As the spring drew on he thought it was time to move. Jesse supplies us with the following notes on this event. The contemporary notices of the removal of the Protector to the stately apartments of Whitehall are not without interest:—

“April 13, 1654. This day the bed-chamber, and the rest of the lodgings and rooms appointed for the Lord Protector in Whitehall, were prepared for his Highness to remove from the Cockpit on the morrow.”—“His Highness the Lord Protector, with his lady and family, this day (April 14) dined at Whitehall, whither his Highness and family are removed, and did this night lie there, and do there continue.”—“April 15. His Highness went this day to Hampton Court, and returned again at night.”

Hampton Court and Windsor Castle had been granted to him as well as Whitehall. Poor Mrs. Cromwell, who seems to have been of a simple and unostentatious character, can hardly have relished the change. She became “Her Highness the Protectress,” and had more servants and attendants than she can have known what to do with. The exact part of the palace in which the new state apartments were placed is unknown. It was probably not where the late King lived, nor, on the other hand, can it have been far from the Banqueting House and the picture gallery. In addition to the Lord Protector and the Lady Protectress, room had to be found for their august family and for sons-in-law and children. It is not uninteresting to read this contemporary notice from the Weekly Intelligencer:—

“The Privy Lodgings for his Highness the Lord Protector in Whitehall are now in readiness, as also the lodgings for his Lady Protectress; and likewise the privy kitchen, and other kitchens, butteries and offices; and it is conceived the whole family will be settled there before Easter. The tables for diet prepared are these:—

Nothing can be more curious than to observe the change which seems to have come over the plain Huntingdonshire squire. He arrogated to himself and received all the deference previously paid to a sovereign. He allowed nothing to be omitted, and many of his contemporaries, English as well as foreign, have noticed the magnificence and stateliness of the ceremonious observances at his court. Jesse has summarised a few of these notes, and it is well worth while to quote some of his expressions. A few weeks after his elevation, we find the Protector entertained by the citizens of London with all the honours which, for centuries, they had been accustomed to pay to their sovereigns on their accession. Monsieur De Bordeaux writes to De Brienne, 23rd of February, 1654:—“On his solemn entry into the City he was received like a king: the Mayor went before him with the sword in his hand about him nothing but officers, who do not trouble themselves much as to fineness of apparel; behind him the members of the Council in State coaches, furnished by certain lords. The concourse of people was great; wheresoever Cromwell came a great silence; the greater part did not even move their hats. At the Guildhall was a great feast prepared for him, and at the table sat the Mayor, the Councillors, the Deputies of the Army, as well as Cromwell’s son and son-in-law. Towards the Foreign Ambassadors, the Protector deports himself as a king, for the power of kings is not greater than his.”

Again, De Bordeaux writes a few weeks afterwards:—“Some say he will assume the title and prerogatives of a Roman emperor. In order to strengthen his party, he deals out promises to all parties. It is here, however, as everywhere else; no government was or is right in the people’s eyes, and Cromwell, once their idol, is now the object of their blame, perhaps their hate.”

There is a record of May Day in the same year, 1654. The writer is much shocked at the licence that prevailed. There was “much sin committed by wicked meetings, with fiddlers, drunkenness, ribaldry, and the like.” Cromwell kept open house at Whitehall on Mondays. In 1657, the Speaker announced to the House of Commons that the Lord Protector invited the whole House to dinner in the Banqueting House, and he had similarly received them the year before.

Cromwell’s last illness seized him at Hampton Court. He was removed to Whitehall. There, while a tremendous tempest howled round the old walls, he breathed his last on the afternoon of the 3rd of September, 1658. The concourse of fanatical preachers which disturbed his last moments seems to have been doubled at his death, and Tillotson, the future Archbishop, describes Richard Cromwell as seated at one side of a table with six divines at the other. Cromwell’s funeral took place from Somerset House, not from Whitehall, so it does not specially concern us. Suffice it to say here, that no king or queen has ever been interred at so much cost or so magnificently.

There is little except Tillotson’s note quoted above to connect Richard Cromwell with Whitehall; but a meeting of discontented officers which he permitted at Wallingford House, over the way, precipitated his fall. It has always been asserted, apparently with truth, that Oliver’s wife had been inclined to Royalism, and that she pressed her husband to bring in the late King’s son. This did not, however, prevent her from an endeavour to secure some of the royal effects at Whitehall, when she, in her turn, received notice to quit. Early in 1660 they were taken possession of by a Commission.