ment in his younger years;[1] is found with his elder or other Brothers on various Public Commissions for Draining the Fens of that region, or more properly for inquiring into the possibility of such an operation; a thing much noised of then; which Robert Cromwell, among others, reported to be very feasible, very promising, but did not live to see accomplished, or even attempted. His social rank is sufficiently indicated;—and much flunkyism, falsity and other carrion ought to be buried! Better than all social rank, he is understood to have been a wise, devout, stedfast and worthy man, and to have lived a modest and manful life in his station there.
Besides the Knight of Hinchinbrook, he had other Brothers settled prosperously in the Fen regions, where this Cromwell Family had extensive possessions. One Brother Henry was ‘seated at Upwood,’ a fenny district near Ramsey Mere; one of his daughters came to be the wife, second wife, of Oliver St. John, the Ship-money Lawyer, the political ‘dark-lantern,’ as men used to name him; of whom we shall hear farther. Another Brother ‘was seated’ at Biggin House between Ramsey and Upwood; a moated mansion, with ditch and painted paling round it. A third Brother was seated at—my informant knows not where! In fact I had better, as before, subjoin the little smelted Note which has already done its duty, and let the reader make of that what he can.[2] Of
- ↑ ‘35to Eliz. :’ Feb.—April 1593 (Noble, i. 83; from Willis).
- ↑
Oliver’s Uncles.
- Sir Oliver of Hinchinbrook; his eldest son John, born in 1589 (ten years older than our Oliver), went into the army, ‘Colonel of an English regiment in the Dutch service’: this is the Colonel Cromwell who is said, or fabled, to have sought a midnight interview with Oliver, in the end of 1648, for the purpose of buying-off Charles i.; to have ‘laid his hand on his sword,’ etc. etc. The story is in Noble, i. 51; with no authority but that of Carrion Heath. Other sons of his were soldiers, Royalists these: there are various Cousin Cromwells that confusedly turn-up on both sides of the quarrel.—Robert Cromwell, our Oliver’s Father, was the next Brother of the Hinchinbrook Knight. The third Brother, second uncle, was
- Henry Cromwell, of Upwood near Ramsey Mere; adventurer in the Virginia Company: sat in Parliament 1603-1611; one of his daughters Mrs. St. John. Died 1630 (Noble, i. 28).
- Richard: ‘buys in 1607’ a bit of ground in Huntingdon; died ‘at Ramsey,’
