confiscated manuscript of 'Oceana' (Works, ed. Toland, xix.) According to Ludlow and Heath she interceded for the life of Dr. Hewit, but her own letter on the discovery of the plot in which he had been engaged throws a doubt on this story (Thurloe, vii. 171). Still she is said to have habitually interceded with her father for political offenders. 'How many of the royalist prisoners got she not freed? How many did not she save from death whom the laws had condemned?' (S. Carrington, Life and Death of his most Serene Highness Oliver, &c. 1659, p. 264). She was taken ill in June 1658, and her sickness was aggravated by the death of her youngest son, Oliver (Thurloe, vii. 177). The nature of her disease is variously stated: 'The truth is,' writes Fleetwood, 'it's believed the physicians do not understand thoroughly her case' (ib. 295, 309, 320, 340; Ludlow, 231; Bates, 233). Clarendon, Heath, Bates, and other royalist writers represent her as upbraiding her father in her last moments with the blood he had shed, &c. (Rebellion). The first hint of this report occurs in a newsletter of 16 Sept., where it is said that the Lady Claypoole 'did on her deathbed beseech his highness to take away the high court of justice' (Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. 143). She died on 6 Aug. 1658, and the 'Mercurius Politicus' in announcing her death describes her as 'a lady of an excellent spirit and judgment, and of a most noble disposition, eminent in all princely qualities conjoined with sincere resentments of true religion and piety.' She was buried on 10 Aug. in Henry VII's chapel in Westminster Abbey (Mercurius Politicus, 6 and 10 Aug.) After the Restoration her body was exhumed and cast with others into a pit at the back door of the prebendary's lodgings (12 Sept. 1661; Kennet, Register).
Of her children (three sons and one daughter) Cromwell died in May 1678 unmarried, Henry is said to have predeceased his brother, Oliver died in June 1658, and Martha in January 1664. None left issue.
[Noble's House of Cromwell; Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Cromwell; Ludlow's Memoirs, 1751; Clarendon State Papers; Thurloe Papers.]
CLAYPOOLE or CLAYPOLE, JOHN (d. 1688), Cromwell's son-in-law, was the son of John Claypoole of Norborough, Northamptonshire. John Claypoole, senior, was one of those who refused to pay ship-money, and was created a baronet by the Protector on 16 July 1657 (Noble, ii. 374). The date of the birth of John Claypoole the younger and the date of his marriage with Elizabeth Cromwell [see Claypoole, Elizabeth] are both uncertain; the former probably took place in 1623, the latter some time before October 1646 (Carlyle, Cromwell, Letter xli.) According to Heath, Claypoole first appeared in arms for the parliament at the siege of Newark in the winter of 1645-6 (Chronicle, 185). On 11 Aug. 1651 he received a commission from the council of state to raise a troop of horse to oppose the march of Charles II into England (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1651, 516). After the expulsion of the Long parliament he became more prominent. He was appointed by the Protector one of the lords of his bedchamber, master of the horse, and ranger of Whittlewood Forest. He took a leading part in the public ceremonials of the protectorate, such as the reception of the Dutch ambassadors in 1654, the two solemn investitures of his father-in-law as Protector, and the installation of Richard Cromwell on 27 Jan. 1659 (Cromwelliana). On 15 Jan. 1656 he was appointed a member of the committee of trade, and sat in the parliaments of 1654 and 1656, in the former for Carmarthen county, in the latter for Northampton county. He was also one of Cromwell's House of Lords (1657). In the parliament of 1656 he endeavoured to moderate the wrath of the house against James Naylor (Burton, Diary, i. 77), but distinguished himself most by his opposition to the legalisation of the authority exercised by the major-generals (7 Jan. 1657; Burton, i. 310). 'The sycophants of the court, being fully persuaded that Claypoole had delivered the sense if not the very words of Cromwell in this matter, joined as one man in opposing the major-generals, and so their authority was abrogated' (Ludlow, Memoirs, 222). Claypoole also was, according to Lilly, the intermediary by whom Cromwell sought his advice (Life, 175). In character there was nothing of the puritan about Claypoole. Mrs. Hutchinson terms him 'a debauched ungodly cavalier,' and in the 'Second Narrative of the late Parliament' he is described as one 'whose qualifications not answering to those honest principles formerly so pretended of putting none but godly men into places of trust, was for a long time kept out' (Harleian Miscellany, I iii. 480). Pepys mentions a famous running footman who had been in Claypoole's service (Diary, 10 Aug. 1660), and we find him begging from Colonel Verney a dog of superior fighting capacity (Hist. MSS. Comm. 7th Rep. 460). A letter from Claypoole to Henry Cromwell, expressing his feelings on the loss of his wife and his father-in-law, is printed in the 'Thurloe State Papers' (vii. 489). At the Restoration he escaped scot-free, and till
