Oliver Cromwell and the Rule of the Puritans in England

by C. H. Firth

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.

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.