24th June 1617. For Oliver, the chief mourner, one of the most pregnant epochs. The same year, died his old Grandfather Steward, at Ely. Mrs. Robert Cromwell saw herself at once fatherless and a second time widowed in this year of bereavement. Left with six daughters and an only son, of whom three were come to years.
Oliver was now, therefore, a young heir; his age eighteen last April. How many of his Sisters, or whether any of them, were yet settled, we do not learn from Noble’s confused searching of records or otherwise. Of this Huntingdon household, and its new head, we learn next to nothing by direct evidence; but can decisively enough, by inference, discern several things. ‘Oliver returned no more to Cambridge.’ It was now fit that he should take his Father’s place here at Huntingdon, that he should, by the swiftest method, qualify himself in some degree for that.
The universal very credible tradition is, that he, ‘soon after,’ proceeded to London, to gain some knowledge of Law. ‘Soon after’ will mean certain months, we know not how many, after July 1617. Noble says, he was entered ‘of Lincoln’s Inn.’ The Books of Lincoln’s Inn, of Gray’s Inn, of all the Inns of Court have been searched; and there is no Oliver Cromwell found in them. The Books of Gray’s Inn contain these Cromwell Names, which are perhaps worth transcribing:
Thomas Cromwell, 1524; Francis Cromwell, 1561;
Gilbert Cromwell, 1609; Henry Cromwell, 1620;
Henry Cromwell, 22d February 1653.
The first of which seems to me probably or possibly to mean Thomas Cromwell Malleus Monachorum, at that time returned from his Italian adventures, and in the service of Cardinal Wolsey;—taking the opportunity of hearing the ‘readers,’ old Benchers who then actually read, and of learning Law. The Henry Cromwell of February 1653-4 is expressly entered as ‘Second sonne to his Highness Oliver, Lord Protector’:
