baptisms),
mentions the opening of a chalk-pit at Hatchgate in 1655, and at
Otterbourne. The children of William Downe of Otterbourne Farm are
distinguished by double black lines below their names.
Oliver Cromwell, according to an old village tradition, sunk his treasure
at the bottom of Merdon Well, in an iron chest which must have been
enchanted, for, on an endeavour to draw it up, no one was to speak. One
workman unfortunately said, “Here it comes,” when it immediately sank to
the bottom and (this is quite certain) never was seen! The well was
cleaned out in later times, and nothing was found but a pair of curious
pattens, cut away to receive a high-heeled shoe, also a mazer-bowl, an
iron flesh-hook and small cooking-pot, and a multitude of pins, thrown in
to make the curious reverberating sound when, after several seconds, they
reached the water. A couple of ducks are said to have been thrown down,
and to have emerged at Pool hole at Otterbourne with their feathers
scraped off.
On 3rd September 1658, the family party at Hursley was broken up by the
unexpected death of the Protector. He was not yet sixty years of age,
and had not contemplated being cut off before affairs were more settled;
and when, in his last moments, he was harassed with enquiries as to his
successor, he answered, “You will find my will in _such_ a drawer of my
cabinet.” Some of his counsellors thought he named his son Richard; and
no one ever found the drawer with the will in it, in which it was thought
that his son-in-law Fleetwood, a much abler man, was named.
At any rate, Richard was accepted in his father’s place by Parliament and
army, and went to much expense for the Protector’s funeral. It must have
been a great misfortune to him that his shrewd father-in-law, the witty
and thrifty Mr. Maijor, was sinking under a complication of incurable
diseases, of which Morley speaks somewhat unkindly, and he died in the
end of April 1660.
Richard had never been a strong partisan of the Commonwealth, though he
had quietly submitted to whatever was required of him. He had been
member of Parliament for the county of Hants, and had been placed at the
head of the list of his father’s attempt at a House of Lords, and he
allowed greatness to be thrust on him in a quiet acquiescent way. He
dismissed the fictitious parliament that his father had summoned, and
then offended the strict and godly of the army by promoting soldiers of
whom they disapproved. “Here is Dick Ingoldsby,” he said; “he can
neither pray nor preach, and yet I trust him before you all.”
No one had any real enthusiasm for the harmless, helpless man, “the
phantom king of half a year”; and it was just as old Mr. Maijor was dying
that Richard was requested by the “Rump” to resign, and return to Hampton
Court, with the promise of a pension and of payment of the debts incurred
by his father. While packing for his departure, he sat down on a box
containing all the complimentary addresses made to him, and said,
“Between my legs lie the lives and fortunes of all the good folk in
England!” He then returned to Hursley, where he found himself pursued by
those debts of his father which the Long Parliament had engaged to pay,
and which swallowed up more than his patrimony, though the manor of
Merdon, having been settled upon his wife, could not be touched. He was
sufficiently alarmed, however, to make him retreat to the continent and
change his name to Clarke.
In 1675 Mrs. Richard Cromwell died, leaving out of a numerous family only
one son and two daughters. The son, Oliver, inherited the estates, and
seems to have been on good terms with his father, who, in 1700, came to
live at Cheshunt under his name of Clarke, and made some visits to
Hursley. Richard married under this assumed name, and left some
children.
When Oliver died without heirs in 1706, his father Richard, according to
the original settlement, succeeded to the property, but his two daughters
set up their claim, and the case was brought into court. It is said that
the judge was Cowper, but this has been denied. At any rate the judge
seems to have been shocked at the undutiful litigation, and treated the
old man with much respect.
The case was decided in his favour, and he lived between Hursley and
Cheshunt till his death in 1712 in his 86th year.
As Mr. Palgrave writes:—
Him count we wise,
Him also, though the chorus of the throng
Be silent, though no pillar rise
In slavish adulation of the strong,
But here, from blame of tongues and fame aloof,
’Neath a low chancel roof,
The peace of God
He sleeps; unconscious hero! Lowly grave
By village footsteps daily trod;
Unconscious! or while silence holds the nave,
And the bold robin comes, when day is dim,
And pipes his heedless hymn.
[Picture: Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector]
These are a poet’s meditations on him, more graceful than the inscription
on the monument erected to him by his two undutiful daughters, ere, in
1718, they sold the estate. It was a large tablet of marble, surmounted
by death’s heads. It is of gray or veined marble, in the Doric style of
architecture, and is in height thirteen feet, and in breadth nearly nine.
The inscription upon it is as follows:—
This Monument was erected to the memory of Mrs. Eliz. Cromwell,
spinster (by Mr. Richard Cromwell and Thomas Cromwell, her
executors). She died the 8th day of April 1731, in the 82d yeare of
her age, and lyes interred near this place; she was the daughter of
Richard Cromwell, Esq., by Dorothy, his wife, who was the daughter of
Richard Maijor, Esq. And the following account of her family (all of
whom, except Mrs. Ann Gibson, lie in this chancel) is given according
to her desire.
Mrs. Ann Gibson, the 6th daughter, died 7th Dec. 1727, in the 69th
year of her age, and lies interred, with Dr. Thomas Gibson, her
husband, Physician General of the Army, in the church-yard belonging
to St. George’s Chapel, in London.
Richard Cromwell, Esq., father of the said Eliz. Cromwell, died 12th
July 1712, in the 86th year of his age.
Oliver Cromwell, Esq., son of the said Richard Cromwell, died 11th
May 1705, in the 49th year of his age.
Mrs. Dorothy Mortimer, a seventh daughter, wife of John Mortimer,
Esq., died 14th May 1681, in the 21st year of her age, but left no
issue.
Mrs. Dorothy Cromwell, wife of the said Richard Cromwell, died 5th
January 1675, in the 49th year of her age.
Mrs. Ann Maijor, mother of the said Mrs. Dorothy Cromwell, died 13th
of June 1662.
Richard Maijor, Esq., husband of the said Mrs. Ann Maijor, died 25th
April 1660.
Mrs. Dorothy Cromwell, a fifth daughter, died 13th December 1658, in
the 2nd year of her age.
A fourth daughter died 27th May 1655, in the 1st year of her age.
Mrs. Mary Cromwell, a third daughter, died 24th September 1654, in
the 2nd year of her age.
A son of the said Richard and Dorothy Cromwell, died 13th December
1652, in the 1st year of his age.
Mrs. Ann Cromwell, a second daughter, died 14th March 1651, in the
1st year of her age.
Mr. John Kingswell, father of the said Mrs. Ann Maijor, died 5th
March 1639.
The lime-trees, beautifully surrounding the churchyard, are said to have
been planted by Richard Cromwell, and there was certainly an excellent
fashion of planting them in the latter end of the seventeenth century,
partly due to a French custom, partly to Evelyn’s _Sylva_. The beautiful
avenue of limes at Brambridge, in three aisles, was probably planted at
this date by one of the Welles family.
In taking down the old lodge of Merdon or Hursley, a large lump of metal
was found, squeezed into a crevice of the wall, and was sold by Mr.
Heathcote as a Roman weight; but on being cleaned, it proved to be the
die of the seal of the Commonwealth. Richard had caused a new seal to be
made for himself by Simon, a noted medallist, and he had probably thus
disposed of the die as a dangerous possession. Mr. Vertue saw it in
1710, in the collection of a Mr. Roberts, but it has since disappeared.
There was a stone inscribed to Edward Reynell and Mary his wife, who died
respectively in 1698 and 1699. They are believed to have been friends of
Oliver Cromwell the grandson, who certainly named them in his will.
There was a tradition in Hursley that this Reynell was actually the
executioner of King Charles.