By Act of Parliament 18 Car. II. cap. I (1666), servants were to pay one shilling in the pound of their wages, and others from one shilling to three shillings in the pound.
"This afternoon there was a couple of men with me with a book in each of their hands, demanding money for pollmoney, and I overlooked the book and saw myself set down Samuel Pepys, gent. 10s. for himself and for his servants 2s., which I did presently pay without any dispute, but I fear I have not escaped so, and therefore I have long ago laid by 10/. for them, but I think I am not bound to discover myself."
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So neither Elizabeth Pepys or Mary Evelyn counted as a head in the poll tax, but the teenage servants did count, at a greatly reduced rate (to Pepys' evident relief). This confirms my theory that it was the household that was taxed, even when it was called a Poll Tax, because living in past centuries was a communal activity. I think the 17th century method was better than how we do it today. So put on the music, open the front door, and drink wine and philosophise until midnight with friends and neighbors. Live like Pepys -- but this time around, Mary and Elizabeth must be counted as people, even if that costs another 2s!
In 1662 Henley wrote to his Dorset agent: ‘You know how I am pressed for money. ... I have no other intrada but my rents to support myself.’ Presumably he was extravagant, but it is not known what he spent his money on, except in paying a French chef, against which the rector of Eversley directed a sermon on the sin of gluttony.
Henley was already involved in a dispute with the rector over tithes, and he also (more excusably) came into open conflict with Lord St. John (Charles Powlett MP) at a time and place that might have had serious consequences. According to Samuel Pepys:
Lord St. John was quickly pardoned, and was soon in a position to retaliate by dropping Henley from the lieutenancy. But Henley had to petition Charles II after a prosecution had been started against him in King’s bench, and was not pardoned until 1668. In the following year he added to his debts by the purchase of Eversley manor.
Andrew Henley MP married (2) on 20 May 1672, Constance, da. of Thomas Bromfield, merchant and Haberdasher, of Coleman Street, London, widow of Thomas Middleton of Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex.
Andrew Henley’s father, Robert Henley of Henley, Som., 1629-42 was first cousin of the half-blood of Henry Henley; but by successive occupation of 2 lucrative offices, as a Six Clerk in Chancery, and then as chief clerk of the King’s Bench (worth £22,500), he outstripped the senior line in wealth and status, acquiring property in Somerset, Dorset and Hampshire, besides an ‘adventure’ of 5,500 acres in the fens.
When Andrew Henley (1622- 2675) was sequestrated, he claimed to have gone into the King’s quarters under constraint, and exhibited debts of £11,585, while his brother-in-law John Maynard MP produced counter-bonds from various creditors in the period 1629 to 1642 totalling £27,545.
Nevertheless, Andrew paid the heavy fine of £9,000 within a month. Henley was said to have given £2,500 to needy Cavaliers. He bought some bishops’ lands in Dorset and the manor of Great Bramshill in 1649, but he was probably never entirely debt free.
Henley married (1) after 1648, Mary (d. 30 July, 1666), daughter of Sir John Gayer, merchant and Fishmonger, of London, lord. mayor 1646-7, and they had 2 sons and 2 daughters,
Although ineligible as the son of a Cavalier, Andrew Henley was ‘incessantly importuned’ to stand for Hampshire at the general election of 1660, and sent a message to Richard Norton MP to the effect that he would not oppose him. An electoral bargain was struck: "Whereas we began to hold it doubtful whether I should carry it for knight of the shire or not, so it was agreed that Col. Norton should decline his being burgess for Portsmouth and get me chosen there, and then I to decline being knight, so I am promised Col. Norton’s interest (who is governor) and not doubt but I shall [be] burgess of Portsmouth. But if I had been free and declared my mind sooner, I had undoubtedly been knight of the shire." Henley was duly returned at a by-election for Portsmouth when Norton chose to sit for the county. He seems to have been an inactive Member of the Convention, although his baronetcy and knighthood suggest he was expected to support the Court as a silent voter in divisions. (Andrew Henley MP was created 1st Bart. on 20 June, 1660 and knighted on 21 July, 1660.)
Although both Norton and John Bulkeley had promised to join with Henley at the next county election, in the changed circumstances of 1661 they were obliged to step down to borough seats, and he is not known to have stood again. Henley was asked by the lord lieutenant to stay in the country while most of the deputy lieutenants attended Parliament ‘in case any commotions should arise by any restless spirits endeavouring to beget new broils’.
Like alcohol, tobacco developed its own literary presence. There were numerous celebrity smokers, including the philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the scientist Isaac Newton, while literary figures argued that smoking helped creativity and study.
During the herald’s visitation of London in 1687, some men brought silver tobacco boxes as evidence of their family’s standing: ‘Mr. Martin Morland, nephew to Sir Samuel, exhibited the arms here described, graved on a silver tobacco box, which arms were given to his father as his coat by Sir Samuel Morland his brother.’
As well as personal coats of arms (valid or not), boxes were ideal for the display of royal arms or portraits that conveyed publicly a smoker’s allegiances. To facilitate ‘loyal’ smoking, the print maker Peter Stent sold small prints of royalty and other nobility ‘for to adorn tobacco boxes, much in use’. An example of just such a box, in celebration of Charles II’s coronation in 1661, shows signs of having been well used by its owner. [A picture of this promotional item with Charles II's picture on it is shown]
Personal tobacco boxes soon became indispensable to the British smoker. They are noted in printed literature from as early as 1607, in documentary sources from the 1620s and, later, in wills and inventories. By 1649 their ubiquity had increased to such an extent that Charles Hoole thought it necessary to adapt his best-selling “Easie entrance to the Latin tongue” by offering Latin translations for ‘tobacco pipe’, ‘stopper’ and ‘box’. By 1700 a personalized box for snuff or tobacco had become a vital accessory for any man, whether a laborer or a lord.
Smoking and snuffing involved an elaborate, ritual choreography of objects, gestures and discourses that evoked a gamut of emotions ranging from frustration to satisfaction. When performed in company, as they often were, these rituals involved etiquettes of sharing and borrowing. One comedy drama laid out the precise actions of the smoking ritual, as if they were a military operation. It was to be exercised ‘till you stink, defile the room, offend your friends, destroy your liver and Lungs, and bid adieu to the world with a scowling flux’.
In 1623 Endymion Porter was in Spain with Prince Charles’ marriage embassy with George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. He wrote to his wife that he ‘sent my Ladie Villiers a tobackco box, I hope shee will esteeme it as a token of my love’. ... we cannot be certain these women used the boxes themselves – the former may have been a curiosity for a collection, ... – but both were clearly used as receptacles for affection. Although elite women are often described as having their own snuff-boxes, no tobacco box has come to light that specifically names an English woman as owner. However, the use of heart decorations and affectionate inscriptions on tobacco boxes in which initials, rather than names, appear suggests that they were popular gifts for young ladies to give to young men and, perhaps, the other way round. The increasing demand for such gifts led to the development of ‘populuxe’ items, made in a variety of materials, bought off the shelf complete with appropriate messages, then personalized with initials and inscriptions. One range, thought to come from a workshop operating between 1670 and 1710, was made of cedar and horn. Each one was inlaid with interchangeable, inscribed kidney-shaped bone sections, which could be used to create ‘posies’, or rhymes. Other models were made from brass or horn and bone.
Angela McShane, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the Victoria & Albert Museum, has written about the use of snuff and tobacco at https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
A few highlights:
British men and women of all classes consumed tobacco in increasing quantities from the late 16th century onwards. Imported from the ‘New World’, by the middle of the 17th century the tobacco plant was being grown commercially in Europe, as well as in slave-worked plantations in the Americas. The addictive product was profitable, its trade was monopolistic and rife with crime and controversy. Debates raged in the press over its effects, while government dependence on the profits it generated had political implications. Attempts to undercut the American trade by establishing plantations in England led to riots and armed suppression, while the taxing of tobacco without parliamentary approval was one of the many crimes visited on King Charles’ unfortunate head.
In his “Counterblaste to Tobacco”, published in 1604, King James complained that elite men found life as a non-smoker socially difficult: “Divers men very sound both in judgement, and complexion, have bene at last forced to take it [tobacco] also without desire, partly because they were ashamed to seeme singular.” By writing his pamphlet, King James sought to discourage smoking, warning, among other things, that it caused cancer. A decade later, the chronicler Edmund Howes wrote: ‘At this day, [tobacco is] commonly used by most men and many women.’ King James did not give up on his campaign. In 1619 a proclamation attempted to ban smoking from alehouses, while in the 1620s high taxes were imposed to make the commodity prohibitively expensive. Yet by the 1630s tobacco was too valuable for the government to constrain. Key figures in Parliament developed interests in overseas plantations, while the customs and excise duties it brought in were substantial. Smoking became de rigeur at every level of society, in inns, alehouses and shops, in private and in the streets (from which, in the 1670s, the Norwich authorities unsuccessfully sought to ban it).
The essentials of smoking – a clay pipe, a light and tobacco – could be obtained in an alehouse, tavern or coffee house. But tobacco ranged hugely in quality – a constant subject for debate in company – and nothing could compare to the comfort of having an ounce or two of one’s own favorite blend to hand.
Phil tells us the sun rose at 3:40 a.m. today, so what was "very betimes" to Pepys?
This youtube tells us that farming folk were at work by 4 a.m. at this time of year: "Four of the Clocke" -- Peter Kenny reads this description of daily life in early modern Britain. From Nicholas Breton's "Fantasticks", 1626.
"It is now the fourth houre, and the Sunne beginnes to send her beames abroad, whose glimmering brightnesse no eye can behold: Now crowes the Cocke lustily, and claps his wings for ioy of the light, and with his Hennes leaps lightly from his Roust: Now are the Horses at their Chaffe and Prouender: the seruants at breakfast, the Milk-maid gone to the field, and the Spinner at the Wheele: and the Shepheard with his Dog are going toward the Fold: Now the Beggers rouse them out of the Hedges, and begin their morning craft; but if the Constable come, beware the stocks: The Birds now beginne to flocke, and the Sparhawke beginnes to prey for his Ayry: The Thresher beginnes to stretch his long armes, and the thriuing Labourer will fall hard to his worke: the quicke witted braine will be quoting of places, and the cunning work-man will bee trying of his skill: the Hounds begin to bee coupled for the chase, and the Spaniels follow the Faulconer to the field: Trauellers beginne to looke toward the Stable, where an honest Hostler is worthy his reward: the Souldier now is vpon discharge of his Watch, and the Captaine with his company may take as good rest as they can: In summe, I thus conclude of it: I hold it the Messenger of Action, and the Watch of Reason. Farewell."
Image: Detail of a one-hand watch made by Randolf Bull, 1590.
"The regicides who sat on the life of our late King, were brought to trial in the Old Bailey, before a commission of oyer and terminer."
The Cromwell Association has an informative article about "The lies of the Regicides? Charles I’s judges at the Restoration" by Dr. Jason Peacey. https://www.olivercromwell.org/wo…
With the recent loss of the BCW Project website, my belief that we should include the pertinent points as well as the link, just in case the website disappears, has increased. But in this case I think the Cromwell Association is suffriciently well funded that it should be stable for as long as our site stays up. Enjoy, if that's an appropriate wish in this case.
I can just imagine Pepys bursting through his front door this evening: "Elizabeth, you'll never guess who I met today."
"Yes dear. I had the leather wall hangers back today, and I don't think I like what they did yet. Come and tell me what you think. -- Did you remember the oysters?"
Can you imagine walking with Penn singing bawdy songs on your way to work, and finding a hero sitting in your seat at a table piled high with silver and gold coins and reams of paper with the list of sailors and what they were entitled to, surrounded by soldiers keeping it all safe, and dozens of impatient sailors waiting to go home -- and the famous William Prynne MP was doing your work, so you pull up a chair next to him, and get to work
To Pepys, who presuably grew up reading Prynne's pamphlets and hearing about his speeches and torture, that would be like finding -- who? say, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela -- doing your job. What a fix!
But to his great disappointment, Mr. Prynne doesn't take the opportunity to put on a show. "I found Mr. Prin a good, honest, plain man, but in his discourse not very free or pleasant."
Sorry, Pepys. You did and didn't win the lottery today. What an honor to break bread with Prynne, though Did you check out his ear holes?
I think Jack Cole was a better friend to Pepys than Pepys was to Jack. Consistently Jack stopped by or sought him out to bring Pepys up-to-date. Pepys calculates whether or not to continue their friendship, but makes no effort to do so. Here are a few things Pepys says about Jack:
1661 "So home, where I met Jack Cole, who staid with me a good while, and is still of the old good humour that we were of at school together, and I am very glad to see him." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
"... met with Jack Cole in Fleet Street, and he and I went into his cozen Mary Cole’s (...), and drank a pint of wine and much good discourse. I found him a little conceited, but he had good things in him, and a man may know the temper of the City by him, he being of a general conversation, and can tell how matters go; and upon that score I will encourage his acquaintance." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1663 "... after dinner John Cole, my old friend, came to see and speak with me about a friend. I find him ingenious, but more and more discern his city pedantry; but however, I will endeavour to have his company now and then, for that he knows much of the temper of the City, and is able to acquaint therein as much as most young men, being of large acquaintance, and himself, I think, somewhat unsatisfied with the present state of things at Court and in the Church." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1664 "Mr. Cole (my old Jack Cole) comes to see and speak with me, and his errand in short to tell me that he is giving over his trade; he can do no good in it, and will turn what he has into money and go to sea, his father being dead and leaving him little, if any thing. This I was sorry to hear, he being a man of good parts, but, I fear, debauched. "I promised him all the friendship I can do him, which will end in little, though I truly mean it, and so I made him stay with me till 11 at night, talking of old school stories, and very pleasing ones, and truly I find that we did spend our time and thoughts then otherwise than I think boys do now, and I think as well as methinks that the best are now. He supped with me, and so away, and I to bed. "And strange to see how we are all divided that were bred so long at school together, and what various fortunes we have run, some good, some bad." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1665 "Here I met with one that tells me that Jack Cole, my old schoolefellow, is dead and buried lately of a consumption, who was a great crony of mine." https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Thank you, Jack, for trying to be a friend to Pepys. He needed you more than he probably let you know.
Most historical judgements of Richard Cromwell focus not upon his character or religious faith, but upon his abilities and performance as lord protector in 1658–9.
Despite limited preparation and previous experience upon which he could draw, in many respects Richard Cromwell was a successful head of state. He was conscientious and dedicated, carried himself with calm dignity, and made good and effective speeches, both formal and informal.
Many contemporaries noted Richard Cromwell’s engaging manner, his strong interpersonal skills, his ability to charm. He was modest and unassuming: time and again he sought to disarm critics by adopting a self-deprecating line, stressing his youth and inexperience and calling on his audience to come to his aid and to work with him.
For a time, Richard Cromwell held his own in his struggle with the army. But, however pleasant the speeches, however charming the personality, his protectorate was in severe difficulties from the outset, overshadowed by problems which were largely not of his making and which he could do little to resolve. He had no real military background and no standing in the army, he was obviously more civilian than soldier, and he could do little to meet the military arrears or to sort out the state finances, all soon became apparent to everyone, inside and outside the army.
Faced with growing military insubordination, in 1659 Richard Cromwell went too far in supporting the civilian parliament against the army and in trying to confront the military; he lacked the power and resources to survive the military backlash. It is hard to see how successfully he could have contained in the longer term the centrifugal forces of the protectorate and maintained the regime and constitution that he had inherited from his father.
Lucy Hutchinson's assessment of Richard Cromwell and his rule is, in places, sharp and unfair, but it is hard to disagree with her conclusions: Richard ‘was so flexible to good counsels, that there was nothing desirable in a prince which might not have been hoped in him, but a great spirit and a just title’ and he ‘was pleasant in his nature, yet gentle and virtuous, but became not greatness’.
The ODNB has a rounded view of Richard Cromwell's character:
Richard Cromwell left no journal, memoir, commonplace book, or biographical writings, and apart from the official, formal correspondence which he signed or which was addressed to him as protector, there survives only a few personal and revealing letters written by or to him. Therefor, biographers struggle to paint a rounded and even portrait of Richard, to give an account of his 86 years in which he remains centerstage throughout.
Overall, Richard Cromwell comes across as decent and honest, a pleasant and reasonably intelligent man, well suited to the life of a good husband, father, and country gentleman into which he was settling in the early and mid-1650s. Developments beyond his control, and for which there is no evidence Richard Cromwell sought, brought that country life to an end and cast him in a new role to which he was ill suited, and which overshadowed and permanently changed the remainder of his long and rather sad life.
It is noticeable friends and opponents alike found little to fault in Richard Cromwell’s personality and character; most found him to be worthy, dignified, and personally engaging. During and after his protectorate, Richard was often attacked in printed works, most mocked or lampooned rather than accusationed of dishonesty or corruption, personal ambition, cruelty, or vindictiveness. Most portrayed him as too gentle and too naïve for his own good, a ‘meek knight’, or ‘Queen Dick’.
Margery Good Cow of May 1659 argued Richard should receive a generous financial settlement from the returning Rump ‘as a reward of his own Virtues, his modesty, true serenity, gentle and manly deportment’, while “Fourty Four Queries to the Life of Queen Dick of June or July 1659” asked ‘Whether Richard Cromwell was Oliver's son or no?’, so great were the differences between them.
Richard Cromwell bore his sufferings with equanimity and, excepting a brief show of bitterness and impotent rage in April and May 1659, calmly accepted and made the best of his lot.
Despite early rumors of a weak religious faith, he was clearly supported and strengthened by a genuine and deep belief in an active and providential God who had some divine purpose in all the twists and turns of his life. In his intensely personal letters to his eldest daughter during his later life, as well as in some of his more public pronouncements during his protectorate, he repeatedly looked to God's will and sought divine guidance, while encouraging others to do the same. Reverses he often interpreted as the Lord's just retribution for his own sins and shortcomings.
There is no clear evidence about where and how Richard Cromwell worshipped during the closing decades of his life, no evidence that he did not conform to the Church of England before or after the Toleration Act.
On 1 July, 1712, Richard Cromwell made his will, a brief and simple document in which he recommended his ‘soul to my gracious God trusting I shall be saved by the alone merits of my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ’ and then, having made small bequests to various friends, servants, and suppliers (including a London tobacconist) and a larger bequest to his late brother Henry's only surviving son, left the bulk of his estate to ‘my beloved sister Mary, Countess of Falconberg’, who was also appointed sole executrix.
On 2 July, 1712, Richard Cromwell worsened: ‘his distempers seem to have got fast hold of him & don't go of as they use to do & he declines. I think sometimes he may Rub on a whill longer & some times I think he will be gone quickly’.
Richard Cromwell died on 12 July, 1712. According to some reports he was visited by his daughters during his last days and exhorted them to ‘Live in Love. I am going to the God of love’.
Richard Cromwell was buried on 18 July, 1712, in the chancel of Hursley church, beside his wife, Dorothy.
During his time in England, as in his earlier years on the continent, Richard Cromwell employed a variety of pseudonyms, signing his letters to his daughter Elizabeth variously Clarke, Canterbury, Crandberry, Cranmore, Cranbourne, or Cary.
Soon after his return in 1683 Richard fell under suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, and an order was issued that he be secured and questioned, but he could not be found.
In 1690 Cromwell became alarmed when son Oliver sought to pursue his disputed election as MP for Lymington, fearing that, however justified his case may be, it would be unwise to draw attention to the family. Richard also became increasingly concerned about his son's running of the Hursley estate, his financial affairs, his personal life, his marriage prospects, and the company he kept, as well as (in the early 1700s) his growing estrangement from his sisters.
Oliver Cromwell died unmarried and childless in May 1705, leaving large debts — Richard's allowance had fallen into arrears — as well as a complex dispute over whether his elderly father or his eldest sister should succeed him in control of the estate. There followed a bitter legal dispute between Richard and his daughter Elizabeth, egged on by members of the family and other associates, for the administration of Hursley, which both angered and hurt Richard. By 1706 Richard Cromwell felt compelled to proceed at law using his own name. In December 1706 the court found in his favor and he regained control of Hursley, although he continued to live with Mrs. Pengelly in Cheshunt.
Richard Cromwell and his daughter had stayed on good terms throughout the dispute, and during his last years he resumed his warm correspondence with Elizabeth and Anne, now his only surviving children.
Financially more secure, Richard Cromwell enjoyed a few more years at Cheshunt before his health broke down. In May 1712 Mrs. Pengelly noted that he was ‘not very well — he decays, the hot weather makes him out of order’. By early June 1712, he ‘hath no mind to stire neither indeed is he fit to stire without these walls at present’.
In 1666 Richard Cromwell successfully persuaded the government not to recall him to England. On his behalf it was claimed in March that he was living quietly, peacefully, and modestly in Paris, changing his name and his abode from time to time ‘that he may keep himself unknown beyond the seas’, having no contact with ‘Fanatics nor with the King of France or States of Holland’, avoiding the company of English, Scots, and Irish, and keeping clear of plots against Charles II. Instead, Richard, who was reported as spending his time reading, drawing landscapes, and being ‘instructed in the sciences’, often prayed for Charles II and expressed his loyalty. His financial position remained precarious — he was ‘not sixpence the better or richer for being the son of his father’— and ‘his debts would ruin him in case he should be necessitated to return into England’.
Richard Cromwell did not return in the mid-1670s when he heard that his wife was seriously ill, although in the first of a series of surviving letters to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, he did express great concern for Dorothy Maijor Cromwell's health, recommending various remedies and the love of God and expressing great frustration that he could not do more to help. He asked Elizabeth to ‘Pray imbrace thy mother for me, I do love her, she is dear to me. Desire her to keep up her spirits, beg her to be cheerfull’ (Ramsey, 133).
Dorothy Maijor Cromwell died in January 1676, nearly 16 years after she had last seen her husband, and control of the Hursley estate passed to Richard's eldest surviving son, Oliver.
In 1680 or 1681 Cromwell quietly returned to England. After some delay and apparent reluctance, from the late 1680s onwards he began visiting the family estate and some of his children at Hursley from time to time. However, he never took up residence there and spent the last 30 years of his life as a lodger in other households.
By 1683, Richard Cromwell had become a paying boarder with the merchant Thomas Pengelly and his wife, Rachel, at Finchley, Middlesex, an arrangement that continued for the rest of his life.
Cromwell lodged with Rachel Pengelly after her husband's death in January, 1696 and moved with her to the house of one of her relatives in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, in 1700.
During the 1680s and 1690s Richard Cromwell's income of £120 per annum, drawn from the Hursley estate, covered his rent and items like clothes and a wig, wine, sherry, and brandy, tea and coffee, pipes and tobacco, spectacles, and a horse and dogs.
In later years, still a boarder, Richard maintained his own manservant. He also took a fatherly interest in the Pengellys' son Thomas, and supported his education and budding legal career.
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has a lengthy bio of Richard Cromwell. Here's an edited version of what it says about Richard's life from his fall from power:
Richard Cromwell's protectorate formally came to an end on 25 May, 1659; in practice, it had effectively ended several weeks before.
Richard stayed at Whitehall Palace for several weeks, and even visited Hampton Court and hunted deer. In July, 1659, Richard Cromwell was forced by the Rump to vacate his former protectoral properties and retire to Hursley.
During the political turmoil of the autumn and winter of 1659–60 there were rumors Richard was to be recalled and the protectorate re-established — at one point he may have been recalled to Hampton Court to be close to London if needed — but nothing came of them.
Richard Cromwell’s return to family life at Hursley with his wife, Dirithy Maijor Cromwell, and their remaining children was short-lived as the Rump failed to cover his debts or to provide him with the promised pension, so he was troubled by creditors.
On 18 April, 1660, Richard Cromwell wrote to Gen. Monck, reporting his ‘present exigencies’ forced him ‘to retire into hiding-places to avoid arrests for debts contracted upon the public account’, and asking for Monck and the new parliament's help in this matter.
On 8 May, 1659, Richard Cromwell gave up his last public office, that of chancellor of Oxford University, writing ruefully that ‘since the all-wise providence of God, which I desire always to adore and bow down unto, has been pleased to change my condition, that I am not in a capacity to answer the ends of the office’, he was resigning his chancellorship.
Perhaps as much to elude his creditors as to avoid harassment by the new Stuart regime — Richard had played no part in the civil wars or the regicide — he went into exile soon after the Restoration.
Leaving behind his heavily pregnant wife (his last child was born in August 1660) and his children, in July 1660 Richard took a boat from Sussex to a new life on the continent.
We catch only occasional glimpses of Richard Cromwell while he was living abroad from 1660 until 1680 or 1681. He spent most of those years in France, especially Paris, although he probably passed through Geneva and may have lived for a time in Italy or Spain.
From time to time during the 1660s, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary reports of Cromwell's life abroad, supported by friends and living under a pseudonym but making no real attempt to disguise himself or to deny his true identity if challenged.
James Lamb (1599–1664), was an English orientalist.
Lamb was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford; M.A., 1620; D.D. and prebendary of Westminster, 1660; bequeathed many of his books to the library of Westminster Abbey; manuscripts by him on oriental subjects in the Bodleian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam…
Otherwise, the Google librarian seems not to have heard of him.
At the Restoration of Charles II, John Lightfoot offered to resign the mastership in William Spurstowe's favor, but he declined. He was made chaplain in ordinary to Charles II, and once preached at court. Ezekiel Hopkins, D.D., was his curate in 1660.
In the negotiations for an accommodation of religious parties, Spurstow was consulted as a leading man, and was a commissioner to the Savoy Conference (April–July 1661), but took no prominent part.
At his vicarage-house at Hackney, Richard Baxter spent a week in retirement while preparing the answer to the Episcopal defense of the Book of Common Prayer.
He resigned his living on the coming into force of the Uniformity Act (Aug. 24, 1662), and was succeeded (Sept. 22) by Thomas Jeamson, B.D.
From this time he lived retired at Hackney, being a man of independent fortune. In 1664 he visited Cambridge, and was entertained at dinner in Catharine Hall.
Richard Baxter describes him as “an ancient, calm, reverend minister.” Calamy speaks of his charity and the agreeableness of his conversation.
He died early in 1666, and was buried at Hackney on 8 Feb.
His only child, William, died at Hackney in March 1654, aged 9. His widow, Sarah became the second wife of Anthony Tuckney in 1669.
William Spurstow founded 6 almshouses for 6 poor widows at Hackney, which were finished in 1666, and endowed by his brother and heir, Henry Spurstowe, a London merchant. See: https://www.apuritansmind.com/pur…
Comments
Third Reading
About Poll Tax Bill 1666-7
San Diego Sarah • Link
By Act of Parliament 18 Car. II. cap. I (1666), servants were to pay one shilling in the pound of their wages, and others from one shilling to three shillings in the pound.
About Poll Tax Act 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Pepys Diary -- Monday 10 December 1660
"This afternoon there was a couple of men with me with a book in each of their hands, demanding money for pollmoney, and I overlooked the book and saw myself set down Samuel Pepys, gent. 10s. for himself and for his servants 2s., which I did presently pay without any dispute, but I fear I have not escaped so, and therefore I have long ago laid by 10/. for them, but I think I am not bound to discover myself."
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So neither Elizabeth Pepys or Mary Evelyn counted as a head in the poll tax, but the teenage servants did count, at a greatly reduced rate (to Pepys' evident relief).
This confirms my theory that it was the household that was taxed, even when it was called a Poll Tax, because living in past centuries was a communal activity.
I think the 17th century method was better than how we do it today. So put on the music, open the front door, and drink wine and philosophise until midnight with friends and neighbors. Live like Pepys -- but this time around, Mary and Elizabeth must be counted as people, even if that costs another 2s!
About Sir Andrew Henley
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
In 1662 Henley wrote to his Dorset agent: ‘You know how I am pressed for money. ... I have no other intrada but my rents to support myself.’ Presumably he was extravagant, but it is not known what he spent his money on, except in paying a French chef, against which the rector of Eversley directed a sermon on the sin of gluttony.
Henley was already involved in a dispute with the rector over tithes, and he also (more excusably) came into open conflict with Lord St. John (Charles Powlett MP) at a time and place that might have had serious consequences. According to Samuel Pepys:
SEE https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Lord St. John was quickly pardoned, and was soon in a position to retaliate by dropping Henley from the lieutenancy. But Henley had to petition Charles II after a prosecution had been started against him in King’s bench, and was not pardoned until 1668.
In the following year he added to his debts by the purchase of Eversley manor.
Andrew Henley MP married (2) on 20 May 1672, Constance, da. of Thomas Bromfield, merchant and Haberdasher, of Coleman Street, London, widow of Thomas Middleton of Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex.
Andrew Henley MP died on 17 May 1675, and was buried at Eversley.
https://www.historyofparliamenton…
About Sir Andrew Henley
San Diego Sarah • Link
Andrew Henley’s father, Robert Henley of Henley, Som., 1629-42 was first cousin of the half-blood of Henry Henley; but by successive occupation of 2 lucrative offices, as a Six Clerk in Chancery, and then as chief clerk of the King’s Bench (worth £22,500), he outstripped the senior line in wealth and status, acquiring property in Somerset, Dorset and Hampshire, besides an ‘adventure’ of 5,500 acres in the fens.
When Andrew Henley (1622- 2675) was sequestrated, he claimed to have gone into the King’s quarters under constraint, and exhibited debts of £11,585, while his brother-in-law John Maynard MP produced counter-bonds from various creditors in the period 1629 to 1642 totalling £27,545.
Nevertheless, Andrew paid the heavy fine of £9,000 within a month.
Henley was said to have given £2,500 to needy Cavaliers.
He bought some bishops’ lands in Dorset and the manor of Great Bramshill in 1649, but he was probably never entirely debt free.
Henley married (1) after 1648, Mary (d. 30 July, 1666), daughter of Sir John Gayer, merchant and Fishmonger, of London, lord. mayor 1646-7, and they had 2 sons and 2 daughters,
Although ineligible as the son of a Cavalier, Andrew Henley was ‘incessantly importuned’ to stand for Hampshire at the general election of 1660, and sent a message to Richard Norton MP to the effect that he would not oppose him. An electoral bargain was struck:
"Whereas we began to hold it doubtful whether I should carry it for knight of the shire or not, so it was agreed that Col. Norton should decline his being burgess for Portsmouth and get me chosen there, and then I to decline being knight, so I am promised Col. Norton’s interest (who is governor) and not doubt but I shall [be] burgess of Portsmouth. But if I had been free and declared my mind sooner, I had undoubtedly been knight of the shire."
Henley was duly returned at a by-election for Portsmouth when Norton chose to sit for the county. He seems to have been an inactive Member of the Convention, although his baronetcy and knighthood suggest he was expected to support the Court as a silent voter in divisions.
(Andrew Henley MP was created 1st Bart. on 20 June, 1660 and knighted on 21 July, 1660.)
Although both Norton and John Bulkeley had promised to join with Henley at the next county election, in the changed circumstances of 1661 they were obliged to step down to borough seats, and he is not known to have stood again.
Henley was asked by the lord lieutenant to stay in the country while most of the deputy lieutenants attended Parliament ‘in case any commotions should arise by any restless spirits endeavouring to beget new broils’.
About Tobacco
San Diego Sarah • Link
part 3
Like alcohol, tobacco developed its own literary presence.
There were numerous celebrity smokers, including the philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the scientist Isaac Newton, while literary figures argued that smoking helped creativity and study.
During the herald’s visitation of London in 1687, some men brought silver tobacco boxes as evidence of their family’s standing: ‘Mr. Martin Morland, nephew to Sir Samuel, exhibited the arms here described, graved on a silver tobacco box, which arms were given to his father as his coat by Sir Samuel Morland his brother.’
As well as personal coats of arms (valid or not), boxes were ideal for the display of royal arms or portraits that conveyed publicly a smoker’s allegiances. To facilitate ‘loyal’ smoking, the print maker Peter Stent sold small prints of royalty and other nobility ‘for to adorn tobacco boxes, much in use’.
An example of just such a box, in celebration of Charles II’s coronation in 1661, shows signs of having been well used by its owner.
[A picture of this promotional item with Charles II's picture on it is shown]
About Tobacco
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Personal tobacco boxes soon became indispensable to the British smoker. They are noted in printed literature from as early as 1607, in documentary sources from the 1620s and, later, in wills and inventories. By 1649 their ubiquity had increased to such an extent that Charles Hoole thought it necessary to adapt his best-selling “Easie entrance to the Latin tongue” by offering Latin translations for ‘tobacco pipe’, ‘stopper’ and ‘box’.
By 1700 a personalized box for snuff or tobacco had become a vital accessory for any man, whether a laborer or a lord.
Smoking and snuffing involved an elaborate, ritual choreography of objects, gestures and discourses that evoked a gamut of emotions ranging from frustration to satisfaction. When performed in company, as they often were, these rituals involved etiquettes of sharing and borrowing. One comedy drama laid out the precise actions of the smoking ritual, as if they were a military operation. It was to be exercised ‘till you stink, defile the room, offend your friends, destroy your liver and Lungs, and bid adieu to the world with a scowling flux’.
In 1623 Endymion Porter was in Spain with Prince Charles’ marriage embassy with George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. He wrote to his wife that he ‘sent my Ladie Villiers a tobackco box, I hope shee will esteeme it as a token of my love’.
... we cannot be certain these women used the boxes themselves – the former may have been a curiosity for a collection, ... – but both were clearly used as receptacles for affection. Although elite women are often described as having their own snuff-boxes, no tobacco box has come to light that specifically names an English woman as owner. However, the use of heart decorations and affectionate inscriptions on tobacco boxes in which initials, rather than names, appear suggests that they were popular gifts for young ladies to give to young men and, perhaps, the other way round.
The increasing demand for such gifts led to the development of ‘populuxe’ items, made in a variety of materials, bought off the shelf complete with appropriate messages, then personalized with initials and inscriptions. One range, thought to come from a workshop operating between 1670 and 1710, was made of cedar and horn. Each one was inlaid with interchangeable, inscribed kidney-shaped bone sections, which could be used to create ‘posies’, or rhymes. Other models were made from brass or horn and bone.
About Tobacco
San Diego Sarah • Link
Angela McShane, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the Victoria & Albert Museum, has written about the use of snuff and tobacco at
https://www.historytoday.com/arch…
A few highlights:
British men and women of all classes consumed tobacco in increasing quantities from the late 16th century onwards. Imported from the ‘New World’, by the middle of the 17th century the tobacco plant was being grown commercially in Europe, as well as in slave-worked plantations in the Americas. The addictive product was profitable, its trade was monopolistic and rife with crime and controversy.
Debates raged in the press over its effects, while government dependence on the profits it generated had political implications. Attempts to undercut the American trade by establishing plantations in England led to riots and armed suppression, while the taxing of tobacco without parliamentary approval was one of the many crimes visited on King Charles’ unfortunate head.
In his “Counterblaste to Tobacco”, published in 1604, King James complained that elite men found life as a non-smoker socially difficult:
“Divers men very sound both in judgement, and complexion, have bene at last forced to take it [tobacco] also without desire, partly because they were ashamed to seeme singular.”
By writing his pamphlet, King James sought to discourage smoking, warning, among other things, that it caused cancer.
A decade later, the chronicler Edmund Howes wrote: ‘At this day, [tobacco is] commonly used by most men and many women.’
King James did not give up on his campaign. In 1619 a proclamation attempted to ban smoking from alehouses, while in the 1620s high taxes were imposed to make the commodity prohibitively expensive.
Yet by the 1630s tobacco was too valuable for the government to constrain. Key figures in Parliament developed interests in overseas plantations, while the customs and excise duties it brought in were substantial. Smoking became de rigeur at every level of society, in inns, alehouses and shops, in private and in the streets (from which, in the 1670s, the Norwich authorities unsuccessfully sought to ban it).
The essentials of smoking – a clay pipe, a light and tobacco – could be obtained in an alehouse, tavern or coffee house. But tobacco ranged hugely in quality – a constant subject for debate in company – and nothing could compare to the comfort of having an ounce or two of one’s own favorite blend to hand.
About Sunday 10 June 1666
San Diego Sarah • Link
Phil tells us the sun rose at 3:40 a.m. today, so what was "very betimes" to Pepys?
This youtube tells us that farming folk were at work by 4 a.m. at this time of year:
"Four of the Clocke" -- Peter Kenny reads this description of daily life in early modern Britain.
From Nicholas Breton's "Fantasticks", 1626.
"It is now the fourth houre, and the Sunne beginnes to send her beames abroad, whose glimmering brightnesse no eye can behold:
Now crowes the Cocke lustily, and claps his wings for ioy of the light, and with his Hennes leaps lightly from his Roust:
Now are the Horses at their Chaffe and Prouender:
the seruants at breakfast, the Milk-maid gone to the field, and the Spinner at the Wheele: and the Shepheard with his Dog are going toward the Fold:
Now the Beggers rouse them out of the Hedges, and begin their morning craft; but if the Constable come, beware the stocks:
The Birds now beginne to flocke, and the Sparhawke beginnes to prey for his Ayry:
The Thresher beginnes to stretch his long armes, and the thriuing Labourer will fall hard to his worke: the quicke witted braine will be quoting of places, and the cunning work-man will bee trying of his skill:
the Hounds begin to bee coupled for the chase, and the Spaniels follow the Faulconer to the field:
Trauellers beginne to looke toward the Stable, where an honest Hostler is worthy his reward:
the Souldier now is vpon discharge of his Watch, and the Captaine with his company may take as good rest as they can:
In summe, I thus conclude of it: I hold it the Messenger of Action, and the Watch of Reason.
Farewell."
Image: Detail of a one-hand watch made by Randolf Bull, 1590.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y…
About Thursday 11 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
"The regicides who sat on the life of our late King, were brought to trial in the Old Bailey, before a commission of oyer and terminer."
The Cromwell Association has an informative article about "The lies of the Regicides? Charles I’s judges at the Restoration" by Dr. Jason Peacey.
https://www.olivercromwell.org/wo…
With the recent loss of the BCW Project website, my belief that we should include the pertinent points as well as the link, just in case the website disappears, has increased. But in this case I think the Cromwell Association is suffriciently well funded that it should be stable for as long as our site stays up. Enjoy, if that's an appropriate wish in this case.
About Tuesday 9 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
I can just imagine Pepys bursting through his front door this evening: "Elizabeth, you'll never guess who I met today."
"Yes dear. I had the leather wall hangers back today, and I don't think I like what they did yet. Come and tell me what you think. -- Did you remember the oysters?"
About Tuesday 9 October 1660
San Diego Sarah • Link
Can you imagine walking with Penn singing bawdy songs on your way to work, and finding a hero sitting in your seat at a table piled high with silver and gold coins and reams of paper with the list of sailors and what they were entitled to, surrounded by soldiers keeping it all safe, and dozens of impatient sailors waiting to go home -- and the famous William Prynne MP was doing your work, so you pull up a chair next to him, and get to work
To Pepys, who presuably grew up reading Prynne's pamphlets and hearing about his speeches and torture, that would be like finding -- who? say, Martin Luther King, or Nelson Mandela -- doing your job. What a fix!
But to his great disappointment, Mr. Prynne doesn't take the opportunity to put on a show. "I found Mr. Prin a good, honest, plain man, but in his discourse not very free or pleasant."
Sorry, Pepys. You did and didn't win the lottery today. What an honor to break bread with Prynne, though Did you check out his ear holes?
About Jack Cole
San Diego Sarah • Link
L&M Companion has no entry for Jack Cole.
I think Jack Cole was a better friend to Pepys than Pepys was to Jack. Consistently Jack stopped by or sought him out to bring Pepys up-to-date. Pepys calculates whether or not to continue their friendship, but makes no effort to do so. Here are a few things Pepys says about Jack:
1661
"So home, where I met Jack Cole, who staid with me a good while, and is still of the old good humour that we were of at school together, and I am very glad to see him."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1662
"Jack Cole, my old friend, found me out at the Wardrobe; ..."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
"... met with Jack Cole in Fleet Street, and he and I went into his cozen Mary Cole’s (...), and drank a pint of wine and much good discourse. I found him a little conceited, but he had good things in him, and a man may know the temper of the City by him, he being of a general conversation, and can tell how matters go; and upon that score I will encourage his acquaintance."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1663
"... after dinner John Cole, my old friend, came to see and speak with me about a friend. I find him ingenious, but more and more discern his city pedantry; but however, I will endeavour to have his company now and then, for that he knows much of the temper of the City, and is able to acquaint therein as much as most young men, being of large acquaintance, and himself, I think, somewhat unsatisfied with the present state of things at Court and in the Church."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1664
"Mr. Cole (my old Jack Cole) comes to see and speak with me, and his errand in short to tell me that he is giving over his trade; he can do no good in it, and will turn what he has into money and go to sea, his father being dead and leaving him little, if any thing. This I was sorry to hear, he being a man of good parts, but, I fear, debauched.
"I promised him all the friendship I can do him, which will end in little, though I truly mean it, and so I made him stay with me till 11 at night, talking of old school stories, and very pleasing ones, and truly I find that we did spend our time and thoughts then otherwise than I think boys do now, and I think as well as methinks that the best are now. He supped with me, and so away, and I to bed.
"And strange to see how we are all divided that were bred so long at school together, and what various fortunes we have run, some good, some bad."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
1665
"Here I met with one that tells me that Jack Cole, my old schoolefellow, is dead and buried lately of a consumption, who was a great crony of mine."
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
Thank you, Jack, for trying to be a friend to Pepys. He needed you more than he probably let you know.
About Richard Cromwell
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
Most historical judgements of Richard Cromwell focus not upon his character or religious faith, but upon his abilities and performance as lord protector in 1658–9.
Despite limited preparation and previous experience upon which he could draw, in many respects Richard Cromwell was a successful head of state. He was conscientious and dedicated, carried himself with calm dignity, and made good and effective speeches, both formal and informal.
Many contemporaries noted Richard Cromwell’s engaging manner, his strong interpersonal skills, his ability to charm. He was modest and unassuming: time and again he sought to disarm critics by adopting a self-deprecating line, stressing his youth and inexperience and calling on his audience to come to his aid and to work with him.
For a time, Richard Cromwell held his own in his struggle with the army. But, however pleasant the speeches, however charming the personality, his protectorate was in severe difficulties from the outset, overshadowed by problems which were largely not of his making and which he could do little to resolve.
He had no real military background and no standing in the army, he was obviously more civilian than soldier, and he could do little to meet the military arrears or to sort out the state finances, all soon became apparent to everyone, inside and outside the army.
Faced with growing military insubordination, in 1659 Richard Cromwell went too far in supporting the civilian parliament against the army and in trying to confront the military; he lacked the power and resources to survive the military backlash.
It is hard to see how successfully he could have contained in the longer term the centrifugal forces of the protectorate and maintained the regime and constitution that he had inherited from his father.
Lucy Hutchinson's assessment of Richard Cromwell and his rule is, in places, sharp and unfair, but it is hard to disagree with her conclusions: Richard ‘was so flexible to good counsels, that there was nothing desirable in a prince which might not have been hoped in him, but a great spirit and a just title’ and he ‘was pleasant in his nature, yet gentle and virtuous, but became not greatness’.
For the entire thing (you may need a subscription), see
https://www.oxforddnb.com/display…
About Richard Cromwell
San Diego Sarah • Link
The ODNB has a rounded view of Richard Cromwell's character:
Richard Cromwell left no journal, memoir, commonplace book, or biographical writings, and apart from the official, formal correspondence which he signed or which was addressed to him as protector, there survives only a few personal and revealing letters written by or to him.
Therefor, biographers struggle to paint a rounded and even portrait of Richard, to give an account of his 86 years in which he remains centerstage throughout.
Overall, Richard Cromwell comes across as decent and honest, a pleasant and reasonably intelligent man, well suited to the life of a good husband, father, and country gentleman into which he was settling in the early and mid-1650s.
Developments beyond his control, and for which there is no evidence Richard Cromwell sought, brought that country life to an end and cast him in a new role to which he was ill suited, and which overshadowed and permanently changed the remainder of his long and rather sad life.
It is noticeable friends and opponents alike found little to fault in Richard Cromwell’s personality and character; most found him to be worthy, dignified, and personally engaging.
During and after his protectorate, Richard was often attacked in printed works, most mocked or lampooned rather than accusationed of dishonesty or corruption, personal ambition, cruelty, or vindictiveness. Most portrayed him as too gentle and too naïve for his own good, a ‘meek knight’, or ‘Queen Dick’.
Margery Good Cow of May 1659 argued Richard should receive a generous financial settlement from the returning Rump ‘as a reward of his own Virtues, his modesty, true serenity, gentle and manly deportment’, while “Fourty Four Queries to the Life of Queen Dick of June or July 1659” asked ‘Whether Richard Cromwell was Oliver's son or no?’, so great were the differences between them.
Richard Cromwell bore his sufferings with equanimity and, excepting a brief show of bitterness and impotent rage in April and May 1659, calmly accepted and made the best of his lot.
Despite early rumors of a weak religious faith, he was clearly supported and strengthened by a genuine and deep belief in an active and providential God who had some divine purpose in all the twists and turns of his life.
In his intensely personal letters to his eldest daughter during his later life, as well as in some of his more public pronouncements during his protectorate, he repeatedly looked to God's will and sought divine guidance, while encouraging others to do the same.
Reverses he often interpreted as the Lord's just retribution for his own sins and shortcomings.
There is no clear evidence about where and how Richard Cromwell worshipped during the closing decades of his life, no evidence that he did not conform to the Church of England before or after the Toleration Act.
About Richard Cromwell
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 4
On 1 July, 1712, Richard Cromwell made his will, a brief and simple document in which he recommended his ‘soul to my gracious God trusting I shall be saved by the alone merits of my blessed Saviour Jesus Christ’ and then, having made small bequests to various friends, servants, and suppliers (including a London tobacconist) and a larger bequest to his late brother Henry's only surviving son, left the bulk of his estate to ‘my beloved sister Mary, Countess of Falconberg’, who was also appointed sole executrix.
On 2 July, 1712, Richard Cromwell worsened: ‘his distempers seem to have got fast hold of him & don't go of as they use to do & he declines. I think sometimes he may Rub on a whill longer & some times I think he will be gone quickly’.
Richard Cromwell died on 12 July, 1712. According to some reports he was visited by his daughters during his last days and exhorted them to ‘Live in Love. I am going to the God of love’.
Richard Cromwell was buried on 18 July, 1712, in the chancel of Hursley church, beside his wife, Dorothy.
For the entire thing (you may need a subscription), see
https://www.oxforddnb.com/display…
About Richard Cromwell
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 3
During his time in England, as in his earlier years on the continent, Richard Cromwell employed a variety of pseudonyms, signing his letters to his daughter Elizabeth variously Clarke, Canterbury, Crandberry, Cranmore, Cranbourne, or Cary.
Soon after his return in 1683 Richard fell under suspicion of involvement in the Rye House Plot, and an order was issued that he be secured and questioned, but he could not be found.
In 1690 Cromwell became alarmed when son Oliver sought to pursue his disputed election as MP for Lymington, fearing that, however justified his case may be, it would be unwise to draw attention to the family.
Richard also became increasingly concerned about his son's running of the Hursley estate, his financial affairs, his personal life, his marriage prospects, and the company he kept, as well as (in the early 1700s) his growing estrangement from his sisters.
Oliver Cromwell died unmarried and childless in May 1705, leaving large debts — Richard's allowance had fallen into arrears — as well as a complex dispute over whether his elderly father or his eldest sister should succeed him in control of the estate.
There followed a bitter legal dispute between Richard and his daughter Elizabeth, egged on by members of the family and other associates, for the administration of Hursley, which both angered and hurt Richard.
By 1706 Richard Cromwell felt compelled to proceed at law using his own name.
In December 1706 the court found in his favor and he regained control of Hursley, although he continued to live with Mrs. Pengelly in Cheshunt.
Richard Cromwell and his daughter had stayed on good terms throughout the dispute, and during his last years he resumed his warm correspondence with Elizabeth and Anne, now his only surviving children.
Financially more secure, Richard Cromwell enjoyed a few more years at Cheshunt before his health broke down.
In May 1712 Mrs. Pengelly noted that he was ‘not very well — he decays, the hot weather makes him out of order’.
By early June 1712, he ‘hath no mind to stire neither indeed is he fit to stire without these walls at present’.
About Richard Cromwell
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
In 1666 Richard Cromwell successfully persuaded the government not to recall him to England. On his behalf it was claimed in March that he was living quietly, peacefully, and modestly in Paris, changing his name and his abode from time to time ‘that he may keep himself unknown beyond the seas’, having no contact with ‘Fanatics nor with the King of France or States of Holland’, avoiding the company of English, Scots, and Irish, and keeping clear of plots against Charles II.
Instead, Richard, who was reported as spending his time reading, drawing landscapes, and being ‘instructed in the sciences’, often prayed for Charles II and expressed his loyalty.
His financial position remained precarious — he was ‘not sixpence the better or richer for being the son of his father’— and ‘his debts would ruin him in case he should be necessitated to return into England’.
Richard Cromwell did not return in the mid-1670s when he heard that his wife was seriously ill, although in the first of a series of surviving letters to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, he did express great concern for Dorothy Maijor Cromwell's health, recommending various remedies and the love of God and expressing great frustration that he could not do more to help.
He asked Elizabeth to ‘Pray imbrace thy mother for me, I do love her, she is dear to me. Desire her to keep up her spirits, beg her to be cheerfull’ (Ramsey, 133).
Dorothy Maijor Cromwell died in January 1676, nearly 16 years after she had last seen her husband, and control of the Hursley estate passed to Richard's eldest surviving son, Oliver.
In 1680 or 1681 Cromwell quietly returned to England. After some delay and apparent reluctance, from the late 1680s onwards he began visiting the family estate and some of his children at Hursley from time to time. However, he never took up residence there and spent the last 30 years of his life as a lodger in other households.
By 1683, Richard Cromwell had become a paying boarder with the merchant Thomas Pengelly and his wife, Rachel, at Finchley, Middlesex, an arrangement that continued for the rest of his life.
Cromwell lodged with Rachel Pengelly after her husband's death in January, 1696 and moved with her to the house of one of her relatives in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, in 1700.
During the 1680s and 1690s Richard Cromwell's income of £120 per annum, drawn from the Hursley estate, covered his rent and items like clothes and a wig, wine, sherry, and brandy, tea and coffee, pipes and tobacco, spectacles, and a horse and dogs.
In later years, still a boarder, Richard maintained his own manservant. He also took a fatherly interest in the Pengellys' son Thomas, and supported his education and budding legal career.
About Richard Cromwell
San Diego Sarah • Link
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has a lengthy bio of Richard Cromwell. Here's an edited version of what it says about Richard's life from his fall from power:
Richard Cromwell's protectorate formally came to an end on 25 May, 1659; in practice, it had effectively ended several weeks before.
Richard stayed at Whitehall Palace for several weeks, and even visited Hampton Court and hunted deer.
In July, 1659, Richard Cromwell was forced by the Rump to vacate his former protectoral properties and retire to Hursley.
During the political turmoil of the autumn and winter of 1659–60 there were rumors Richard was to be recalled and the protectorate re-established — at one point he may have been recalled to Hampton Court to be close to London if needed — but nothing came of them.
Richard Cromwell’s return to family life at Hursley with his wife, Dirithy Maijor Cromwell, and their remaining children was short-lived as the Rump failed to cover his debts or to provide him with the promised pension, so he was troubled by creditors.
On 18 April, 1660, Richard Cromwell wrote to Gen. Monck, reporting his ‘present exigencies’ forced him ‘to retire into hiding-places to avoid arrests for debts contracted upon the public account’, and asking for Monck and the new parliament's help in this matter.
On 8 May, 1659, Richard Cromwell gave up his last public office, that of chancellor of Oxford University, writing ruefully that ‘since the all-wise providence of God, which I desire always to adore and bow down unto, has been pleased to change my condition, that I am not in a capacity to answer the ends of the office’, he was resigning his chancellorship.
Perhaps as much to elude his creditors as to avoid harassment by the new Stuart regime — Richard had played no part in the civil wars or the regicide — he went into exile soon after the Restoration.
Leaving behind his heavily pregnant wife (his last child was born in August 1660) and his children, in July 1660 Richard took a boat from Sussex to a new life on the continent.
We catch only occasional glimpses of Richard Cromwell while he was living abroad from 1660 until 1680 or 1681. He spent most of those years in France, especially Paris, although he probably passed through Geneva and may have lived for a time in Italy or Spain.
From time to time during the 1660s, Samuel Pepys recorded in his diary reports of Cromwell's life abroad, supported by friends and living under a pseudonym but making no real attempt to disguise himself or to deny his true identity if challenged.
About James Lamb
San Diego Sarah • Link
James Lamb (1599–1664), was an English orientalist.
Lamb was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford; M.A., 1620;
D.D. and prebendary of Westminster, 1660;
bequeathed many of his books to the library of Westminster Abbey; manuscripts by him on oriental subjects in the Bodleian.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jam…
Otherwise, the Google librarian seems not to have heard of him.
Anyone know what being an Orientalist meant.
About William Spurstow
San Diego Sarah • Link
PART 2
At the Restoration of Charles II, John Lightfoot offered to resign the mastership in William Spurstowe's favor, but he declined.
He was made chaplain in ordinary to Charles II, and once preached at court.
Ezekiel Hopkins, D.D., was his curate in 1660.
In the negotiations for an accommodation of religious parties, Spurstow was consulted as a leading man, and was a commissioner to the Savoy Conference (April–July 1661), but took no prominent part.
At his vicarage-house at Hackney, Richard Baxter spent a week in retirement while preparing the answer to the Episcopal defense of the Book of Common Prayer.
He resigned his living on the coming into force of the Uniformity Act (Aug. 24, 1662), and was succeeded (Sept. 22) by Thomas Jeamson, B.D.
From this time he lived retired at Hackney, being a man of independent fortune.
In 1664 he visited Cambridge, and was entertained at dinner in Catharine Hall.
Richard Baxter describes him as “an ancient, calm, reverend minister.”
Calamy speaks of his charity and the agreeableness of his conversation.
He died early in 1666, and was buried at Hackney on 8 Feb.
His only child, William, died at Hackney in March 1654, aged 9.
His widow, Sarah became the second wife of Anthony Tuckney in 1669.
William Spurstow founded 6 almshouses for 6 poor widows at Hackney, which were finished in 1666, and endowed by his brother and heir, Henry Spurstowe, a London merchant.
See: https://www.apuritansmind.com/pur…