The last representative of the Protector was Oliver Cromwell, great-grandson of Henry Cromwell. He practised as a solicitor in London, and died at Cheshunt-park in 1821.—P. E. D.
CROMWELL, Richard, third son of Oliver the Protector, and the eldest who survived him, was born at Huntingdon on the 4th October, 1626. With his brothers Oliver and Henry, he was educated at Felsted in Essex, and afterwards removed to Lincoln's Inn, where he was admitted in 1647. He took no part in the military enterprises of his father, but seems to have been of an indolent and thoughtless disposition, that led him to prefer his own ease to the more onerous affairs of state. At the age of twenty-three he married Dorothy, daughter of Richard Major of Hursley in Hampshire, retired to Hursley, and lived in comparative obscurity. On the establishment of the protectorate, he became member for Monmouth and Southampton, and was appointed first lord of trade and navigation. In 1656 he was returned for Hampshire and the university of Cambridge, and in 1657 succeeded his father as chancellor of the university of Oxford. About this period he nearly lost his life by an accident, while attending the levee of the Protector. The steps upon which he was standing gave way, and Richard was precipitated to the ground with such violence as to cause him serious injury. He recovered, however, and was made a privy councillor, a colonel in the army, and president of Oliver's shortlived house of lords. In August, 1658, he was summoned to the sickbed of the Protector, and on the 3rd September the Protector was no more. The next day Richard Cromwell was proclaimed Lord Protector. He received compliments of condolence and congratulation from the ministers of foreign states, from the army and navy, from one hundred congregations and churches, and from counties, cities, and boroughs, with promises of adhering to his highness with their lives and fortunes against all opposers. For a few months the affairs of state went on with tolerable regularity. In January, 1659, Richard met his parliament, and made a speech to both houses. A financial investigation followed, and it was found that the treasury would not support the expenditure. The parliament was divided; some were protectorists, some republicans, and some probably may have had thoughts of Charles II. The country was again falling into confusion, and Richard had no governing faculty to control the approaching anarchy. The republican officers, headed by Fleetwood and Desborough, formed themselves into an opposition party known as the Wallingford-house cabal, and demanded the dissolution of parliament. With this demand Richard complied, and on the 22nd April, 1659, parliament was dissolved by proclamation, and Richard's authority virtually ceased. The members of the Long Parliament were called together by invitation of the officers, and to this parliament Richard, on the 25th May, made his submission; provision being made nominally for the payment of his debts and his removal from Whitehall. A large portion of the debt incurred for the funeral ceremonies of Oliver had descended to Richard, and, either to escape arrest or in the hope of procuring a settlement, he withdrew to France, and remained some time in Paris. In prospect of a rupture between France and England, he retired to Geneva. About the year 1680 he returned to England, and, under the assumed name of Clark, took up his residence at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, where he lived "peaceful and forgotten to the advanced age of eighty-six, amusing himself and his friends with the memorials of the past, and exhibiting from time to time two large chests filled with the addresses and felicitations that had been presented to Oliver, portions of which he would laughingly read to his auditors." Richard died in 1712, leaving two daughters, who survived him.—P. E. D.
CROMWELL, Thomas, Earl of Essex, an eminent statesman under Henry VIII., was the son of a blacksmith at Putney, and was born there about 1490. He spent some time at Antwerp as clerk in an English factory, and afterwards went to Rome, where he increased his knowledge of the Latin language. On his return to England he entered the service of Cardinal Wolsey, whose confidence he completely secured, and on the downfall of his patron courageously defended him in the house of commons from the charge of treason. His fidelity to the fallen minister gained for Cromwell the respect of the king, who conferred on him the honour of knighthood in 1531, made him a privy councillor, and his confidential favourite and prime minister. He held in succession the offices of chancellor of the exchequer, principal secretary of state, master of the rolls, and keeper of the privy seal. He was also appointed chancellor of the university of Cambridge, visitor-general of English monasteries, and lord-chamberlain of England. Ultimately he was elevated to the peerage, and appointed vicar-general and vice-regent in religious matters next to the king. He employed his great influence to promote the cause of the Reformation, and zealously forwarded the overthrow of the papal authority, the reading of the holy scriptures, the dissolution of the monasteries, the demolition of images, and the religious instruction of the people. He also instituted parish registers, and various other social improvements. The king rewarded his zeal by the gift of some thirty monastic manors and valuable estates, and in 1539 created him Earl of Essex. The honours and wealth heaped upon him, as well as his energetic support of the principles of the Reformation, raised him up many powerful enemies. The haughty nobles despised him as a plebeian, while he rendered himself obnoxious to the common people by the subsidies which he exacted. Conscious of his danger, he sought to consolidate his power, and to strengthen his position at court by promoting the marriage of the king to Anne of Cleves; but this step ultimately proved his ruin. The disgust of Henry at his bride, soon led to his strong dissatisfaction with the promoter of the marriage. The enemies of the falling minister promptly availed themselves of the favourable opportunity afforded by the king's caprice to pour a flood of complaints into the royal ear. Cromwell was suddenly arrested and accused of treason, heresy, oppression, bribery, and extortion, without the liberty of reply. He was of course found guilty, and executed on Tower Hill, 28th July, 1540. Like his friend and fellow-reformer Cranmer, Cromwell has been both unduly eulogized and vituperated. He was not a high-minded patriot or a sincere and consistent protestant; but an ambitious statesman, often unscrupulous and rapacious in his policy. It must be admitted, however, that he had a vigorous understanding and a very retentive memory, combined with great shrewdness and knowledge of character; and though his motives may have been often of a mixed nature, he was the author of many valuable ecclesiastical and social reforms.—J. T.
CRONE, Dominico Pietro, a musician, was born at Bergamo in 1566, and died, probably at Naples, in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. His first engagement was as cantor at the cathedral of Oristano in Sardinia. Thence he proceeded to Spain in 1592, where he remained for some time without an appointment, but was at length admitted a member of the chapel of Philip II., on whose death he retained the same office under his successor, Philip III. He was next engaged as master of the royal chapel at Naples, this territory being at the time a state of Spain. Here he published, in 1609, his "Regole per il Canto Fermo," a treatise of much practical utility; and in 1613 his great work, "El Melopeo y Maestro," in twenty-two books, extending to nearly twelve hundred folio pages. This voluminous essay, written in Spanish, is a summary of all the theoretical books upon music that had preceded it, comprising, in particular, considerable avowed quotations from Zarlino; it contains a complete course of instruction in ecclesiastical composition, with elaborate examples of the most complicated forms of canonical writing; it gives a complete description of all the instruments then known in Spain; and it devotes a large space to the discussion of the moral relationship between master and pupil, and of the important social and artistic influence the former has the power to exercise, together with the general view of the state of music at the time. In appropriating so much space to the examination of such extraneous branches of the subject as these last, the author anticipates the love of disquisition that distinguishes the writings of Dr. Marx in our own day. "El Melopeo" was commenced before Crone left Bergamo, but laid aside for some years, and resumed in consequence of the writer's observation of the great requirement in Spain for a work on musical theory. This makes it strangely remarkable, that throughout its voluminous extent it contains no reference to the forms of song and dance music peculiar to that country. This book, though reprinted at Antwerp in 1619, is of extreme rarity.—G. A. M.
CROPPER, James, a philanthropist and most efficient promoter of negro emancipation, was born at Winstanley in Lancashire in 1773, of pious parents, members of the society of Friends, to which persuasion he belonged through life. He entered a mercantile house in Liverpool, at the age of seventeen years, and soon won the confidence and respect of his employers. His mercantile career was successful and marked by high integrity.
