For the last 250 years a family named Cromwell—and which, in the last century, branched out considerably—has been resident in this part of Middlesex. Cromwell, the minister of Henry VIII., was born at Putney, not far out of the county; and Sir Richard Cromwell (grandfather to Oliver the Protector), signed himself in letters to the “Mauler of Monasteries” his most bounden nephew. In 1691 a Robert Cromwell lived at Kensal Green, and is probably the person of the same name who sat on the jury at the trial of Daniel Axtell. For many years a brewery at Hammersmith has been conducted by persons of this name, not improbably descendants from the Putney blacksmith.
1682, January 31st. John Cull, curate of Knightsbridge, and Martha Turner, by Mr. Yearwood.
Mr. Cull was minister here twelve years. He died in 1683, and was buried at Kensington on the 21st September.
1682, Dec. 24. Sir John Hatton and Mary Hinton.
1683, July 3rd. Heale Hooke, Baronet, and Hester Underhill by Seyward of Kensington.
Sir Hele Hooke, for many years a resident in Kensington Square, died there in July, 1712, by which the title became extinct. Mr. Seward was curate there. (See Faulkner’s “History of Kensington.”)
1685, Sept. 12. David Gunter and Eliz. West.
1686, Sept. 4. Sir Francis de Geilhausen and Flora Bishop for Feb. 6, 1685.
1687, Feb. 1. Sir Samuel Morland, Knight, and Mrs. Mary Aylif, secrecy.
This entry records the unfortunate marriage of the celebrated inventor, described by himself in such terms of misery, to the diarist Pepys. In all the biographies of Morland I have referred to, and even in Burke, his wife’s name is not given, and therefore I presume it has hitherto been unknown. The wedding was, as the register tells, private; and eighteen days after it took place, he wrote to Pepys, that, “being in very great perplexities, and almost distracted for want of moneys,” a person whom he had befriended in time of need proposed to recommend him an heiress, “who had 500l. per ann. in land, and 4,000l. in ready money,” and property of other kinds. “Believing it,” he writes, “utterly impossible,” that one whom he had assisted, “should ever be guilty of so black a deed” as to betray him in his distress, “I was, about a fortnight since, led as a fool to the stocks, and married a coachman’s daughter, not worth a shilling,” and whose moral character proved to be none of the purest. He, procuring evidence (shortly after) of adultery, took the case into the Ecclesiastical Court, which granted a divorce on that ground on May 17. [78] It was the fourth time Sir Samuel tied the matrimonial knot, and the last.