For my very worthy friend, Richard Mayor, Esq.: These.
London, 12th 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.