482
NOTES AND QUERIES, p* s. VIL JUKE 22, 1901.
was quite different. Sir George Eadcliffe,
writing to Sir Edward Nicholas on 18 tfune,
1655, tells the story thus, and neither Rad-
cliffe nor Nicholas was likely to extenuate
anything to Cromwell's disadvantage :
" In England there is great expectation what wil become of Conye's business ; it is put off till next terme, and men's eyes are attent upon it, as more concerned then at any thinge which happened these many yeares. Cromwell, when he committed Maynard and Twisden and another lawyer, tould them that if they would have Magna Carta (which they talked so much on in Westminster Hall) they must put on each a helmet and troupe for it ! And now they see what they fought for. Here is the liberty of the subject."
In reality the story was first circulated in 1659, after Cromwell's death, and it was put into circulation by the republican opponents of the late Protector. It appears in a news- paper called the Weekly Post for 25 October to 1 November, 1659 :
"These too much oppressed nations have spent
some millions of treasure and tuns of blood, in assert- ing the just rights and priyiledges of the people, and yet for many years have bin deprived and estranged from them, merely by arbitrary power, jugglings and tyrannies of such who would trample under foot the defence and boundary law of subjects, making a
Eish at Magna Charta and the Petition of Right ; )r (not many years since) Sergeant Maynard and Sergeant Twisden urging the lawfulness and con- sistency thereof (in the case of Mr. Coney) to a great person then sitting at the helm of injustice : ' Magna Carta,' saith he, ' Magna Farta ; Petition of Right, Petition of S e. There's more ado to conquer two or three old musty laws than there is in the subduing of three nations.' "
It occurs again in a pamphlet published in the same month by a member of the same party, entitled "A True Relation of the State of the Case between the ever honorable Parliament, and the Officers of the Army. By a Lover of his Country and Freedom, E. D." "We remember a speech of that tyrant's," says E. D., giving the words as given by the newspaper, but concluding, " I have more ado to conquer two or three musty old laws, than I have to conquer three nations " (p. 13).
From these pieces of evidence it is pretty clear that the story was invented several years after the event by Cromwell's political opponents. There is, however, authentic evidence that the chief phrase attributed to Cromwell was actually used by an eminent lawyer some years after the Restoration. On 11 December, 1667, in the House of Commons, Sir Thomas Gower reported various articles of accusation against Judge Keeling, the man who is said to have drawn up the Act of Uniformity. Keeling was charged with acting in an arbitrary and illegal way to-
wards jurors and others, and also with vili-
fying Magna Charta. "One before him
speaking of Magna Charta, he said, ' Magna
Farta, what ado with this have we 1 ' On
13 December Keeling was summoned before
the House to answer for his conduct, and on
this particular point he practically admitted
the charge. " He said he did not remember
the words about Magna Charta, but if any
such thing did fall from him, he spoke it to
the impertinency of those men that urged it,
but no way in scorn of it. If he did say it,
he owns he said what he should not " (Grey's
' Debates,' i. 63, 67).
Clarendon's anecdote was probably derived from the newspapers and pamphlets of 1659, but it is possible that he may nave confused what Cromwell said in 1655 with Keeling's words twelve years or so later.
C. H. FIRTH.
33, Norham Road, Oxford.
THOMAS SAMUEL MULOCK, 1789-1869.
PERHAPS some information about this able if eccentric man may be worth recording. He came into contact with several eminent men of his day, and his daughter Dinah Maria Mulock became well known as the author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' There was perhaps nothing in his life or his work to give him a place in biographical dictionaries, but yet some record of it may be of general interest.
He came of an Irish family whose pedigree will be found in Burke's ' Landed Gentry ' Mulock of Kilnagarna, co. Westmeath. He was the elder son of Robert Mulock, of Bath, who married Maria Horner, and grandson of Thomas Mulock, of Kilnagarna.
Some account of him is given in a paper on ' Liverpool Churches and Chapels ' read before the Historical Society of Lancashire and Cheshire in 1852 by the Rev. David Thorn, D.D., Ph.D., a well-known Baptist minister in Liverpool. Dr. Thorn states that Mr. Mulock was born in Dublin, which is true, and that he was educated at the uni- versities of Dublin and Oxford, and was first intended for the Bar. The librarian of Trin. Coll., Dublin, kindly made a search for me, showing that he never entered that university. About 1812 he started in business in Liver- pool as partner in the newly established firm of Mulock & Blood.
Dr. Thorn describes Mulock as "perhaps the ablest man, as well as most original
E3nius, who has temporarily resided in iverpool, and enriched its religious litera- ture by his writings," and further refers to
