CROMWELL, OLIVER (1742?–1821), biographer, born in or about 1742, was the son of Thomas Cromwell of Bridgewater Square, London, by his second wife Mary, daughter of Nicholas Skinner, merchant, of London. From the pedigree in Clutterbuck’s ‘Hertfordshire’ (ii. 95–8) it will be seen that he was lineally descended from the Protector, being the great-grandson of Henry Cromwell [q. v.], lord-deputy of Ireland and M.P. for Cambridge, fourth son of the Protector. For many years he practised as a solicitor in Essex Street, Strand, and was also clerk to St. Thomas’s Hospital. By the wills of his cousins, Elizabeth, Anne, and Letitia, daughters of Richard Cromwell, he became possessed of the manor of Theobalds and estate of Cheshunt Park, Hertfordshire. At the last-named place he built a house in 1795, and died there on 31 May 1821, aged 79 (Gent. Mag. vol. xci. pt. i. pp. 569–70). By his marriage on 8 Aug. 1771 to Mary, daughter of Morgan Morse, solicitor, he had issue a son, Oliver, who died in infancy, and a daughter, Elizabeth Oliveria, married on 18 June 1801 to Thomas Artemidorus Russell of Cheshunt, who succeeded to the estates. The year before his death Cromwell brought out in handsome quarto ‘Memoirs of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, and of his sons, Richard and Henry’ (third edition, 2 vols. 8vo, 1823), condemned by Carlyle as ‘an incorrect, dull, insignificant book’ (Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches, 2nd edit. ii. 161 n.)
[Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, i. 232–3; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, ii. 99, 105; Cussans’s Hertfordshire, Hundred of Hertford, pp. 214, 235; Palmer’s Perlustration of Great Yarmouth, iii. 286–7.]
CROMWELL, RICHARD (1626–1712), Lord Protector, third son of Oliver Cromwell [q. v.] and Elizabeth Bourchier, was born on 4 Oct. 1626 (Noble, i. 158). He is said to have been educated at Felstead school, like his eldest brother Robert (ib. i. 158), and probably entered the parliamentary army as his brothers Oliver and Henry did. Lilburn, writing in 1647, states that both Cromwell’s sons then held commissions in the army, and only Richard and Henry then survived (Cromwelliana, p 36). On 27 May 1647 Richard Cromwell was admitted a member of Lincoln’s Inn (Noble, i. 159). In February 1648, through the good offices of Colonel Richard Norton, negotiations were commenced for the marriage of Richard Cromwell with Dorothy, daughter of Richard Mayor, or Major, of Hursley in Hampshire. The treaty was broken off on the question of settlements, but resumed again in February 1649, and ended in Richard’s marriage to Dorothy Mayor on 1 May 1649 (Carlyle, Letters liii. lvi. lxxxvii. xcvi.) The character of Richard Cromwell at this period may be gathered from his father’s letters. Cromwell suspected his son of idleness and lack of the seriousness which the times required (ib. xcix. ci.) He urged Mr. Mayor to give his son-in-law plenty of good advice. ‘I would have him mind and understand business, read a little history, study the mathematics, and cosmography; these are good with subordination to the things of God; better than idleness or mere worldly contents; these fit for public services for which a man is born’ (ib. c.) In a subsequent letter to Richard himself his father urged him to 'take heed of an inactive, vain spirit, read Sir Walter Raleigh's history of the world, and endeavour to learn how to manage his own estate' (ib. cxxxii.) But Richard did not follow these counsels; he exceeded his allowance and fell into debt, neglected the management of his estate, and allowed himself to be defrauded by his bailiff (ib. clxxviii.) During the early part of tlie protectorate he appears to have devoted himself entirely to hunting and field sports. In the parliaments of 1654 and 1656 Richard was in each case returned for two constituencies, but decided to sit in the former for Hampshire, in the latter for Cambridge (Return of Names of Members elected to serve in Parliament, 1878, pp. 501, 505). On 11 Nov. 1665 the Protector appointed Richard one of the committee of trade and navigation; this was his first public employment. The Protector at first seems to have kept back his sons; his desire was, he wrote, that they should both have lived pri-
