Whitelocke, f. 699). Early in the summer of 1660 Cromwell left England for France (Ludlow, p. 360). Jeremiah White told Pepys in 1664 ‘that Richard hath been in some straits in the beginning, but relieved by his friends. That he goes by another name, but do not disguise himself, nor deny himself to any man that challenges him’ (Diary, 19 Oct. 1664). In 1666, during the Dutch war, the English government contemplated the issue of a proclamation recalling certain English subjects resident in France, and Mrs. Cromwell endeavoured to obtain a promise from Lord Clarendon that Cromwell’s name should be left out of the proclamation, on the ground that his debts would ruin him if he were obliged to return to England. William Mumford, Mrs. Cromwell’s agent in this matter, was examined on 15 March 1666 concerning the ex-protector’s movements. He stated that Cromwell was living at Paris under the name of John Clarke, by which name he usually passed, ‘that he may keep himself unknown beyond the seas, so as to avoid all correspondency or intelligence;' that he ‘did not hold any intelligence with the fanatics, nor with the king ole France or States of Holland.' He went on to say that he had spent a winter; at Paris with Cromwell, ‘and the whole diversion of him there was drawing of landscapes and reading of books.’ His whole estate in right of his wife was but 600l. per annum, an he was not sixpence the better or richer for being the son of his father, or for being the pretended protector of England. Finally he said that he had often heard Cromwell pray in his private prayers for the king, and speak with great reverence of the king's grace and favour to himself and family in suffering them to enjoy their lives and the little fortunes they had (Waylen, p. 16; State Papers, Dom., Charles II, ch. 17). Cromwell's name was eventually omitted from the proclamation, but he thought best, by the advice of Dr. Wilkins, to avoid suspicion by removing to Spain or Italy. According to Clarendon he pitched upon Geneva, and it was on his was thither, at Pezenas, that he heard himself, characterised by the Prince de Conti as a fool and a coxcomb (Clarendon, Rebellion, xvi. 17, 18). Noble states that he returned to England about 1680 (i. 173). He lived for the remainder of his life at Cheshunt in the house of Serjeant Pengelly, still passing by the name of Clarke. In a letter to his daughter Anne, written in 1690, he writes: ‘I have been alone thirty years, banished and under silence, and my strength and safety is to be retired, quiet, and silent’ (O. Cromwell, Life of Oliver Cromwell and his sons Richard and Henry, p. 685). His wife, Dorothy Cromwell, died on 5 Jan. 1675-6, and his eldest son, Oliver, born in 1656, died in 1705. Three daughters still survived, and a dispute arose whether the interest in the Hursley estate, which Oliver had inherited from his mother, passed to his sisters as coheiresses, or to his father for life. The conduct of the daughters in pressing their claim has been represented in the darkest colours; but so far as the correspondence of Richard is preserved, and so far as other trustworthy evidence of his feelings exists, it is evident that they continued on good terms together (Waylen, p. 12; O. Cromwell, p. 684). A popular story represents the judge before whom the suit was tried rebuking the daughters for their conduct, and treating Cromwell with the respect due to a man once sovereign of England (Noble, i. 175). But accounts differ as to whether the judge was Chief-justice Holt or Lord-chancellor Cowper, and the details of the story are evidently fabulous (O. Cromwell, p. 684). Other gossip relating to the later years of Cromwell’s life is collected by Noble (House of Cromwell, i. 172-6). Dr. Watts, who was frequently in his company, says he ‘never knew him so much as glance at his former station but once, and that in a very distant manner’ (ib. p. 173). He died at Cheshunt on 12 July 1712, and was buried in the chancel of the church at Hursley, Hampshire (ib. p. 177).
The character of Richard Cromwell has met with harsh judgment, and to some extent deserved it. Dryden, in ‘Absalom and Achitophel,’ describes him as ‘the foolish Ishbosheth.’ Flatman, in his ‘Don Juan Lamberto,’ st les him ‘the meek knight,' and ‘Queen Sick’ is a favourite name for him with royalist satirists. ‘Whether Richard Cromwell was Oliver's son or no? ’ begins a popular pamphlet entitled ‘Forty-four Queries to the Life of Queen Dick’ (1659), and the contrast between father and son is the subject of many a derisive ballad (see the collection called The Rump, 1662, vol. ii.) Richard was not without some share of his father's ability, for his speeches are excellent, and both friends and adversaries admitted the dignity of his bearing on public occasions (Whitelocke, f. 675; Burton, iii. 2, 7, 11). It is often said that he would have made a good constitutional king, and a royalist remarks that the counsellors of the late protector referred the prudent temper of the son to the bold and ungovernable character of the father (Clarendon State Papers, iii. 441). What he wanted was the desire to govern, the energy to use the power chance had placed in his
