CROMWELL.
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."