Seventh's Chapel, in Westminster Abbey; and his funeral was afterwards celebrated with more than regal pomp, and at a vast expense. His ashes, however, were not permitted to mingle with the dust of sovereigns; for after the Restoration, to the everlasting disgrace of all concerned, his mouldering corse was taken up, and being inhumanly dragged to Tyburn, was there exposed upon a the gallows, together with the bodies of Ireton and Bradshaw, whose graves had also been sacrilegiously violated. The deep malignancy of those who could thus descend to feed their resentnient upon dead carcases, was coloured by a vote of both Houses of Parliament, passed December the eighth, 1060, and which ordered the bodies to be taken up and exposed! The remains of many others of the republicans were afterwards torn from their silent tombs, and the barbarous practice was only discontinued through the strong expression of discontent which burst spontaneously from the people. After the bodies of the Protector and his friends had hung one entire day, they were taken down, and the heads being cut off, were set upon poles on the top of Westminster Hall, where that of Cromwell remained full twenty years afterwards the trunks were thrown into a hole under the gallows. The character of Cromwell has been variously represented; and in proportion as the different writers have favored Monarchy or Democracy, so as it been drawn, without sufficient attention having been given to the causes which governed his conduct in the respective scenes of his eventful life, The latest attempt to do justice to his memory, comes from the pen of the English Demosthenes, who, in the Introductory Chapter' to his History of the early * Noble's Crom. Vol. I. p. 20. The Proofs and Illustrations to this work, contain various curious particulars relating to the disposal of Oliver's body.' Dr. Cromwell Mortimer, Secretary to the Royal Society," saw the original receipt of the mason employed in opening the vaults of Cromwell, &c. which run thus, May the 4th day, 1661, rec. then in full, of the worshipful sargeant Norfolke, fiveteen shillings, for taking up the corpes of Cromeil, and Ireton, and Brasaw, rec. by mee John Lewis." Ibid. early Part of the Reign of James the Second,' has thus closed his brief review of the era of the Commonwealth. "With the life of the Protector almost immediately ended the government which he had established. The great talents of this extraordinary person had supported, during his life, a system condemned equally by reason and by prejudice: by reason, as wanting freedom; and by prejudice,, as a usurpation and it must be confessed to be no mean testimony of his genius, that, notwithstanding the radical defects of such a system, the splendour of his character and exploits, render the era of the Protectorship one of the most brilliant in English History. It is true, his conduct in foreign concerns, is set off to advantage, by a comparison of it with that of those who preceded, and who followed him. If he made a mistake in espousing the French interest instead of the Spanish, we should recollect, that, in examining this question, we must divest our minds entirely of all the considerations which the subsequent relative state of those two empires suggest to us, be fore we can become impartial judges of it; and at any rate, we must allow his reign, in regard to European concerns, to have been most glorious, when contrasted with the pusillanimity of James the First, with the levity of Charles the First, and the mercenary meanness of the two last Princes of the House of Stuart. Upou the whole, the character of Cromwell must ever stand high in the list of those who raised themselves to supreme power by the force of their genius; and among such, even in respect of moral virtue, it would be found to be one of the least exceptionable, if it had not been tainted with that most odious and degrading of all human vices, hypocrisy." Welwood, who has traced the features of the Protector with greater individuality, has these passages. After "Cromwell assumed the supreme power, he became more formidable, both at home and abroad, than most Princes that had ever sat upon the English Throne; and it was said that Cardinal Mazarine would change countenance whenever he heard him named, so that it passed into a proverb in France, that he was not so much afraid of the Devil as of Oliver Cromwell. He had a manly, stern look, and was of an active, healthful constitution, able to endure the greatest toil and fatigue. Though brave in his person, yet he was wary in his conduct; for, from the time he was first declared Protector, he always wore a coat of mail under his clothes. His conversation among his friends was very diverting and familiar; but in public reserved and grave. He was sparing in his diet; though he would sometimes drink freely, yet never to excess. He was moderate in all other pleasures; and for what was visible, free from immoralities, especially after he came to make a figure in the world. He writ a tolerable good hand, and a stile becoming a gentleman; except when he had a mind to wheedle, under the mask of religion, which he knew nicely how to do when his affairs required it. He affected, for the most part, a plainness in his clothes; but in them, as well as in his guards and attendance, he appeared with magnificence upon public occasions. No man was ever better served, nor took more pains to be so. As he was severe to his enemies, so was he beneficent and kind to his friends: and if he came to hear of a man fit for his purpose, though never so obscure, he sent for him, and employed him, suiting the employment to the person, and not the person to the employment: and upon this maxim in his government, depended in a great measure his success. His good fortune accompanied him to the last; he died in peace, and in the arms of his friends, and was buried among the Kings with a Royal pomp; and his death was condoled by the greatest Princes and states in Christendom, in solemn embassies to bis son."* Cromwell married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier, Knt. of Felsted in Essex; and by her he had five sons, and four daughters, most of whom were born in this town. He is also thought to have had two or more natural children; aud General Memoirs, p. 108-10 and 118. The house in which Cromwell was born, stood near the north end of Huntingdon, and its site is now occupied by a respectable brick Mansion, inhabited by the Master of Cromwell House Academy. Some parts of the old walls are incorporated with those of the present dwelling; and the situation of the chamber that was the scene of Oliver's birth, is still pointed out. ༔ neral Tollemache, and Dr. Millington, have been both named as his sons. His mistresses are presumed to have been the Lady Dysart, afterwards Duchess of Lauderdale, and Mrs. Lambert.* Robert, the first, and James, the fifth, born, of Oliver's legitimate sons, died young: Oliver, his second son, was a captain in Colonel Harrison's regiment, and was killed in attempting to repulse the Scotch army that invaded England under the Duke of Hamilton in July, 1648.' RICHARD, who succeeded him in the Protectorate, was born at Huntingdon on the fourth of October, 1626. He was intended for the bar, and was admitted into the society of Lincoln's Inn, in May, 1617; but the pursuit of pleasure had more attractions in his estimation than the study of law; and “what is still more observable," says Mr. Noble, is, “that when his father was fighting the battles of the Parliament, he was the companion of the most loyal cavaliers, and frequently drank health and success to the arms of the Sovereign whom his father was dethroning."+ He does not appear to have been anywise concerned in public affairs till after Oliver was declared Protector; yet, when the latter resigned the Chancellorship of Oxford, in July 1657, the University chose him to fill the vacant office; and, still further to pay their court to the ruling authority, created him a Master of Arts in a special convocation. On the death of his father, who, when on his dying bed, is said to have given some indistinct intimation of his desire that Richard should become his successor, he was raised to the Protectorship; but the goodhumoured weakness of his character proving very inadequate to the difficulties of his station, he was compelled, within eight months, to resign the sceptre to the grasp of the republican Long Parliament. That decision of mind which Oliver possessed was to him unknown; and Father Orleans says, he remained in the Palace at Whitehall after his abdication, like a statue that makes an unbe coming Noble's Crom. Vol. I p. 127, note. + Noble's Crom. Vol. I. p. 159. coming ornament.'* He had run into a vast expense in celebrating his father's funeral, and his debts were otherwise considerable; so that he now began to be in great apprehension of arrest, as the promise of the Parliament to satisfy his creditors' demands was never fulfilled. It was more from this cause that he retired to the Continent, according to Lord Clarendon, than for fear of the King, "who thought it not necessary to inquire after a man so long forgotten." He continued in exile till the year 1680, living mostly at Paris" in mean lodgings, in an obscure part of the city, and with only one servant to attend upon him. After his return to England in the above year, he principally resided at Cheshunt, in Hertfordshire, where he went by the name of Clark, and where he died on the twelfth of July, 1712, at the great age of eighty-six: he was buried at Hursley, in Glocestershire.+ HENRY, the fourth son of Oliver, was born at Huntingdon on the twentieth of January, 1627-8; and, on his removal from Felsted School, in Essex, at the age of sixteen, was placed by his father in the army, and when scarcely twenty years old, was made Captain of General Fairfax's Life-guard. In 1649, being then a Colonel, he accompanied Cromwell to Ireland, where he was engaged in different actions; and in 1653 he was appointed one of the Members to represent that kingdom in Parliament. In 1655 he was again sent to Ireland, in the ostensible situation of Major General, but with a secret commission to watch over the actions of the more determined republicans, from whom Cromwell expected opposition. For some time he used great caution to cover the real design of his appointment; but when it was found not longer possible to controul, by private measures, the unyielding spirits of his father's political enemies, he produced a commission as Lord Deputy of Ireland, and Commander in Chief of the Army, bearing date November the twenty-fifth, 1657. His conduct during the time that he enjoyed his new dignity, though a most stormy VOL. VII. JUNE, 1808. Gg* period, Hist. of the Revolutions in Eng. p. 190. Echard's Trans. + See under Hursley, Vol. VI. p. 114; and Vol. VII. p. 234,-5, for several curious anecdotes of the Protector Richard. |